Earlier this year, 30-year-old actor, Chris Lowell, who is known for his roles in The Help, and Veronica Mars, launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise $60,000 for his first directed film, Beside Still Waters. The project not only raised its initial goal, it scored over $205,000 thanks to 2,281 backers. Now, with the film gearing up for its release in limited U.S. theaters, along with digital and video-on-demand platforms, Lowell is ready to discuss the movie’s already success.
According to the film synopsis, Beside Still Waters is a film about a young man struggles for closure after the death of his parents. The young man deals with sex, drugs, mischief and regret. But the film is not able how he handles these things, it is how he continues to grow friendships along his journey. The film stars Ryan Eggold, Beck Bennett, Will Brill, Brett Dalton, Erin Darke, Jessy Hodges, Britt Lower, and Reid Scott.
During a recent interview with Yahoo! Lowell revealed he decided to turn to the funding method after potential distributors backed away from the project out of concern that the audience wouldn’t been big enough. Lowell stated, “We were at the lowest point we had ever been with the movie, because we needed to raise $60,000.”
Discussing the reaction after the campaign’s success, Lowell revealed, “It was so profoundly successful that all these distributors who were on the fence about whether or not there would be an audience, were suddenly seeing a huge audience with thousands of people… pledging. There was a real understanding that this was not a campaign run by a studio or social media companies.”
In regards to what it felt like to direct Beside Still Waters, Lowell added, “With this film, you could have blooper reels, you can tell jokes, you can be silly, you can talk about a bigger group of friends, which is the campaign itself. Drug abuse in teenagers in the South, you can’t make a silly video about that.”
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