30 days ago, we started a movement. An effort to collectively tell a better story. An effort to give back. An effort that, for the first time in history, funded a movie with donations from thousands of people. We started out with a goal of $125,000. The minimum amount to continue production of the movie. Within 10 days, we reached that goal, and moved forward to make history. Kickstarter is the largest crowdfunding website. Save Blue Like Jazz is officially the largest crowd funded creative project in American history. The previous record was set at $200,641. We hope that someone will break the record again, and feel the way we feel today. We will gladly pass the torch.

What happens now?

4495 of you have said ‘Yes’ that you wanted this movie to be made. That process starts tomorrow. Wednesday October 27th, filming will begin in Nashville, TN. We shoot in Nashville for 4 weeks then head to Portland later this year.

Also (the fun part!), if you donated to the project, within the next few days you will receive an email from us requesting information from you so that we can start the rewards process. T-shirt size, mailing address, etc. Please respond to that email as soon as possible. We want to ship you stuff!!!

Moving Forward

This funding effort was unconventional. It was different. It wasn’t the way we were used to seeing things done. We want the promotion of this movie to be the same way. Tomorrow, the same day that we begin filming, we will launch a new website at www.bluelikejazzthemovie.com. That will be the source for all things Blue Like Jazz. Our promise is that during the production process, promotional process, the theatrical and DVD process… we keep you in the loop. This is your movie. Prepare to be updated.

We can’t thank you enough for the amazing support you have shown. You have given people jobs. You have given people hope for a better generation of story tellers. You have told us an amazing story, now we will work as hard as we can to tell you one just as amazing.

Thank you for giving over the last 30 days. Today, we will start giving back.

-Don, Jonathan, Steve and Zach

We have added a couple of exciting incentives to the campaign – check em out:

$125 - Your very own Blue Like Jazz the movie coffee mug. (along with the Associate Producer package)

$600 – 20 min Skype session with Donald Miller (along with the Associate Producer package). Whatever you want… writing secrets, thoughts on his next book, what brand of food does Lucy eat… anything is fair game!

And for the last week of our campaign, we have put our higher incentives on sale!

Now at $6000 – Director Steve Taylor will fly to your city and do a pre-release screening of the movie in your home with live director’s commentary! Limited to within the United States. (Comes with the Associate Producer package)

Now at $8000 - Donald Miller will fly to your city and do a book reading at your home for you and your friends! If you’re nice, he may even sing you a lullaby. Limited to within the United States. (Comes with the Associate Producer package

We cannot thank you enough for your involvement in this movie. Not only will this be an amazing story to tell, but we could have never done this without you – the people. Please help us finish this story!

www.savebluelikejazz.com

Twitter hashtag – #savebluelikejazz

Let’s finish this story. http://vimeo.com/15941757

Where Do We Go From Here?
WOW! We did it. YOU did it. We have officially raised over $125,000 and Blue Like Jazz will soon become movie! Thank you so much for making this happen. We have seen so much support from all over the world in this campaign. And it only took 10 days for us to reach our goal! Incredible.

There’s been a lot of talk about what happens next. Since we reached the goal with so much time left in the campaign, where do we go from here? Well, the $125,000 was the absolute minimum to finish shooting the movie. A shoestring budget that wouldn’t allow the team to break a light bulb and still have to pull a lot of favors. That being said, we want to keep raising money. The more money donated, the better the movie will be. A better sound mix, extra shoot days, music licensing…. the sky’s the limit. The extra money will not go to pad anyone’s personal account, but will still go directly to the funding of this film.

Let’s Make History.
The biggest project on Kickstarter maxed out at $200,000 donated. Truth is, we want to blow that number out of the water and make history. We want to be the biggest crowd sourced creative project in American history. We want Blue Like Jazz to go down in history as having the largest amount of financial backers. But we need your help to get us there.

Questions Answered
We have added some additional FAQ’s to our page, but we wanted to touch on two important ones here.

Many of you have asked what is in the digital download package. Everyone who donates at least $10 will receive our digital download package. We are still adding to this package, but here is what we have confirmed so far. This will include the following:

-All posters, banners and desktop wallpaper used in the Save Blue Like Jazz Campaign
-Official Blue Like Jazz movie promotional material. Posters, wallpapers, etc.
-The first 15 pages from the official script
-A brand new song from previously unreleased from Steve Taylor

Secondly, there have been questions about what kind of return on investment we could offer to so many financial backers. Unfortunately, Kickstarter has strict rules on this. It simply isn’t allowed. But we had a idea, why not have the movie itself benefit something in return? So here’s our thought. Once the movie turns a profit, we will donate 10% of its profit to a worthy non-profit organization.

We don’t want to be the ones to decide where it goes, so we will open it up to our backers. When the campaign ends on October 25th, we’re going to notify all of our thousands of Kickstarter backers and give you a list of recommended non-profits to choose from. Then you’ll VOTE on where the money goes. (And if it’s a close call between a handful of orgs, we’ll figure out a way to split it up between them.)

Please know that this campaign is not over. We can still make history here. Please continue to spread the word. We still need your voice to make all of this really happen. This has truly been a ground swell of donations. Let’s keep this momentum. Let’s make a better movie. Let’s make history. Will you join us?

Why are you still raising money? Didn’t we reach the goal?
- When the Kickstarter idea was pitched to me by Zach and Jonathan, they asked me how much we needed. I gave them the absolute minimum amount to turn our screenplay into a low budget indie movie. They suggested we set the Kickstarter goal higher – at $200K. I checked the site and decided that would be impossible, since it had never been done before – the biggest raise I could find on Kickstarter for a movie was $50K. Oops! Oh me of little faith… I’ve since asked forgiveness from God, Zach, Jonathan and Don; in that order.

Where will the additional money go?
- Where to start? Cast (we’d like to get a few more “name” actors)! Extra shoot days! Music licensing! A better sound mix! Did I mention that movies are expensive?

What are you guys getting paid to make this movie?
- I’m completely in favor of the concept of getting paid money for four years of work. But in order to “get the money on the screen,” Don and I have deferred any payment until after the movie has paid back its investors and turned a profit.

Shouldn’t the money we’ve donated to Kickstarter be considered an investment?
- I hear you, but rules are rules, and Kickstarter’s are very specific: Investment and loan solicitations are forbidden, as are lotteries, raffles, and sweepstakes.

Isn’t there a way that all of the funding generated by the Save Blue Like Jazz campaign can benefit something besides the movie?
- We’ve talked about that at length since we surpassed our goal, and here’s what we’ve come up with:
1) We like that idea!
2) We’ve all agreed that 10% of the movie’s profits should go to a worthy non-profit organization. But we don’t want to be the ones to decide where it goes. So…
3) When the campaign ends on October 25th, we’re going to notify all of our thousands of Kickstarter backers and give you a list of recommended non-profits to choose from. Then you’ll VOTE on where the money goes. (And if it’s a close call between a handful of orgs, we’ll figure out a way to split it up between them.)

Is there a way to help besides donating money?
- Yes!
1) Pray for us. Often.
2) Spread the word.
3) As we get closer to the beginning of the shoot, we’ll have more opportunities to get involved. (Who knows – we may even throw a party or two and invite all of you who are making this movie happen…)

As always, you can reach us at savebluelikejazz@gmail.com
 
Thank you for your continued support. We are inspired and grateful beyond belief.
-Zach + Jonathan

Here are some stats over the first 48 hours that we wanted to share with you:

- Over $20,000 in donations so far!
- 36,000 + page hits
- Relevant Magazine caught wind of it and featured it on their website
- Christianity Today also caught wind of it and blogged here
- Local news in Nashville did a story on the 5 o’clock news
- Notable RT’s on Twitter from:

• Derek Webb
• Michael Hyatt (CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing)
• Dan Haseltine + Charlie Lowell (of Jars of Clay)
• Robbie Seay (of Robbie Seay band)
• Addison Road

And there are SO many more voices that have helped spread the passion! (Just check out the #savebluelikejazz hashtag on Twitter!)

That said – we’ve still got a long way to go!

If you keep spreading the word and sharing the enthusiasm as you already have, we believe that this campaign will overcome the resistance. Don said it best on his blog this morning: “…if we can bring it back to life, this movie will show the world that people like us really do exist!”  If we can be of any help, please – let us know!

Oh – and in case you missed it, here’s a link to grab some banners for your blog – light it up!

Thankful + Inspired,
Z + J

We both live in Franklin, TN. We are in our mid-twenties, we are both married, one of us has (the world’s cutest) daughter – and we both have dogs.

Jonathan is a photographer posing as a marketing rep for a financial planning company. Zach works for a record label and poses as a drummer. We are both invested in the same small community and we have been close friends for some time now.

On September 16^th, Don posted a blog about how investors had backed out of the Blue Like Jazz movie and the project was to be put on hold indefinitely. It so happens that both of us follow Don’s blog on a regular basis – and we both share the same ideals when it comes to the business world.  We immediately began emailing back and forth about this, and we have to admit that our initial reaction wasn’t “Ah, that sucks.” It was rather: “There’s another way.” The way we saw it, this book sold more than a million copies. It was an anomaly from the get go in our eyes. Another thing that stuck out to us was that this wasn’t your everyday ‘Christian market’ readership either. This book reached so many people of all demographics. So why fund it traditionally?

Why not open it up to the people in which the book actually impacted?

After reading the comments on the blog that day, we knew that we weren’t the only ones. So many in the blogosohere were already willing to give to this project. The problem was, there just wasn’t a means to do so.  There needed to be organization and we needed to have a collective glimpse of the destination.

We crafted an email about our thoughts, and knew we had a mutual friend who was friends with Don from way back. We took a chance and asked him to send it on. Sure enough, within a few hours, we heard back. Both Don and director Steve Taylor wanted to hear some of our ideas. We were stoked (there were multiple fist pumps…). We effectively did not sleep at all that night. We put together a viral marketing campaign and laid all our thoughts out on the table…. Or rather, numerous white boards.

We submitted a proposal to Don and Steve the next day. Soon after that we heard from Steve saying that he was pretty excited to see what we could come up with. We met late on a Sunday night and nailed down all the details of the campaign. With Don conferencing in from Portland, they both gave us the green light to move forward with the campaign.

Since then, it’s been an absolute whirlwind.  We had only 5 days to get all the components in place for a launch. A homepage, Facebook, Twitter and most importantly: Kickstarter. Kickstarter is an amazing tool and we would not have been able to create this project without it.

Blue Like Jazz was a huge book for us. One could say that it is our generation’s Mere Christianity. It comes at faith, religion and Christianity in such a unique light…one we weren’t accustomed to seeing it in. We believe this story is important, and we believe that if this film is made – it could change things in way’s unthought of. We want to see this come to fruition, and if $125,000 is all that stands in the way, then we say… “Let’s do this.”

Thanks for reading. We are new at this, but we love being a part of this story.

Z+J

If you have any questions, shoot us an email at savebluelikejazz@gmail.com

Together we can make this happen. Let’s Save Blue Like Jazz!

Z+J