Skip to content

zwolanerd

I guess I just like liking things

Yesterday Zach Braff made a lot of people spittle-spewing angry. His crime? He had the nerve to announce a Kickstarter to fund a movie he wants to make. I mean, can you believe the nerve of that guy, wanting to see if people wanted the opportunity to help him make a movie?! I mean, really. He ought to be tarred, feathered, drawn, quartered, and ridden out of town on a rail. The unmitigated gall it would take to even think a person would try something like this. I can’t even imagine how he can sleep at night.

…really?  I don’t get this even a little bit. I guess the main source of the griping is based on the thinking “He’s got all kinds of money because of Scrubs and Garden State and whatever else, why doesn’t he just use that money and make his own furshlugginer movie?” and I guess my answer is “He probably will use some? But maybe he thought he’d try this to see what happened? I dunno.” My other answer would be along the lines of “Why didn’t people demand the Veronica Mars people use their own money a few weeks ago when everybody couldn’t wait to fund that project?” The biggest reason I don’t get the anger over it is that it’s completely optional: no one is forcing anyone to contribute to the project. Don’t like it? Don’t give him any money. Pretty simple. Honestly, if more people would adopt that attitude about more things, well, I mean, I guess the Internet might go away completely, but other than that, things would probably be better overall.

If he had said he was making a Turk & JD movie and Bill Lawrence was on board, this thing would've been funded in 3.2 seconds.

If he had said he was making a Turk & JD movie and Bill Lawrence was on board, this thing would’ve been funded in 3.2 seconds.

If you haven’t yet watched the video he made about the project, you really should. I really enjoyed it, but I also liked hearing his reasoning on trying to crowd-source the movie. Granted, I’m his target audience: I love both Scrubs and Garden State. Still, I think it’s an interesting idea and I’m curious to see how it turns out. As of this morning he’s about 75% funded, so it’s likely he’ll have the whole deal by the end of the day.

Side note: I find the celebrity group that’s tweeting to their followers about this to be a strange and varied mix. Any group that includes Micheal J. Fox, Chris Rock, and Jessica Simpson is one to raise an eyebrow towards.

I actually backed the project and I’ll tell you why. Aside from being a big fan of his previous work, I like the idea of being a part of something like this. I’ve never had anything to do with making a movie on any scale, so even something as small as the part I’m playing is a fun thing for me. The reward incentives for the level I backed include art prints, a tee shirt, weekly playlists, a copy of the script, and Production Diary updates. Oh, and I get to see a preview of the film in Chicago when it’s done, followed by a Q&A session with Zach. This will officially be the only time I was ever excited to actually go to Chicago, a place I generally avoid like the plague.  (Hey, nothing against Chicago specifically, I tend to loathe all big cities.)

This is also the first Kickstarter project I’ve ever backed, but immediately afterwards, I backed another one. This morning Zach retweeted someone else who had done the same.  So even if all this ever does is raise awareness of Kickstarter, I think it’s been a good thing. My wife had never heard of Kickstarter before, and I bet you’d be surprised at just how many people are just like her. If you’re not an Internet Denizen like you and I are, these things don’t even get on your radar unless Big News gets a hold of it, something that actually has started happening with Zach’s announcement.

About two minutes after I finished the process of backing this project, a weird sort of change came over me: I got really, really interested in the project. That might sound funny to you, I know. I mean, why would somebody fund something they weren’t already really, really interested in? I’m not sure if I can explain the difference, but I went from a “hey, this sounds fun, I’ma do it” to “I can’t wait to follow along with this production and see how it goes and how the final project ends up.”  I guess you could say that investing got me invested.

Best of luck, Zach. I’ll see you in Chicago in September of 2014 if all goes well. If you’re nice, I’ll even let you Eagle me.

Tags: , ,

Written by: