This is Crowdsourcing Mornings! This post takes place every weekday morning and highlights one crowdsourcing project I liked from Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or other crowdsourcing websites.
Please read our crowdsourcing guidelines at: https://geekalabama.com/media-kit-pr/geek-alabama-crowdsourcing-guidelines
Hey, I’m Musa, a Denver-based artist, and I’m on a journey with my son Glen to create a multi-media hip-hop/samurai film about our lives!
This project is really unlike anything I’ve ever created before – a black samurai story with live-action puppetry and animation.
I’ve assembled a team of creatives from the Denver community to bring this story to life:
- Casey Kawaguchi – a Japanese American illustrator and muralist who’s already begun to help envision the world in which the “Assassin with Son” characters reside
- Ryan Langan – a master fabricator and builder who is building the physical sets and props
- Michael Sperandeo – a 3-D designer who is rendering puppet heads in the likeness of Glen and me, and helping to build both authentic Japanese traditional and hyper-surrealistic sets
- Courtney Ozaki – my co-executive producer, and the founder of the Japanese Arts Network (JA-NE). Courtney’s working with the artists to create scaled costumes and film environments that are reflective of a Japanese samurai film setting mixed with the Rocky Mountains and urban sprawl of Colorado. Courtney’s organization will also explore how mixing the story-telling aesthetics of Japanese culture with Black hip-hop culture can inform the modern-day narrative and realities of “Assassin with Son”
- Kayvan Khalatbari – my other co-executive producer and entrepreneur
- Corina Espinosa – a professional puppeteer and animator who teachers art at the University of Colorado
- Holly Peterson Hurd – a costume designer and fabricator
- Fa’al Ali – our cinematographer and director of photography
- Kuniharu Yoshida – a Master Japanese calligrapher
- Ra Bailey – my music production and business partner
- Chris Guillot – our sound designer and mixing engineer
- Oren Lomena – a multi-talented artist and part of or writing team
- R. Alan Brooks – a graphic novel creator, artist, and creative consultant
- Casey Karns – a local entrepreneur and our production director
- Sensei Dennis King is training me in one of the oldest Japanese martial arts involving swordsmanship, ‘kendo’!
The money we raise will go directly to pay the artists, painters, sculptors, fabricators, graphic designers, puppeteers, film crew, staff, etc a fair living wage.
As of June 25th, this project has raised $32,000 of their $30,000 goal. This project has 5 days left to raise as much as it can. For a pledge of $10, you will get a digital soundtrack download. For a pledge of $25, you will get digital access to the film. To learn more and to pledge money, go to: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/assassinwithson/assassin-with-son?
