If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter.com, you should know it’s the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world, including film, art and technology. Any person can pledge any amount towards a project they feel should be developed and in return they receive unique gifts selected by the project creators. Indie helmers Allison Anders and Kurt Voss are using Kickstarter to finance the costs of their feature film Strutter — the closing chapter in the trilogy that began with Border Radio and was last left off with Sugar Town. The two studied at UCLA together after meeting as production assistants on Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas and since then, they together or separately written and directed over 20 films and a number of television episodes and music videos. We guess this means that, Anders will work on this project in the first portion of 2011 before heading into Smile Now, Cry Later, the sequel to Mi Vida Loca.
Gist: Strutter tells the story of 22 year old BRETT (Flannery Lunsford) , a singer for a Los Angeles rock band who finds himself heartbroken when he loses his muse JUSTINE (Ericka Clevenger) to his own local idol, the fast-ascending art rocker DAMON (Dante White). But with the support of his filmmaker gal pal REGGIE (Elyse Hollander), Brett not only learns to love again, he comes to form an oddly simpatico friendship with former romantic rival Damon. Along the way, Brett also learns to better understand his parents’ odd marriage, and the complications and compromises that come with adulthood.
Worth Noting: Anders and Voss clearly have some big-named pals willing to support their cause (17,000 dollar goal). Rewards for pledging include a Scott Pilgrim fun bag from Edgar Wright, a The Big Lebowski fun bag from Ethan Coen, and an autographed fun bag from Quentin Tarantino.
Do We Care?: To be honest, there’s going to be a wave of feature narrative L.A rock singer/band films next year and if The Runaways taught us anything is that docu films do a better job at catching the bolt of lightning.