Hello Film Lovers, Art Supporters, and Everyday Producers!

My name is Wyatt Michael and I am a 38 year old independent filmmaker/writer and musician in Concord, North Carolina. A little about me…I am an author and have released a Suspense/Thriller novel which is published on Amazon called “The Whaler Fortune” (you can see it at: AMAZON ). Also, I was in a successful, but unsigned, Power Pop /Rock band called Only Makebelieve, which released a critically acclaimed international selling album “Message From A Mockingbird” a few years ago. (sound and videos at http://www.onlymakebelieve.com/ ) It was recorded in my own recording studio that took my fellow bandmates and I ten years to build!

I am located near the film site of The Hunger Games and have been shopping for props for this film at the same place where The Hunger Games producers bought theirs! The minimum budget for this creepy film is $100,000 and I have already secured about $15,000 of it from friends who really know it will be a hit. I need at least $80,000 from everyone here together to meet the budget. So, I am asking for $100,000 to cover the Kickstarter fees, the Amazon fees, and merchandise & mass shipping costs. As the pledges exceed my minimum, Michael & Company Pictures will be able to offer even more cool and unique merch for perks!

My goal is to show this film at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014 (or another major film festival afterwards) and have it picked up by a distributor, who will promote it by placing it in theaters, Netflix, REDBOX, and in stores on Blu Ray. From there I can go on to making bigger budget Adventure/Thriller period films that I have written, but to do it I just need to prove that I can and get my foot in the door.

The shooting schedule is 14 days in late July and mid August this year! This is because the film revolves around a wheat harvest and the wheat fields have already been planted at my film location in November 2012. They will be ready for harvest in July 2013. Many preparations, locations, actors, services, and arrangements have been secured and production is ready to go. This is a period film (1890’s), so many props and costumes are needed as well as many real-time special effects materials. Animal actors such as horses, wolves, mules, and chickens have all been secured for this film by animal actor trainers. Preparations have been under way since 2010 for this film.

Many professional and experienced crew people, actors, sound editors, and film editors have agreed to take part in this production for a very exceptional and amazing movie… All have agreed to work for free, without pay, because the budget does not allow them to be paid. It is too low..Thats how excited everyone is to see this one made and to help me get started! Amazing! *If the funding exceeds what I have set my goal for here on Kickstarter, then I will be able to offer some type of proper compensation to all of these great people for months of their time and effort…as well as have more freedom to add more things into the film like shoot on a full size Western town during a flashback sequence. The town’s owner has already given us permission.

The entire film will be shot on the Red Epic film camera, the same one used for films like: The Hobbit, Pirates of the Carribbean, Star Trek, Flight, Jack the Giant Killer, OZ The Great & Powerful, The Social Network, and half of all movies made in the last 2 years. *There will be no profanity, no sex, and no nudity in this film (My mama wouldn’t like all that stuff), but there will be attributes of violence…(of course..its part Western!)

If I were not to reach my goal with this campaign this film will be dead in the water. There will be no more time left to campaign it on other websites because of the deadline for the Sundace Film Festival (which is mid-September) and the harvesting of the wheat at my film location in mid July. I have been going door to door with doctors, dentists, and lawyers for the past year killing myself and I didn’t even realize there was such a thing as crowdfunding until last month! I appreciate your understanding the urgency of time with this film.

I am giving away many Perks to everyone who will get involved with this feature film and help me do it!…including having your name in the film’s credits, getting autographed copies of merchandise, copies of my CD album, official movie hats and mugs, being invited to the film sets during shooting, special private screening with the cast, and more! Please read the details and watch the cool trailer on our Kickstarter page. Thank you so much for spreading the word and making this dream happen!

the author

Wyatt Michael is a musician, singer, songwriter, suspense/thriller novelist, artist, and screenwriter. He owns Michael & Company Pictures, a film production company that he writes for in North Carolina. Wyatt learned to play the saxophone in 1984 with his school symphonic band. He held First Chair position for five years until he quit to learn guitar in 1989. Throughout his teens and early twenties, his music was showcased on many radio stations from Ohio to California (before internet radio was an idea). Later, he and his co-writer Samuel Atkinson built a recording studio and taught themselves how to use it. Over the next six years, his band, Only Makebelieve, recorded and finally released Message From A Mockingbird, an Alternative Pop masterpiece album that received rave reviews from critics all over the world (see it at: http://www.onlymakebelieve.com). The group set out on a tour and promoted the album, which also ran on national college radio. Through stressful job situations - working nights in dark factories for years on end and driving semis across ice-covered mountains (both of these are true), Wyatt created a mental way of escape - writing stories. He began to write film scripts and his friends found them to be worthy of the screen. After getting a feel for the new creative form, Wyatt took on the daunting endeavor: The Whaler Fortune, his first novel, which took him two years to write. (find it on Amazon.com) For the past 4 years, as he was writing his first book, Wyatt has been putting everything in order to shoot a feature-length suspense film called The Farmer. Over this period of time he has found his shooting locations, gotten permission from all property owners, had farmers plant crops for filming, and discovered all of his actors and film crew people for his movie. Wyatt is a guitar instructor for InTune School of the Arts in Concord, NC. He is an actor and performs in Broadway-style shows locally.