72 Hours: A Brooklyn Love Story?

Brooklyn, New York | Film Feature

Drama, Teen

Green Light

This campaign raised $9,262 for pre-production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.

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Caesar Winslow,18, is the charismatic leader of his crew. Unlike his friends, he has a chance to leave Brooklyn and attend a prestigious university. But a breakup with his high school sweetheart (and a glimpse at the competition) have shaken his confidence. He has 72 hours to steel himself.

About The Project

  • The Story
  • Wishlist
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  • The Team
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The Story

A family of hams. The period after dinner at my grandparents home in Pennsylvania was the dojo where I trained. My grandmother the former English professor. My grandfather the Cuban immigrant made good. My father the deadpan artist, mother the physical comedian, and uncle the jock for whom it had all come so easily. Those and whatever friends happened to stop by. Telling stories. Until the last slice of pie was gone, or slumber managed to creep up and steal away the listeners. It was there I learned how to set up the punch line or pause just so before delivering the pain-soaked one. But mainly I listened.
 
I learned that a good story should have at least one great joke, and one muddy passage where some unmistakable burden lives. That a good story can pop in just a few wisps of sentences or stew for hours. In my work, the black experience in America has its notes and even solos, but the characterization of individuals, personalities, and bright lights is the bassline. My work is usually about men between places or finding them. Men who can’t communicate the nature of their displacement or choose not to. 
 
And then there are colors, as vibrantly as I can paint them, that reflect the experience of these men: the women they love, the jobs they hate, the jokes that make it all bearable.
 
72 Hours: A Brooklyn Love Story? Tells the story of one such displaced young man, Caesar, attempting to bridge the borough of his youth with an unknown world whose boundaries he is only dimly able to perceive. Caesar would be king in one world and a plebian in the other, yet he must choose. And in the friction of that choice we see a whole world appear and blow away. Like a cheap lighter sparking a blunt on a housing project rooftop.
 
And so the camera sits, like an eavesdropping child in his pajamas, close enough to understand what the grown folks are saying, far enough that some of the images come across as dreamy conjurings of the truth.
 
As ever, the goal is to tell a story good enough to last through the peach cobbler.
 
-- R. Rivero

Wishlist

Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.

Cash Pledge

Costs $0

Catering

Costs $1,500

To feed cast and crew (sometimes as many as 25 people) 2 to 3 meals a day for 20 days

300 W Frenel

Costs $200

Key part of our lighting scheme, which is designed to ensure darker skin registers beautifully.

650 W Frenel

Costs $269

2K Dimmer

Costs $750

4x4

Costs $150

To move equipment from one place to the next.

#3 Grip Clip (Spring Clamp)

Costs $300

Silent heroes of film. They literally keep s**t together!

8x8 Bleached Muslin

Costs $175

By bouncing light off/thru muslin, DP can create mood and tone thru lighting. Look close at the pic.

Arri M18

Costs $1,200

Awesome dramatic lighting. Looks a little bit like Wall-E, no?

Triple Riser Steel Stand

Costs $75

To hold stuff :)

Permits

Costs $1,000

This is the fee to be able to use Brooklyn Bridge Park with a crew our size.

Digital Imaging Technician

Costs $1,500

DIT is responsible for backing up all the footage that we shoot each day to multiple hard drives.

Wardrobe package

Costs $500

Creates style profile of ea character, ensures actors look good together, oversees custom creations

Stunt Coordinator

Costs $1,000

Safety first. Need to have a stunt coordinator on set to choreograph and oversee our fight scene.

Aerial Multicopter Drone package

Costs $500

By mounting a camera on a drone, we can get aerial shots previously only available w. chopper.

Holding Location

Costs $2,250

When the cameras aren't rolling, we need a place for actors and crew to relax and to hold equipment.

About This Team

Producer: Stephanie Williams
Stephanie Walter Williams, Co­Founder, Artistic Director, Reel Works and Executive Producer is an award ­winning writer, producer and director whose credits include television, film, radio and theater. Stephanie has created original programming for a variety of broadcasters, including Viacom and CBS News Productions. After studying writing in college in New York and the U.K, Stephanie moved to Manhattan and opened her own theatre company, The Black Market. Her play, I Vermin was presented in the 2003 NYC Fringe Festival. 
 
Her work as a producer and executive producer at Reel Works has generated numerous short documentaries, many of which have won awards world wide, as well as several well received narrative shorts. Stephanie holds an MFA in Dramaturgy from Stony Brook University where she serves as an adjunct lecturer in film and theatre, and a BA in English with an emphasis on writing.
 
 
Producer: Vincent Harris

Mr. Harris has worked in financial services since 2002, beginning his career as an Investment Advisor with Morgan Stanley. Most recently, Vincent was engaged in principal investing as a Director with Prudential Capital Group in NYC, a $60 billion private investment fund. During his time with the firm he invested in excess of $1 billion of the firm's capital. Investments included large media conglomerates, professional sports teams and consumer products companies.  

 

In addition to his securities expertise, Mr. Harris has a long history of involvement in non-traditional investments, particularly related to the media and entertainment space. Vincent has provided strategic consulting to major media/entertainment companies, including Disney Studios and ATO Pictures, the independent film distributor founded by platinum recording artist, Dave Matthews. Vincent has been identified by Film Independent as a Fast Track producer and is the recipient of the 2013 Millennium Entertainment Fellowship for his work in packaging the Kerry Washington lead project, titled Third Girl From the Left.

 

Vincent holds an MBA in Strategy and Finance from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia.

 

Associate Producer: Christopher Poindexter
Christopher is the Senior Legal Officer of Cross MediaWorks, a private equity sponsored roll-up of media related firms that include a national television network, an unwired television advertising network, a media representation firm and a national advertising and media buying agency. 

Chris was formerly an associate in the Advertising and Media Group at Davis & Gilbert LLP prior to joining Cross Media-Works. Prior to that, Chris was an associate at O’Melveny & Myers, LLP, in the Private Equity and Mergers & Acquisitions practice groups. He graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in English and received his law degree from Columbia University’s School of Law. His areas of practice include: Advertising, Marketing and Promotions; New Media; Entertainment, Media and Publishing; Intellectual Property and generally negotiating and drafting a wide range of complex new and traditional media related agreements.
 
Chris currently serves on the board of Reel Works and is a filmmaker himself, having written and produced the award-winning short film, "Their Eyes Were Watching Gummy Bears".
 
Director:
Raafi Rivero has directed numerous advertisements, short films, and music videos in addition to work in design. His directing credits include a suite of promos for HBOʼs True Blood, content for Skype, Sony, and an Art Directors Club award-winning viral campaign for the Maryland Lottery. His trans-media film pitch Heart of the City was the inaugural winner of London's Power to the Pixel competition in 2009 and part of IFPʼs NoBorders film market the following year. Their Eyes Were Watching Gummy Bears, his 2010 short, has played 22 film festivals to date and singled out for multiple festival honors.
 
Raafi's writing about new media has appeared in AdvertisingAge, The Huffington Post, and the New York Times. He holds an MFA in Film from Howard University and a BA in Art/Semiotics from Brown University

 

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