Help Us Fund Our "Child's Play" Documentary

Hi!

My name is Kyra Gardner. I am fundraising in order to to afford clip and music rights licensing for my feature film documentary on the Child's Play franchise titled, "Living With Chucky." As well as to finish our post-production work on the film such as sound mixing, color grading, and creating a chain of title for the movie. All in the hopes for distribution to a streaming service this October. 

BACKGROUND ON THE PROJECT:

I grew up in the film and was raised by a parent prominent in the horror genre. For me, fake dead bodies, puppets, and monsters were part of the family. My dad, Tony Gardner, is a special effects makeup artist and his work has always had a huge impact on me. He’s done all kinds of things from Return of the Living Dead, to Darkman, Aliens, 127 Hours, The Addams Family, Hocus Pocus, and more. But most importantly he came onto the Child’s Play  franchise when I was four years old to create the killer doll Chucky.

Long story short, Chucky has been at the helm of my childhood and I consider him to be my little (older) brother. During my sophomore year at film school at Florida State University I decided to make a documentary on growing up alongside the Child’s Play franchise called, "The Dollhouse." The film opened at and premiered for Cult of Chucky at film festivals such as Toronto After Dark and Fright Fest. It was such an amazing experience for me that I am so grateful to have. Eventually NBCUniversal ended up purchasing and distributing the seven minute short onto the Cult of Chucky and box set DVD bonus features.

I had over eight hours of interview footage with actors and crew from the Childs Play franchise. And felt that a seven minute short on a cult horror franchise that has lasted over thirty years just didn't do it justice. Considering I had so much footage already, I decided to film more interviews with other cast members in my spare time throughout the rest of college such as Jennifer Tilly and Alex Vincent. After graduating I sought out remaining cast members that were based in Los Angeles and sat down to edit the feature length film - intending to go to the film festival circuit with the documentary.

I was basically a one woman show then - utilizing friends from film school to help me film these interviews in exchange for food and little money. When I had a decent cut of the film and went to license the footage through Universal - I was told I could not the, "Fair Use Clause," for the film and that there is no differences in licensing for film festivals and television when it comes to Universal Studios. The labor of love project I had basically already created for little money now cost more than $200,000 in clip licensing fees. Which doesn't include the music rights or clip licensing for the original Child's Play from MGM studios - as MGM owns the first film, and Universal the later 6 films (this film does not cover the reboot in 2019).

I brought on a producing partner and we were off to try and get the funds through investors and had many people interested in coming onto the project as executive producers. Then, Covid-19 happened. People were out of work, the stock market was unstable, and we lost our investors. With Covid lasting over a year (and still on-going) we are now taking it into our own hands to try and fundraise these remaining funds here.

By raising the remaining funds through crowdfunding we can fully own the film ourselves. Rather than have a distributor pick up the costs and own part of the film. We would have the opportunity to have a choice (should many distributors be interested) of which service would be best for this audience and where to go with the film. We would have much more control of the movie - rather than being controlled by whichever distributor pitched in the remaining monies.

As I am a young filmmaker aspiring in the horror genre, this has all been a huge learning experience for me in the distribution world. By donating you will be helping me finish a labor of love project I have worked on intermittently for the past five years and bring this to fruition. The film is 80% done as it stands now - and the only thing in our way in getting this movie seen by Chucky fans is the money for the finishing costs.

With your donation we will be able to obtain clip licensing from Universal Studios with all clip, SAG, WGA, PGA, and DGA fees accounted for, for Child's Play 2 - Cult of Chucky in the franchise. As well as obtain the clip licensing with all SAG, WGA,PGA, and DGA fees accounted for in licensing clips from MGM Studios for the original Child's Play  film. In addition to that your donation will help us obtain all music licensing within the films to use in our documentary as well as pay our on screen talent for their time filming with us. Funds would also help provide us with a legal team to guide us through the negotiation and legal process with these movie and music studios. And lastly with your donation we will be able to take our finished edit of the film next month and get a professional color grade and sound mix to give the film the best quality when fully finished. 

As we all know Covid is still going on, I am greatly appreciative of every dollar donated as I know not everyone has the means to donate at this time. I am so appreciative of any funds raised to help us meet our goal and to own our own film as much as possible. I am also so grateful for anyone who does not have the means to donate but boosts and shares this link with others so that our fundraiser gets traction. I mean it when I say even just $1 counts in helping us reach our goal. Thank you all so much!!

(We are going to do our best with a legal team to negotiate these prices down throughout the paperwork process. If the costs come down we plan on using whatever money that wasn't used and putting it back into the pockets of the horror fans through giveaways for those who donated, special events, or an early screening if possible, etc. But by having our goal at $300,000 we would be raising the total amount should we not be able to get that price down so that we are still covered). 

If you have any questions please email [email redacted]