Stetson Tenz is a (thoughtful) experiment.

** Goal 1** Create something, due to and matched to this difficult time of social distancing.

** Goal 2 ** Get some cash to creatives and freelancers who could use some income right now.

The film will be 100% remote, shot via screenrecordings and supplementary footage recorded by the performers themselves. There's a story and scenes but no script.

The Film is a Comedy. The Team is No Joke.

Stetson Tenz is the creation of Michael DiBiasio-Ornelas (aka Michael DiBiasio), in collaboration with Co-Director Bradley True (Stetson Tenz), Producer Kristina Teschner and Consulting Producer Sean Mannion. The cast is an ensemble of wickedly talented actors and comedians.

By format, it combines elements of Michael's Award-Winning expertimental short film, BENCH, which is also an improvised ensemble comedy, and Michael's feature film The Videoblogs, which utilizes fourth-wall storytelling for about 30% of its runtime.

For all of the above reasons, we believe this can not only be a successful remote film -- but a successful and funny film for any time.

We Have Three Budgets. The Fourth is The Best.

In these challenging times, we don't want anyone to contribute funds they don't have. So the budget for this film is modest. That being said, the more we can raise (even at these comparitively low numbers) the more we can pay performers. If you can throw in, throw in, and together we'll all throw down.

Varied Budgets for Confusing Economic Times

1. MIN: This would be 80% of the public budget you see ($2,700). This will allow us to pay each collaborator $75 per role, per day. 
   
   
2. MID: If we hit our actual goal ($3,500), we can pay each collaborator $100 per role, per day.
   
   
3. IDEAL: Should we meet our goal, we'd then stretch towards a budget of $4,500. With this, we can pay each collaborator $125 per role per day. This last number is a more standard rate for normal times.
   
   
4. SUPAH: Any amount over $4,500 would be considered a Supah Budget for this project. We'd use this money, as possible, to add collaborators. Such as musicians, graphic artists, etc.

Two More Important Things (We Are Inevitable)

First -- by the time this campaign ends, Stetson Tenz will have been shot or mostly shot. It is happening. Unlike Thanos (who proved ultimately evitable) -- Stetson will prevail.

Michael is guaranteeing the minimum payments to performers. When we succeed, he will be reimbursed up to the amount fronted to the production, with the remaning funds delivered as planned to the production team and post-production team.

Second, as noted above -- this is about getting back to basics of filmmaking at an uncertain time, but also about keeping the medium alive in spirit...in any time. The point of a film is to be shared by its audience. For this reason, Stetson Tenz will be released for free, when complete.