Hey, We're Making a Feature-Length Film, and YOU Can Help! (A Word from the Screenwriter and Associate Producer)

 

A screenshot from the script of Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss

Hello there, Dear Reader. I’m writing this post because the folks at Popcorn Sky Productions – including this blogger – are starting work on a new film project that follows the characters from Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss into the realm of feature length films. The entire cast of that short film – Adria K. Woomer-Hernandez, Anthony Hernandez, and Juan Carlos Hernandez – who’s also our director – will be back in their roles of Ronnie, Jerry, and Guillermo Ronderos. I will return as well as one of the writers, plus I will be doing double duty as associate producer.

While we do not as of yet have a title, much less a complete screenplay, we have a good idea about the story, its themes, and its characters.

Here’s how Adria and Juan describe the project:

The film is to consider the issues of political extremism (which we satirized in Ronnie) but this time around, let's look at the costs of being hyper-partisan. And in order to do that, we have to ask the question, "What matters most to this guy? His politics, or his loved ones?"

My interest in doing a sequel to Ronnie has its genesis in the November 2020 election, President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede once the final results were officially vetted, and the January 6 attack on the Capitol. When casting about for a story to pitch to Juan and Adria, my mind kept on returning to Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss and Guillermo’s pro-Trump stance throughout that comedy “about today.” And every time that happened, I’d wonder how Guille would act in that troubled time when our democracy was under actual physical attack by people who shared his world view.

Juan as Guillermo (Guille) Ronderos in Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss.

Juan and Adria liked the idea and said I could go for it. At the same time, they said they want to make this a feature length film, with multiple locations, a bigger cast, and a bigger budget.

Now, thus far we have been making shorts with ridiculously low budgets. I don’t know how much A Simple Ad or Clown 345 cost, but I remember that in the first draft of Ad, I had to change the item in the advert from a boy’s bike to a skateboard because we had no bike on hand.

Ronnie cost all of $100, mainly for the real cuts of flank steak that were used in the “here’s your dinner” scene. Juan told me that he and Adria froze the burnt meat and stored it in the freezer in case they needed to redo the scene. (This is confirmed in Ronnie’s IMDb.com page.)

However, we can’t go on writing and making movies for free anymore. (We could, but it’s a waste of our talent and time to do these things just to upload them on YouTube for no financial or critical rewards,)  And if we want to make a feature with more actors, different locales, and a happy cast and crew, we need one thing; financial support.

As far as budgets go, we are not asking for a lot. Certainly not $200,000,000 like James Cameron’s Titanic, nor the $11,000,000 (in 1976 dollars) that 20^th Century Fox pitched in to make George Lucas’s Star Wars.

Our needs are a bit more modest – to make our movie, we need $50,000.

This will include travel costs, paying the cast and crew, and other production expenses. We’re looking at making the film in New York and Miami, and that, dear friends, involves mucho dinero that we just don’t have on hand right now.

The cool thing, though, is that you can help by making a donation to the GoFundMe campaign Adria and Juan have set up.  It doesn’t have to be a large contribution; if you can afford to make a $1000 or $100 donation, that’d be awesome. But if you can donate $10, $15, $20, or $25, that’d be awesome, too.

As Adria wrote in the GoFundMe pitch:

Popcorn Sky has produced films for the last 20 years, such as The Cave( short), Waking Up In Astoria, Statico, A Simple Ad (short), Clown 345, Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss, and most recently a short comedy program called El Grande de Corona.  We are happy that Alex will be joining us for the first time as Associate Producer.

We believe in this campaign.  We believe in Alex's story because he writes with compassion, conviction, and with a wonderful sense of humor.
 
Thank you so much for your support!  In thanks, we will make sure everyone who donated gets a copy of the final project!

Please consider donating. You will be helping out a cast and crew to create a film that we all believe in, plus…you’ll get a copy of the finished film.

Oh, and if you have not watched Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss, you can see it here!

Thanks, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Popcorn Sky's Next Film Campaign