Your Help to Following the Dream....

Hello friends, family, and internet readers to my movie blog.

So what is this? Why is Gus linking all his social site pages to here? Well the short answer is its a blog to document my lifelong dream to become a motion picture director.

Now here's the long answer:

Since I graduated film-school in 2004 I've been planning and working steadily, if not minutely, to throw my hat into the ring and take up the ambitious endeavor to direct an independent feature film. I started with writing the 1st draft of my feature film directorial debut(four years ago). Then I began researching which affordable HD camera I would use to shoot the movie on. I also began making a mental list of which of my film school friends and St. Mary's former students I would be able to rely on helping me crew for the production shoot.

Well now I'm at the breaking point. What that means is I've finally set a date for when I plan to begin shooting my first ever feature film. Drum roll please........ Day one of my production will be Saturday June 13th 2010!

That gives me less than one year to get the wheels rolling and to make this mega-ambitious dream of mine a reality.

So what's the plan and how can you guys help me follow my dream? Allow me to retort:

Since leaving film-school I've been slowly saving money for what I knew would be my mostly self financed feature film directorial debut. Since I didn't meet Steven Spielberg in graduate school and my parents aren't executives at major studios I knew I'd be doing this on my own.

But then it hit me, I have and know so many friends, family, and people who either would help me if I asked them for a favor, or who genuinely believe in my talent and want to see me succeed, that it'd be dumb of me not to ask for their help.

So in the near future I'll begin doing fundraising events but I haven't worked out all the details so I'll save that for another blog entry. Also, I'm going to be calling on a lot of favors from you guys. Things like asking to borrow something as a prop, or your home as location for a shoot, or maybe even borrowing you to be an extra.

But eventually, I'll be outright asking you to either make a money donation to the cause or to donate your time to the film. Either or both would be the real reason the film succeeds. What I plan to do is keep track of every cent that is donated and should the film get sold for a profit I hope to repay all donations. But I have to be clear about this, there is no promise the film will be sold or that it'll turn a profit. Though I have a few, but limited, leads on potentially selling the film I make no guarantee of a return on your money donation. That's why I'm calling it a donation, because you're essentially giving your money to a cause. 

So if you've ever had a dream, if I've ever done you a favor, or if you simply want to see someone reach their goal against long odds then this is your chance. I'm less than a year away from taking on what will hopefully be the first of many films to come and I'm inviting you to come along for the ride.

So thank you in advance for all of you who I know will be there for me, and thank you for the ones who will surprise me.

Stay tuned to this blog as I plan to document the process, answer questions, share photos, post videos, etc. But most importantly I hope to teach and inspire you all to follow your dream as I set forth to learn how to do it myself.

Forward!

-Gustavo Guardado