THE LAST TRUE FAN
by Michael Tricca
directed by Em Perez
produced by Ryan Michael Dunn
associate producer, Ann Li
INCEPTION
When I set out to plan a story, the first thing I detail in my outline is what I am afraid of. In 2020, I departed from my undergraduate campus and entered a world of social isolation for the rest of my college years; in 2022, I graduated from school to the release of ChatGPT; in 2023, I completed a screenwriting class even as the Writers’ Guild of America confronted an existential threat with a strike.
“The Last True Fan” is not a film that fears the future. “The Last True Fan” is a film that seeks to caution its audience against a future where algorithms are enabled to serve as an analogue for intimacy and human ingenuity.
HISTORY
“The Last True Fan” was received positively by the Big Break 2024 film festival, where it was lauded for its “solid sense of humor, and coherent thematic messages about technology, mental illness, and certainty in the post-information age.”
It went on to become a Quarterfinalist at the Big Break and the Outstanding Screenplays competition; further revisions and submissions saw it claim a Semifinalist position at the Cinequest Screenwriting Competition. While the platform was still solvent, The Last True Fan was in the top 8% of all discoverable projects on Coverfly, where it also made the Top 20 of September 2024 for its category.
CURRENT EFFORTS
The festival success of “The Last True Fan” has galvanized my collaborators and I to lift it off the page and bring it into the world. Our goal is to make a film that is not only a compelling story amidst a turbulent collective conscience, but also to inspire audiences to deeply consider the future they meet each day, and take a stand for the version of that future they believe in—hopefully, one marked by truth, trust, and love rather than opportunistic deception and banal infractions against the common good.
RYAN’S JOURNEY
When I was a little kid, I remember looking to the future with a sense of awe. To little me, the days to come were filled with adult milestones and the chance of something better. Sometime around 2016, I started consciously trying to ignore thoughts of the future that seemed too hopeful; those hopeful ambitions felt more and more naive with each passing day. Some people took the opposite approach, assuring themselves things were just going to blow over any day now, and we’d all be okay again soon. It wasn’t just me, and it wasn’t just part of growing up. I could feel those around me changing their tuning to a future made rotten. John Oliver blew up a “2016” statue on his show, the implication being that we would all root for 2017 to be better, together. “That was terrible – screw you, 2016!”
Remember when we used to say stuff like that?
What compels me about Michael’s script is the tone with which it handles a bleak near-future – looking squarely in the face of what’s to come, neither glaring nor flinching. It’s neither overly naive nor pessimistic. It doesn’t pretend to have an exact, prescribed solution – but it does offer us some building blocks, like human connection and humor. And if you still care about those things, then you too are a Last True Fan.
MICHAEL’S JOURNEY
I was raised with a love for stories that blossoms from my love for people. Stories aren’t just ideas: they’re things we can hold.
I remember being a kid curled up in my dad’s arms at night while he read “Larry Hopper” to me, his real-time spoofing of Harry Potter. I remember my mom telling me about passing notes written in Tolkien’s Sindarin script in her English class; I remember glancing over her shoulder at a draft of the novel she sidelined to raise my siblings and I.
I grew older, met peers who love writing—Ryan one of them. I remember sitting in their basement with our other friends, passing our scripts back and forth over cartons of Chinese food. I remember huddling around Coleman’s living-room table, grease from his mom’s cooking staining the character sheet of my genasi swordmage while we rolled dice and poured over maps of Arldien.
I remember getting to college and producing my writing more and more; I remember seeing actors pouring over copies of my script for a play festival. I remember years and years of theatre, the impossibility of staging a show without human effort and collaboration.
And now. I remember finding my way to my current home, New York City, in the arms of play festivals and table readings that got me my first arts gigs here.
“The Last True Fan” is a tribute to the art we may hold, the art that touches us. It’s a tribute to the people who make stories happen.
CALL TO ACTION
Our team needs your help to bring this project to fruition. Our dream is to create art at a time when our efforts are rapidly being replaced by artificial intelligences; our dream is to build careers in the creative industries at a time when the artificial intelligences taking our roles are being built on stolen art—these companies are literally destroying books to create the machines that will replace their authors.
We seek the support of three type of people: those who want to see the creation of moving art, those who believe in an intentional approach to the future, and those who identify with both of the above categories. We will be using our patrons’ generous funding to support a production process that aligns with the ideology of “The Last True Fan”: one marked by rich artistic collaboration and rightful compensation of our human artists.
HOW YOUR SUPPORT WILL SHAPE US
WHAT WE’LL DO WITH $7000
Over 90% of our funds will go to paying professional actors and technicians fair rates. Much of our costs are covered via in-kind donations from Cal State LA, in the form of equipment and space.
For every $10 you donate, about $6 will go towards our invaluable technicians, $3 will go towards paying our fantastic actors, and $1 will go towards feeding those folks on a long shoot day.
OUR WILDEST DREAMS
Our journey doesn’t end after $7000 raised—here’s what your continued support affords us:
It allows us to cover the travel costs of our creative team, bringing talent in from far and wide and alleviating the economic burden of high fuel costs on them.
It allows us to rent rehearsal spaces and pay our team to rehearse, honing each scene to be the best it can be.
It allows us to set aside money for the post-production process, when we will need to compensate skilled editors for their efforts in bringing the film together for the final cut.
It allows us to set aside money to apply to film festivals and competitions, expanding the project’s reach and impact and increasing recognition of the team’s efforts.
It allows us to tackle unexpected costs. The world is unpredictable, and monetary reserves would allow us to overcome variables that could be an unexpected thorn in our side.
It allows us to pay our team more. It’s all too common for artists to “suffer for their craft”; we would rather be able to offer our team compensation that reflects our appreciation of their work.