Saturday, November 2, 2013

Trailer actor lands role with Tom Hanks as a Navy Seal in "Captain Phillips"

"There's plenty more out at the blockhouse. Now I'm wonderin'..fightin' men, of Ft. Henry...I'm wondering which of you has the courage to go and fetch it!" - Dave Meadows as Jonathan Zane in the Betty Zane: Legend of Ft. Henry Trailer.

We knew this guy was going to be good! Head out to the local theater and see Dave make his big screen debut alongside Tom Hanks in "Captain Phillips". In the movie, Dave appears as one of the Navy Seals who boards Captain Phillips' boat in pursuit of the pirates. He also has some screen time as a military operator in the command center. Congratulations, Dave, on your appearance in your first Hollywood feature film! We'll hold your role as John Zane until your schedule frees up ;)

Getting closer...

We've managed to pick up some new private sponsorships. For those of you who have cared enough to contribute Thanks so much! It's always great to see that goal total go up!

We've also put in for a WV state media grant for the humanities. We will be hearing as to the status of that grant within the next few months. In the meantime, we've been doing local radio and trying to spread the word about the project far and wide. we'd like to ask everyone who is so inclined to continue helping us to do so. Thanks!

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Nearly made the cut for a Reality TV series

Earlier this year, we...Shooters Productions...were invited to New York as possible candidates to be featured on a new TV reality series produced by Peter Billingsly (Ralphie from "A Christmas Story"), actor Vince Vaughn, and TV and radio host Glenn Beck. The show is called, "Pursuit of the Truth" and the idea was that we would be featured and followed over the course of a few months as we were trying to produce our documentary. The documentary we pitched was our own Betty Zane project, and we had to pass through several eliminations in order to be one of the final 100 that got the New York invite. While in New York, Shooter's own Joe Monahan was tasked with doing a 5 minute pitch on camera in front of a panel of judges, one of them being Billingsly himself, as to why our documentary should be produced. If we were chosen, we would then compete with 5 other finalists in a series of tasks that would be broadcast nationally on Glenn Beck's "The Blaze" network. The prize for winning the contest would be full production and distribution of the Betty Zane documentary.

Well, Joe gave his best 5 minute pitch...one of the judges even remarked that they were blown away by Betty's story, and even bothered to Google the subject after he left the room. In the end, out of 4000 applicants across the nation, Shooters made it down to the final 25 candidates before being eliminated. The final reason was that the perceived budget of the documentary we were trying to produce was more than was being offered as the grand prize, largely due to the fact that one of the contest stipulations was that Wild West Entertainment out of California would actually be doing the production, and the guys from Shooters would direct. Now, for the budget that was offered, Shooters could have pulled it off, as most of the work would be handled directly. For a California production company... they would have used up the budget before we got to the first location, so for them, it made sense to eliminate us in favor of a doc that was perceived to be less expensive.

We told them we would send them a copy when we got it done...their loss :) We would have loved the exposure, but in the end we did want to produce it ourselves, so we chalked it up to one wild ride, a great experience, and likely a blessing in disguise. If nothing else, the fact that we made it that far in a national contest, along with all the positive feedback we received simply strengthened our resolve. We walked away knowing that we had done our best. Onward and upward!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Hello Everyone! Much has happened in the past year concerning this project, and this blog needs a serious update. I must apologize...in some sort of password snafu, we lost access to the blog and have been trying to get it back. As you can see, we have finally succeeded. Stay tuned for the latest on the Betty Zane project!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Shooters on "Steve Novotney Live" this Thursday

Shooters Productions crew members Joe Monahan and Joe Jacobs will appear on WKKX 1600AM on Steve Novotney's show from 6:30pm-7pm, Thursday, September 20, 2012.

They will discuss the upcoming Betty Zane project and provide listeners with a little more information on how the project is proceeding and what some of the plans for the overall look will be. The purpose of the broadcast will be to give more than a brief history lesson. The project will be described in more detail from a film-makers approach.

Remember to tune in this Thursday evening!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Remembering 9-11

We would like to remember all the victims of 9-11 on this day. Our thoughts and prayers go to everyone who lost family and friends on this day 11 years ago.

In a rather ironic twist, today also marks the 230th anniversary of Betty Zane's powder run. If you noticed in the video trailer on this site, the final siege of Ft. Henry in which Betty made her run into legend also occurred on September 11. Let us never forget either one. They are heroes all.

Thanks to all who have supported thus far

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far! The sponsorships are slowly trickling in, and if you are keeping track of the Indiegogo site, we have actually received more funding than is showing. A few people have sent us sponsorships directly, and that is fantastic, but those do not show up in the running tally. We are working on integrating a more accurate count into the actual website, so stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, we hope it keeps going. Grant funding becomes far more likely if we can show community support, and grant agencies are likely to match any funding that we can manage to raise on our own, so please, tell your family, tell your friends, tell your boss, the guy down the street, your local history buffs...we need everyone to get behind this to help push it through!