White Crow
Los Angeles, California | Film Feature
Mystery, Thriller
Alice, a young mother who has been ill for years has her life saved when she receives a heart transplant. But after the surgery, she begins to take on her donor's personality traits and memories, leading her down a haunting path of self discovery.
White Crow
Los Angeles, California | Film Feature
Mystery, Thriller
1 Campaigns | California, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $13,381 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
39 supporters | followers
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Alice, a young mother who has been ill for years has her life saved when she receives a heart transplant. But after the surgery, she begins to take on her donor's personality traits and memories, leading her down a haunting path of self discovery.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
White Crow tells the story of Alice, a young mother who experiences extreme psychological and physiological side effects after receiving a heart transplant. Alice begins to believe that she is taking on the characteristics of her donor - a local woman who recently commited suicide. But as she seeks out the truth about her donor and the events surrounding her death, Alice is taken on a chilling ride of self discovery that will forever change who she is.
The tone and visual style of White Crow is entirely inspired by the emotional undercurrent of our main character, Alice. Her anxiousness, fears, and sadness will be purposefully woven into the visual language of the film, building a world that will look, sound, and feel in perfect harmony with her personality and experience.
We will achieve this in part by framing the film in a 4:3 aspect ratio, which will create a claustrophobic atmosphere, particularily in several scenes that will be shot entirely in closeup. Any camera movement will be slow and subtle, even during scenes with faster action or lots of movement. This will ground the viewer in the reality of Alice's experience - a woman whose limited physical mobility has long forced her to remain still and silent. We will also be using a zoom lens for Alice's POV shots, which will slowly draw the viewer into her mind, by highlighting changes in Alice's perception and focus after her operation.
The film draws tonal inspiration from Ingmar Bergman's 1966 masterpiece PERSONA, Jean-Luc Godard's CONTEMPT, and Krzysztof Kieslowski's BLUE.
White Crow is based on the theory of cellular memory (or body memory), which is a phenomenon many organ transplant patients experience after surgery. During recovery, these patients find their personalities, tastes, and habits begin to shift as their bodies adapt to the new organ. They might develop a new taste in food for instance, or begin to play a musical instrument that they could never play before...
Countless individuals have shared their stories about cellular memory, some of whom have written incredible books on the topic detailing their experiences at length. What struck me most while doing my research, was the incredible amount of psychological turmoil that many of these transplant patients experienced, solely due to the inexplicable personality changes that followed their surgeries.
When it came time to write the screenplay, it was extremely important to me that the haunting realities of these stories were at the forefront of the film's narrative. The cellular memory experience can be a very scary one, and it only felt right to reflect that tonality in the film. For this reason, White Crow will primarily live in the psychological thriller genre, but will also have subtle undertones of horror that will underscore some of its more intense sequences. The film will be executed with a high degree of realism in order to allow the audience to truly immerse themselves in our protagonist's world, and empathize with her chilling journey.
Noam Kroll, Writer/Director
Our team is working dilligently to push this film through pre-production, and into production by late November of this year. This will allow us to get all our footage in the can before the holiday season, and have our festival cut ready by late winter, which will be submitted in consideration for the spring/summer 2019 film festival season.
Having just produced another feature film (Shadows On The Road), which is now in distribution, our team has a track record of taking our ideas from concept to finished product, all within our own means. To do this, we like to keep our budgets low and our team lean, so we can work quickly and maintain a tremendous amount of creative freedom.
We will be heavily documenting our process and producing loads of behind the scenes content along the way, so those of you coming along for the ride can take part not only in the finished product, but in the making of the film as well. Our director has been sharing his filmmaking journey for years on his personal blog, so if you've enjoyed following along so far, you can expect some even bigger and better content as this film comes to life.
While our previous feature was fully self-financed, this time around we are opening the door for contributions from the community, who we are excited to go on this journey with.
In order to be able to push this film over the top, secure the strongest cast & crew, the best locations, and deliver on some intricate practical effects, we need your support. Every dollar we receive will directly be seen on the screen, and will help us not only to increase our production value, but also to reach the largest possible audience with our work.
We've made many perks available here on Seed & Spark, including advanced screenings of the film, tickets to our premiere, exclusive behind the scenes content, and even a walk-on role! Be sure to check them all out to see which is right for you.
Don't forget to follow our Seed & Spark campaign by clicking the "Follow" button next to the video at the top of the page. It goes a long way in helping our project gain momentum.
We would also greatly appreciate if you could share this campaign on social media, and with friends & family. The more eyes and ears we can get on this project, the better.
We thank all of you so much for your interest in our film, and your generosity. And we can't wait to share the final cut with you very soon!
And don't forget to follow us on INSTAGRAM,FACEBOOK, & TWITTER.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Arri Amira & Lenses
Costs $4,500
Our camera of choice, thanks to it's gorgeous cinematic quality and adaptability on set.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Live Orchestra
Costs $3,000
There is no substitute for a real, live performance of our score by a full orchestra.
Props & Wardrobe
Costs $2,500
Custom art direction and wardrobe design are critical to the success of our creative vision.
Post-Production Audio
Costs $2,000
Creating an immersive experience will hinge on our ability to achieve incredible sound in post.
Festival Submission Fees
Costs $1,500
We're pushing for an extensive film festival run, which means loads of submissions.
Insurance
Costs $1,500
Keeping our cast & crew protected is always priority #1.
Share this update!
About This Team
Noam Kroll, Writer/Director
Noam Kroll is an award-winning narrative film director based in Los Angeles. With an extensive background in cinematography, editing, and color grading, he is known for taking an extremely hands on approach to his work, often wearing many hats both on and off set. His unique approach to filmmaking has been documented extensively on his blog - www.noamkroll.com - which is amongst the most popular personal filmmaking websites online. He also runs Creative Rebellion, a boutique commercial production house serving clients like Google, Warner Bros, NBC Universal, and countless others. Most recently, he premiered his feature film Shadows On The Road at the Chinese Theatres in Hollywood, which is now in distribution, set to release this fall.
Jennifer Kroll, Creative Producer
Jennifer is a producer, writer, and entrepreneur who has been partnered up with Noam Kroll on countless film and commercial projects. Notable collaborations include the short film Brother Sister, which has reached an audience of over one million people online, and the feature film Shadows On The Road, which she co-wrote and produced. When she's not making movies, Jen regularly produces health and wellness oriented content, much of which is shared through her personal blog.
Stephanie Pearson, Lead Actress (Alice)
Stephanie Pearson is an American actress born in Los Angeles, California. She was born to Lee and Lisa Pearson who both worked in television production, inspiring Stephanie to pursue acting at a young age. Amassing a long list of international ad campaigns by her teens, Stephanie gained her professionalism on set shooting commercials with directors such as Tony Kaye. Stephanie spent time working and living overseas shooting print ads in Japan, Thailand, and Mexico.
Stephanie attended Loyola Marymount University where she pivoted to theatrical acting after studying Chekhov technique. One of Stephanie’s first film roles was in Shane Black’s ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ followed by a slew of television guest star roles for shows in including ‘The Young and The Restless’, ‘Medium’, ‘Rizzoli and Isles’, ‘Ray Donovan’ and ‘Murder in the First’. Stephanie has become somewhat of a scream queen, having been killed on screen in nearly half of all of her roles including James Wan’s ‘Insidious: Chapter 2’. Stephanie can be seen as Keren in Ryuhei Kitamura’s ‘Downrange’ which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2017.
Ryan McCarvill, Executive Producer
Ryan McCarvill is a Canadian filmmaker from Prince Edward Island. He is the writer, director, and producer of several short films including "The Real Deal" (from a short story by The Martian author Andy Weir) and the upcoming psychological drama "3:21:00".
Christian Hubbard, Producer
A film, anime, and video game enthusiast, Christian Hubbard is a southern Virginia transplant living and working in Los Angeles since 2016. While his passion lies in narrative film, he has also produced content for ESL Gaming (the world's largest eports agency) and currently works as a producer of social media for an LA-based Advertising Agency. He hopes to bring an additional layer of planning, execution, and creative problem solving to this production, and in the future plans to write and direct his own feature films.
Andy Chinn, Cinematographer
Andy Chinn is a cinematographer born and raised in Los Angeles. He started out as a gaffer, lighting the Youtube series “Epic Rap Battles of History,” which has over 14mil subscribers, and the action film Savage Dog, which has worldwide distribution. As a freelance cinematographer, he has shot various music videos for Steady Holiday, Cut Chemist, and more. He has also shot commercials for Interscope Records artists such as Selena Gomez, Billie Eilish, and more. For narrative work, he has shot festival award winning short films, and festival award winning feature films. In the future, Andy hopes to work on more narrative dramatic films.
Katrina Cebreiro, Associate Producer
Katrina Cebreiro began working in the entertainment industry 7 years ago, starting with an internship with Conan O'Brien. Since then she has worked at TMZ, Warner Bros., Daniel Hoff Agency, and countless other companies, assisting in the creation of content of all types. She holds an MFA in Cinema and Television Arts, which she attributes in part to helping her make the final round in the Sundance TV Lab 2017. Currenty, she is excited to work on this feature film and document the entire process!
Craig Saltz, Composer
Craig Saltz's music has appeared in dozens of films and commercials. Based out of Toronto, he received his degree from York University's eclectic music program. It was there that he refined and honed his understanding of classical composition as well as world music, jazz and audio engineering. Having scored films that have screened at countless film festivals, Craig has built an incredibly strong body of work that has been lauded by audiences across the country. He recently collaborated with Noam Kroll to score the narrative feature film Shadows On The Road, and looks forward to colaborating again on White Crow.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
White Crow tells the story of Alice, a young mother who experiences extreme psychological and physiological side effects after receiving a heart transplant. Alice begins to believe that she is taking on the characteristics of her donor - a local woman who recently commited suicide. But as she seeks out the truth about her donor and the events surrounding her death, Alice is taken on a chilling ride of self discovery that will forever change who she is.
The tone and visual style of White Crow is entirely inspired by the emotional undercurrent of our main character, Alice. Her anxiousness, fears, and sadness will be purposefully woven into the visual language of the film, building a world that will look, sound, and feel in perfect harmony with her personality and experience.
We will achieve this in part by framing the film in a 4:3 aspect ratio, which will create a claustrophobic atmosphere, particularily in several scenes that will be shot entirely in closeup. Any camera movement will be slow and subtle, even during scenes with faster action or lots of movement. This will ground the viewer in the reality of Alice's experience - a woman whose limited physical mobility has long forced her to remain still and silent. We will also be using a zoom lens for Alice's POV shots, which will slowly draw the viewer into her mind, by highlighting changes in Alice's perception and focus after her operation.
The film draws tonal inspiration from Ingmar Bergman's 1966 masterpiece PERSONA, Jean-Luc Godard's CONTEMPT, and Krzysztof Kieslowski's BLUE.
White Crow is based on the theory of cellular memory (or body memory), which is a phenomenon many organ transplant patients experience after surgery. During recovery, these patients find their personalities, tastes, and habits begin to shift as their bodies adapt to the new organ. They might develop a new taste in food for instance, or begin to play a musical instrument that they could never play before...
Countless individuals have shared their stories about cellular memory, some of whom have written incredible books on the topic detailing their experiences at length. What struck me most while doing my research, was the incredible amount of psychological turmoil that many of these transplant patients experienced, solely due to the inexplicable personality changes that followed their surgeries.
When it came time to write the screenplay, it was extremely important to me that the haunting realities of these stories were at the forefront of the film's narrative. The cellular memory experience can be a very scary one, and it only felt right to reflect that tonality in the film. For this reason, White Crow will primarily live in the psychological thriller genre, but will also have subtle undertones of horror that will underscore some of its more intense sequences. The film will be executed with a high degree of realism in order to allow the audience to truly immerse themselves in our protagonist's world, and empathize with her chilling journey.
Noam Kroll, Writer/Director
Our team is working dilligently to push this film through pre-production, and into production by late November of this year. This will allow us to get all our footage in the can before the holiday season, and have our festival cut ready by late winter, which will be submitted in consideration for the spring/summer 2019 film festival season.
Having just produced another feature film (Shadows On The Road), which is now in distribution, our team has a track record of taking our ideas from concept to finished product, all within our own means. To do this, we like to keep our budgets low and our team lean, so we can work quickly and maintain a tremendous amount of creative freedom.
We will be heavily documenting our process and producing loads of behind the scenes content along the way, so those of you coming along for the ride can take part not only in the finished product, but in the making of the film as well. Our director has been sharing his filmmaking journey for years on his personal blog, so if you've enjoyed following along so far, you can expect some even bigger and better content as this film comes to life.
While our previous feature was fully self-financed, this time around we are opening the door for contributions from the community, who we are excited to go on this journey with.
In order to be able to push this film over the top, secure the strongest cast & crew, the best locations, and deliver on some intricate practical effects, we need your support. Every dollar we receive will directly be seen on the screen, and will help us not only to increase our production value, but also to reach the largest possible audience with our work.
We've made many perks available here on Seed & Spark, including advanced screenings of the film, tickets to our premiere, exclusive behind the scenes content, and even a walk-on role! Be sure to check them all out to see which is right for you.
Don't forget to follow our Seed & Spark campaign by clicking the "Follow" button next to the video at the top of the page. It goes a long way in helping our project gain momentum.
We would also greatly appreciate if you could share this campaign on social media, and with friends & family. The more eyes and ears we can get on this project, the better.
We thank all of you so much for your interest in our film, and your generosity. And we can't wait to share the final cut with you very soon!
And don't forget to follow us on INSTAGRAM,FACEBOOK, & TWITTER.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Arri Amira & Lenses
Costs $4,500
Our camera of choice, thanks to it's gorgeous cinematic quality and adaptability on set.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Live Orchestra
Costs $3,000
There is no substitute for a real, live performance of our score by a full orchestra.
Props & Wardrobe
Costs $2,500
Custom art direction and wardrobe design are critical to the success of our creative vision.
Post-Production Audio
Costs $2,000
Creating an immersive experience will hinge on our ability to achieve incredible sound in post.
Festival Submission Fees
Costs $1,500
We're pushing for an extensive film festival run, which means loads of submissions.
Insurance
Costs $1,500
Keeping our cast & crew protected is always priority #1.
Share this update!
About This Team
Noam Kroll, Writer/Director
Noam Kroll is an award-winning narrative film director based in Los Angeles. With an extensive background in cinematography, editing, and color grading, he is known for taking an extremely hands on approach to his work, often wearing many hats both on and off set. His unique approach to filmmaking has been documented extensively on his blog - www.noamkroll.com - which is amongst the most popular personal filmmaking websites online. He also runs Creative Rebellion, a boutique commercial production house serving clients like Google, Warner Bros, NBC Universal, and countless others. Most recently, he premiered his feature film Shadows On The Road at the Chinese Theatres in Hollywood, which is now in distribution, set to release this fall.
Jennifer Kroll, Creative Producer
Jennifer is a producer, writer, and entrepreneur who has been partnered up with Noam Kroll on countless film and commercial projects. Notable collaborations include the short film Brother Sister, which has reached an audience of over one million people online, and the feature film Shadows On The Road, which she co-wrote and produced. When she's not making movies, Jen regularly produces health and wellness oriented content, much of which is shared through her personal blog.
Stephanie Pearson, Lead Actress (Alice)
Stephanie Pearson is an American actress born in Los Angeles, California. She was born to Lee and Lisa Pearson who both worked in television production, inspiring Stephanie to pursue acting at a young age. Amassing a long list of international ad campaigns by her teens, Stephanie gained her professionalism on set shooting commercials with directors such as Tony Kaye. Stephanie spent time working and living overseas shooting print ads in Japan, Thailand, and Mexico.
Stephanie attended Loyola Marymount University where she pivoted to theatrical acting after studying Chekhov technique. One of Stephanie’s first film roles was in Shane Black’s ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ followed by a slew of television guest star roles for shows in including ‘The Young and The Restless’, ‘Medium’, ‘Rizzoli and Isles’, ‘Ray Donovan’ and ‘Murder in the First’. Stephanie has become somewhat of a scream queen, having been killed on screen in nearly half of all of her roles including James Wan’s ‘Insidious: Chapter 2’. Stephanie can be seen as Keren in Ryuhei Kitamura’s ‘Downrange’ which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2017.
Ryan McCarvill, Executive Producer
Ryan McCarvill is a Canadian filmmaker from Prince Edward Island. He is the writer, director, and producer of several short films including "The Real Deal" (from a short story by The Martian author Andy Weir) and the upcoming psychological drama "3:21:00".
Christian Hubbard, Producer
A film, anime, and video game enthusiast, Christian Hubbard is a southern Virginia transplant living and working in Los Angeles since 2016. While his passion lies in narrative film, he has also produced content for ESL Gaming (the world's largest eports agency) and currently works as a producer of social media for an LA-based Advertising Agency. He hopes to bring an additional layer of planning, execution, and creative problem solving to this production, and in the future plans to write and direct his own feature films.
Andy Chinn, Cinematographer
Andy Chinn is a cinematographer born and raised in Los Angeles. He started out as a gaffer, lighting the Youtube series “Epic Rap Battles of History,” which has over 14mil subscribers, and the action film Savage Dog, which has worldwide distribution. As a freelance cinematographer, he has shot various music videos for Steady Holiday, Cut Chemist, and more. He has also shot commercials for Interscope Records artists such as Selena Gomez, Billie Eilish, and more. For narrative work, he has shot festival award winning short films, and festival award winning feature films. In the future, Andy hopes to work on more narrative dramatic films.
Katrina Cebreiro, Associate Producer
Katrina Cebreiro began working in the entertainment industry 7 years ago, starting with an internship with Conan O'Brien. Since then she has worked at TMZ, Warner Bros., Daniel Hoff Agency, and countless other companies, assisting in the creation of content of all types. She holds an MFA in Cinema and Television Arts, which she attributes in part to helping her make the final round in the Sundance TV Lab 2017. Currenty, she is excited to work on this feature film and document the entire process!
Craig Saltz, Composer
Craig Saltz's music has appeared in dozens of films and commercials. Based out of Toronto, he received his degree from York University's eclectic music program. It was there that he refined and honed his understanding of classical composition as well as world music, jazz and audio engineering. Having scored films that have screened at countless film festivals, Craig has built an incredibly strong body of work that has been lauded by audiences across the country. He recently collaborated with Noam Kroll to score the narrative feature film Shadows On The Road, and looks forward to colaborating again on White Crow.