KickstarterForum.org

Folk Hero & Funny Guy, starring Alex Karpovsky & directed by Jeff Grace, Launches Kickstarter Campaign

Running October 30th through December 4th, the Kickstarter offers backer rewards including stand up comedy lessons from Jeff Grace, limited edition artist prints by Chris Billheimer, custom watercolor portraits by Alex Karpovsky, karaoke with the cast & crew, and more.

Los Angeles (October 30th, 2013) - The directorial debut of actor/comedian Jeff Grace (IT’S A DISASTER) hits Kickstarter today, beginning a 35 day campaign to garner support for the feature comedy, starring Alex Karpovsky (HBO’s comedy hit “Girls”). The campaign can be accessed via the film’s Kickstarter portal at: http://FolkHeroAndFunnyGuy.com
The focus of the Kickstarter will be raising $48,500 in crucial seed money to cover the pre-production expenses, including location scouting, recording original music for the live performance scenes in the film, conceptual art/storyboards, and hiring a casting director.
“Having generated millions of views and hundreds of dollars creating short films with my comedy group, The Vacationeers, and also producing IT’S A DISASTER (LA Film Fest ‘12) and THE SCENESTERS (Slamdance ‘10), I’m extremely excited to take on the challenge of directing my first feature film. The script is especially personal to me as it draws upon my experience as a stand up comedian opening for rock bands, usually to disastrous results,” says director Grace. Referring to the campaign specifically, he continues, “Even though my film is a heartfelt comedy, I wanted to create a more over-the-top Kickstarter video that would really grab people while they’re busy setting their fantasy football rosters at work.”
Other members of the FOLK HERO AND FUNNY GUY family include producer Ryland Aldrich, musician Adam Ezra, Emmy© nominated cinematographer Nancy Schreiber (Sundance Best Dramatic Cinematography Winner - NOVEMBER), and actress/musician Liza Oppenheimer, with more casting announcements, including that of the second lead character, still to come. The poster art was created by Dave Kloc and Garrett Ross and can be found exclusively on /Film.
To become a part of the FOLK HERO AND FUNNY GUY team, head to http://FolkHeroAndFunnyGuy.com

About FOLK HERO & FUNNY GUY
FOLK HERO & FUNNY GUY follows Paul and Jason, childhood friends who have drifted apart as they've reached their 30s. Jason is a good-looking and free spirited singer-songwriter whose career is taking off, while Paul is a struggling stand-up comedian whose once promising trajectory is now in decline. They reunite when Jason passes through town on his most recent tour. A night of drinking leads Jason to offer Paul the opportunity to serve as the opening act for his upcoming solo tour. What Paul doesn’t know is that Jason has booked the tour himself in order to win back an old flame. Paul’s woes are the ideal opportunity for Jason to get his number one wingman back on board.
About Writer/Director Jeff Grace
Jeff Grace is a comedian, writer, and director who started his career on the stages of Second City and ImprovOlympic in Chicago. He was hired to write political rants for IFC’s Henry Rollins Show after a producer saw Jeff perform stand-up at The Improv in Hollywood. From there, he went on to write and act in MTV’s That Movie Show and Comedy Central’s Atom TV. As a founding member of comedy troupe The Vacationeers, Jeff has written and directed several viral internet videos, the most popular of which, Google Maps, generated six million views, was featured on CNN, and led to Google hiring Jeff to create video content.
As a filmmaker, Jeff produced and starred in two independent feature films that secured theatrical distribution after widespread festival runs. THE SCENESTERS won the 2010 Slamdance “Rosebud Award.” IT’S A DISASTER, which also stars David Cross, America Ferrera and Julia Stiles, debuted in theaters in April 2013 through distributor Oscilloscope and was the #1 independent film on iTunes in June. With a screenplay written by himself, FOLK HERO & FUNNY GUY will be Jeff’s directorial debut.
About Actor Alex Karpovsky
Alex Karpovsky is perhaps best known for his lead role as Ray in the Emmy Nominated HBO comedy series Girls. Alex has also directed five of his own features including 2012’s RED FLAG, 2008’s WOODPECKER and 2006’s THE HOLE STORY, which prompted Filmmaker Magazine to call him one of the “25 new faces of independent film.” Alex can also be seen in such films as TINY FURNITURE dir: Lena Dunham), SLEEPWALK WITH ME (dir: Mike Birbiglia), and INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (dir: Joel & Ethan Coen).
About Producer Ryland Aldrich
Ryland Aldrich is the producer of the Youssef Delara and Victor Teran SXSW 2013-premiering feature thriller SNAP starring Jake Hoffman, Nikki Reed, Thomas Dekker, and Scott Bakula, set to be released in 2014. He is also producing the upcoming feature documentary DO YOU DREAM IN COLOR? directed by Abigail Fuller and Sarah Ivy that examines the lives of blind teens. Ryland lives in Los Angeles where he also functions as Festivals Editor for the film website TwitchFilm.com.
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SOCIAL MEDIA INFO
Website: http://FolkHeroAndFunnyGuy.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/FolkHeroAndFunnyGuy
Twitter: @FHFGfilm
Instagram: @FHFGfilm

Congrats on the 10k raised so far. That's pretty good for the first week. How long did it take you to prepare the campaign?

Thanks @sbriggman!

I'd say we spent about 5 or 6 weeks total planning. 1 of those days was shooting the video (with 1 day of pick-ups) and about 3 or 4 days editing the video. The last 5 or so days leading up to the launch were long days of getting everything in order. We also built the neato Kickstarter portal to direct all of our traffic through.

Still a long ways to go though. Check out the video and share if you like it.

Thanks!