Welcome to the Crowdsourcing Mornings segment! Every weekday morning, Geek Alabama talks about and features one crowdsourcing project from crowdsourcing sites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and others. The hope with Crowdsourcing Mornings is to feature and help a project be successful and reach its fundraising goal. Please enjoy today’s featured project!
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My friend George once said: “I know what a deadline is. A deadline is when you have a 97 year old veteran waiting on you, and he is saying he doesn’t have much time. Everything else can go to the side.”
For the past year, myself and two of my closest friends – Josh and George, have been travelling across the country to locate and interview the last surviving veterans from World War II who participated in the air war. We have been blessed to already locate and record with 18 of them, and we even made documentaries on two of them. Many of these veterans withheld many of their stories after the war ended – not wanting to speak of their experience. So much of their stories were undocumented – until now. Because were able to locate and interview a handful of them, we were able to capture history. History – that would have otherwise – been lost.
However, we are now faced with a problem: We have had more veterans reach out, wanting to share their stories with us. But because of how time sensitive this endeavor is, we cannot fund these trips alone in the amount of time necessary.
So, we are looking to raise funds to help contribute to airfare, hotels, and rental cars as we travel to meet and interview these heroes. I will continue to fund a large portion of this project myself, but in order to reach all of the veterans currently on our list, we will need to meet this goal.
As a part of this campaign, we have put together some fantastic rewards for supporters! They range from posters for the movie, to personalized videos from veterans, to even coming WITH US to research or record the interviews! But more than anything, the greatest reward will be knowing that you helped keep the legacy alive of the heroes of World War II.
With the footage that we get from these interviews, we will be making a great number of personal recreations and mini-documentaries for individual veterans that will be posted on the TJ3 History YouTube and Facebook pages, as well as distributed in any other ways we can find. But in addition to the mini-documentaries, we will also be making full length feature films that will combine interviews from multiple veterans. The first that we are announcing, which will be the primary film of this campaign, will be “Flying the Fortress” – a documentary following the stories of multiple B-17 crewmembers.
As of right now, we have already recorded four interviews with B-17 veterans that will be featured in this feature film. We currently have four others waiting right now.
At the end of our travels in the first quarter of 2024, we plan to take all of the footage from the B-17 veterans and begin work on editing, writing, and post production. Then, we hope to have the project finished and ready by Veterans Day 2024.
There is only one chance to complete this project, as in just a few years, nearly all of these veterans from the second World War will be gone. We hope that you will help us capture their stories and preserve this crucial history.
As of November 24th, this project has raised $15,400 of their $15,000 goal. This project has 21 days left to raise as much as it can. For a pledge of $10, you will get your name in the credits. For a pledge of $25, you will get to view the documentary early. To learn more and to pledge money, go to: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1509787691/flying-the-fortress-saving-world-war-ii-history?
