Denver filmmakers seek funding for movie with furry subplot
Gaylord Street Films, a small film-production company in Denver, Colorado, is seeking funding for a new film-noir project.
And the script features furries.
The film, entitled The Honey Cooler, is to be shot over the coming Summer and has the following synopsis:
They were lean times. The economy had gone to crap and you could troll for work from Grand Junction to Fort Collins to Colorado Springs and spend more on gas than you’d be making. Sid Pink had been one of the best damn private dicks the Rocky Mountain State had ever seen, but now he was sitting on top of the scrap heap of Denver, licking his wounds and drinking himself into a coma. That is, until a knock at the door brings new hope and new peril.
A fat-cat pharmaceutical exec’s gone missing and his wife will do anything to get him back. But is it out of love or to protect a dirty secret? Sid musters enough energy to mobilize for a far-too-infrequent payday, but winds up getting more than he bargained for as he descends into a murky world filled with Furries who want to screw him and Lucha Libre wrestlers who want to kill him. When his trusty assistant — who he hasn’t even paid in months — turns up missing, the stakes are raised even higher. Will Sid be able to shake off the demons of his past, find her, and solve the case before it’s too late? Or will old habits die hard, and him along with them? Find out in The Honey Cooler.
The producers are seeking financial backers to fund the film, and various incentives are being offered for donations. A $1 pledge will get you a "Special Thanks" in the film's closing credits, while those who have "always secretly wanted to dress up like an animal and do strange things with other people in animal costumes" can pledge $300 and appear in the film, "playing a furry" in the story's "big mansion scene".
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The big million dollar question is whether or not this film will put "Furries" in a slightly flattering light or whether it will fall back on the sweeping stereotypes and stigmas that have haunted the fandom for so long. Based upon the context of the plot summary, I would take this movie with a grain of salt.
Even if this movie inadvertently takes pot-shots at furries, I believe we should show people the great things we do such as charitable works and encourage people to understand the culture and it's many facets. Uncle Kage has done this well in quite a number of interviews.
I smell "Eyes Wide Shut" with fursuits.
If you follow the link with the synopsis, you'll see that's pretty much how they describe it themselves:
To be fair, the sex scenes *were* the only reason to watch 'Eyes Wide Shut'.
Furries attempting unsolicited sex with a pharmaceutical executive? What an outrage! It's only one step lower than having sex with a lawyer!
Any film-maker with sufficient skill, planning and imagination could shoot a furry movie -- simply film lots of 'location footage' with hidden video cameras at AnthroCon, film your actors interacting with the 'regular' furries, then structure all this raw footage around dramatic scenes shot using your own fursuits in the rooms and hallways of another hotel (one hotel looks much like any other, after all).
You have to remember that, wearing fursuits, it's not like you can see anyone's lips move. In other words, you could simply take shots of furries filmed at a con and overdub any dialogue you wanted to fit a plot.
There's a 1970 movie, 'Performance', about a gangster on the run from his fellow crooks, who has to hide out among a group of hippies, but ends up enjoying their lifestyle more than he bargained for. That would be a good idea for a furry feature film.
No, a good idea for a furry feature film would be one where there's talking animals. And they, like, do stuff, who really cares, I just want more movies with talking animals, is what I'm saying.
A feature film about furry fans would be an hour and a half of some nerd typing on the Internet. Then he goes to a con and hangs out with some other nerds. Maybe somebody makes a bad animal pun. The end.
Well, hell, it worked for Kevin Smith when he made 'Clerks' -- basically 90 minutes of guys talking in a convenience store, shot on a miniscule budget -- right? The challenge would be to write good/funny/interesting dialogue for that long.
The furry 'community', such as it is, has costumes and props aplenty; it has members who'd be willing to donate money; it has convention space to shoot in; it has people who have been to film school and theater; it has artists who are talented enough to draw professional-quality storyboards and posters.
If furries want to see a truly furry movie, then they have the power -- like Kevin Smith, like Robert Rodriguez, like Wes Anderson, like so many young, indie directors before -- to gather their resources and determination, and actually go out and shoot one.
Eh, good point and well made.
Change the penultimate word from shoot to animate, and I'm on your side.
While most of the parts of a film could be assembled with the help of the fandom, what is really missing is some insight and clear guiding vision for a good film, regardless of it being furry or not. Setting out to make a movie involving furries for the sake of making a movie about furries would probably completely miss that, and while such a film could be assembled, it would probably come out pretty bland. You need someone to come up with a good story and inspiration first, whether through creative talent or serendipity, that just happens to include furries, then the rest could come.
Point of clarification, here. Do you mean furry (the noun) as in "member of the furry fandom" or furry (the noun) as in "anthropomorphic animal character?" Though, in both cases, your point still stands, so it doesn't really matter.
As far as talent is concerned, there's a lot of it in the fandom, arguably mostly going to waste. I think a movie involving "anthropomorphic animal characters" would be easier; as already pointed out, the average furry isn't a very interesting subject. Not to say it couldn't be done; it would just be harder. Also, I don't think the furry fandom would be served well by a movie about them; conflict is drama, so the negative aspects would, perforce, be brought forward.
Anthropomorphic animal characters have the challenge of "having a point." For the average furry fan, this is academic; the characters are their own point. But a movie requires a larger investment than your average artwork, comic or even novel. It would require what is known as "crossover" appeal to bring enough "new" fans to the table, as I do not believe the furry fandom is large enough in itself to make a movie at least financially successful.
I've actually written a furry screenplay (of the anthropomorphic animal character sort) that is in fact a furry slasher, and this thread has inspired me to dust it off, so to speak. I chose the slasher genre to "cross over" with for four reasons; one, horror movies, historically, very rarely are not successful financially, even bad ones (and, possibly, especially bad ones), two, the slasher genre is very cyclical, and it seems to be cycling now, three, most slasher fans have seen everything, then the sequels to everything, then the remakes to everything, but they haven't seen what I'm proposing, and four, well, I just like horror movies. So, in addition to furry fans, it would "cross-over" to horror fans and could also easily "cross-over" to animation fans who are tired of CG and/or anime.
Right now, I actually know a small-scale, local director of more or less hobby horror films (I have not talked to him at all at this point, but I could), and I could probably easily get some kind of local investors. That being said, furry "backing," if its possible, would be a big boost, and I am quite willing to send my original screenplay along with a proposal outline of a new version (the original screenplay is really just a rough draft) if anyone is truly interested (at one point, I had the Mitch of CYD "on the line," as it were, but then he kind of disappeared off the face of the planet after that site went offline). You can easily find a way to contact me via my Flayrah profile.
Sounds terrible. If they do it right it could have some redeeming qualities and maybe even some cultish appeal, my guess though is it will be just plain terrible.
I guess if folks want to part with their money to get a snippet of internet fame they could make the donation, I find it strange that they require so much to appear in the movie though. They could have their pick of which suits would appear if it were free or minimal to join but maybe they're familiar with the desire of furries/fursuiters to get the internet cred and thought this was a good way to take advantage of that.
One last thing -- I'm reminded of the controversial 1980 movie 'Crusing', in which detective Al Pacino has to pretend to be gay and hang around gay S&M clubs (the activities of which are shown in jaw-droppingly explicit detail) in order to catch a serial killer who's going after gays. How about a furry version of that plotline?
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I believe it made them appear that way it'd be put on XTube not YouTube.
Sounds terrible. Hope they don't get any funding.
*sigh*
Wake me up when a small film features anthropomorphic animals in adult situations; this sounds like one of those films where all the producers will have the same last name, if you catch my drift. If you don't, here's the translation: it's going to be bad, any way you put it. Something tells me this ain't the next Evil Dead.
As far as furries are concerned, guy's research would probably be Entourage.
Furries in a mansion ...
The plot is terrible.
Right on, Mister Twister. Kids, if you want to watch good "hard-boiled" detective stories with a Furry theme, I recommend Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Man Allegedly available on DVD.
umm... filmmakers are the one's that typically pay their actors and extras... not the other way around.
screwing as in yiffing or screwing as in he cant go anywhere within this place of torture?
by the sounds of this, its the first one. *face palms*
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