On June 21, the CAMP UNITY team completed our second fundraising goal on IndieGoGo just in the nick of time (with only about 62 hours before the fundraising period closed). This is excellent news as we will be departing for Kurdistan in about 4 days! There is still a ton to do to prepare for the trip and these last minute funds arrived just in time to make sure that we will have everything we need for the 5 week shoot in Iraq. The money raised will be channelled into the equipment costs for filming the documentary (microphones, lighting gear, camera lenses, filters, etc.)
This would not have been possible without the support from friends, family, colleagues, and fans! I cannot thank everyone enough for the generous contributions and grassroots help in spreading the word about this incredible documentary opportunity! This IndieGoGo fundraising adventure has been an awesome experience, one that has greatly benefitted the CAMP UNITY project from its very beginning stages. I absolutely could not have done this alone, and I feel immensely lucky to have such an amazing network of people who are willing to back me up in my filmmaking projects.
Everything has been progressing quite smoothly so far, but I still cannot believe how quickly the time has passed and how soon I will find myself in Northern Iraq! It feels like I just wrote my first blog about the project and the fundraising efforts, and here I am with only 4 days to go before I begin the CAMP UNITY shoot…
I am both excited and nervous, but at the moment all emotions are being over-ridden by the last minute stress of pre-production. In many ways, I really can’t wait to just get there and start filming the project – thats always the best part of any film project as its when I feel the most in my “element”.
It will certainly be an interesting production! Aside form the general challenges posed by filming a feature-length documentary, I have recently been informed of some of the environmental factors that we will be faced with: the average temperature in Kurdistan is about 50 degrees Celsius (about 125 Fahrenheit) this time of year, sand and dust storms are not uncommon, the region is in the midst of a huge water shortage and aquatic resources continue to dwindle, and there is only electricity for about 5-6 hours of each day in the cities of Erbil and Suleimanya where the team will be based. Somehow I just cannot seem to keep myself away from difficult production scenarios!
Once again, thank you to everyone who has supported the CAMP UNITY documentary project so far! Please continue spreading the word and letting your friends and family know about this exciting project…
I will be blogging about the production while I am in Northern Iraq, so please check in to see how the Kurdish adventure is progressing and to watch the behind-the-scenes footage/video blogs we will be uploading (as long as the power/internet connections works in our favor!!!)
