A Kickstart to send Spirit Ship Out to Sea

Spirit Ship is on Kickstarter!  We are raising $5,000 in 30 days, to finish and distribute our proof-of-concept short film.  You can pledge as little as $1 (get your name on our website), and as much as $1000 (receive executive producer credit), and all you have to do to get your name in our film credits is pledge $5!  That's how much your support means to us.  Your donations will enable us to:

• Pay our editor to make the final cut of the film.

• Pay our sound designer to do the final mix.

• Pay our cast and crew a small installment of their deferred payments.

• Submit Spirit Ship to film festivals around the world.

• Design and develop a Spirit Ship DVD package (including educational booklet).

• Market Spirit Ship to children’s shops, museums and schools around the world.

To these 42 people and one band who have kindly pledged in the first ten days of the campaign--THANK YOU.  You have really helped get us off the ground, and you've brought our number up to $1515!:

Sean Eno
Sandy Brenneman
Heather Oakley
Liz Eno
Rachel Federman
Mark Cortegiano
Cozbi A. Cabrera
Jay Eno
Jenna Haley
Claire Ruth
Taylor Wickline
Kathy Brenneman
Ellie Balk
Lisa Dove
Elizabeth Schweppe
Kathy Malone
Elisha Georgiou
Emily Branham
Magico Nakamura
Tom Paquin
David Ruth
Jane Van Cleef
Jamie MacDougall
Faith Evans-Sills
Lindsey Goodall
Bridget Roddy
Isabel Cruz
Michael Radvak
Bilyana Tosic Petino
Johanna Resnikoff
Chandra Guglik
Gail Newman
Joey Salim
Karen W Ponder
Walter
William Bantz
Damijan Saccio
Andrea Dobro
Michael Toppa
Erin Martell
Marion Waters
Gray Miller

Renee Cherow-O'Leary

 

So to everyone on this list, and to those who have supported Spirit Ship prior to this (I will do a post about our June fundraiser very soon, and I will thank another list of donors), thank you so much for believing in what we are doing.  It's so affirming to have friends and even people we don't know so well, actually put their money behind the work!  This shows that we must be onto something . . .

If you have not pledged but would like to, you can visit Kickstarter until 3:33pm on January 2.  After that time, if we haven't raised $5,000, we won't get to take away any of these kind pledges!  Shocking, but true.  The crowdsourcing phenomenon is quite interesting.  We're certainly enjoying being a part of it, and truly want to do our best to make it work for Little Creatures, which in turn is working for the little ones around us, who are hungry for alternative media.

Heaven, Maya and Lindsy, the "Earth Children," on their journey.  Heaven carries a set of mysterious keys and a music box, Maya an old violin, and Lindsy a suitcase with more strange treasures the girls found on the shore.

If you have pledged, now is your opportunity to get others involved.  A simple forwarding of the Kickstarter link with a statement of why you feel this work is important could mean another Backer for Spirit Ship!  Here are some who may be interested:

• Parents who:

  - are disenchanted with the media currently available for their children.

  - want to support LESS screen time and MORE open-ended play.

  - make efforts to take their children outside to play in natural settings.

  - avoid buying products with characters from TV/Film.

• Teachers who are interested in listening to children's voices (in style of Vivian Gussin Paley).

• Teachers who do indepth extended multidisciplinary projects with their preK - 4th grade students (in the style of the Project Approach, Reggio Emilia).

• Principals who run progressive preschools and elementary schools.

• College Professors of early childhood education, media/education studies, arts in education.

• Scholars/writers who study children, children's media, play itself, or any combination thereof.

• Experts in early childhood, teachers, parents who are advocating for more play (more meaningful learning) /less testing (less test-centered curriculum) in schools.

• Media producers/filmmakers who make media for and/or about children.

• Theater teachers who incorporate children's stories into their workshops (in style of Child's Play NY)

• Children's museum professionals.

• Shop owners, particularly those who carry products crafted from natural materials.

• Gallery owners and museum curators who feature work that includes children/childhood.

• Press:  Bloggers, magazine and newspaper editors, particularly those who cover family and childhood and/or that feature eco-friendly, natural, earth-conscious living. 

Thank you again for helping us to distribute our first real film and to make more films that validate, inspire and enhance the brilliant imaginative play children are doing around the world, every day.