DECLASSIFIED
My name is Tennyson E. Stead, and I am a writer and director in Hollywood's independent film community. I'm also a traumatic brain injury survivor, and was struck in the head with a sword on the set of a science-fiction adventure webseries on April 20, 2013. Since that day I have lived with symptoms including motor tremors, motor complications which affect my vocal chords and speech, balance and walking complications, constant dizziness, fatigue and pain as well as a body of social stigmas that make the act of socializing very awkward indeed and the possibility of finding new opportunities for employment extremely unlikely! Even at this late stage of the healing process, the possibility of getting any help from the responsible production company is something my attorneys are still trying to work out on my behalf.
In spite of these limitations, what I've accomplished in the independent film community over the last three years is notable even by the standards of the able-bodied. My repertory film company's business model has taken firm shape, partly because of my efforts to leave behind a roadmap for 8 Sided Films to account for the possibility of fatal complications in the wake of my accident. All our business practices were recorded and published on a blog I titled The Developmental Breakdown. Our first feature film, Quantum Theory, is one step away from pre-production... and we have three more films in active development. If anyone has questions about these projects, I invite them to ask me on my 8 Sided Forum profile.
In the meantime, I want to make sure my ensemble and I continue to entertain the audience that has supported us through this difficult process! Our fans deserve new stories from us, and the actors of our ensemble deserve the chance to engage our fans. In the words of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, "We are actors. We are the opposite of people... we need an audience." Our relationship with our audience is the force that drives all our creativity and keeps our family together. Without that, we have nothing. My own strength and resilience in the face of my disability flows from my commitment to the ensemble and our audience, and this Go Fund Me is my request for help in keeping those relationships healthy and vital!
What is DECLASSIFIED?
Declassified is a found-footage science-fiction webseries in which archival records of American top secret Cold War projects are released to the public record. Every season is the testimony of a flawed, shortsighted human struggling in the face of awesome world-shaping technologies to make their mark on history.
Our first season of DECLASSIFIED revolves around archival footage of a top-secret NASA operation called PROJECT ICARUS. In the summer of 1977, facing budget cuts in the aftermath of a cancelled Apollo Program, NASA officials and defense contractors conspired to launch a covert, one-way manned expedition to Saturn's moon of Titan. Using experimental engines and Apollo-Era technology, Cpt. Wick "Moose" Pearce was sent on an 8-year suicide mission in a political ploy to reignite the Space Race. Captain Pearce will be played by 8 Sided Player Gerard Marzilli.
Future seasons of DECLASSIFIED are already in development. Once PROJECT ICARUS is concluded, we can move right onto PROJECT PERSEPHONE DECLASSIFIED and PROJECT DELPHI DECLASSIFIED, starring other members of the ensemble. If people like it, this is work we can keep doing for a good long while!
Completing PROJECT ICARUS DECLASSIFIED will take us just $500, and any additional funding supporters like yourself provide can go right into making future seasons as great as they can be. Getting this money as soon as possible means we can begin the work and produce the twelve episodes of PROJECT ICARUS within the next two months. There's lots more work coming - and some more content as well - once our director of photography returns to LA from his current feature film production... so we have no time to waste!
THANK YOU.
Being able to tell stories like these with the magnificent craftspeople and showpeople of 8 Sided Films is the very reason I've persevered in the wake of my brain injury. This Go Fund Me is not about medical costs or seeking alternative therapies, and there's a reason for that! Those things are certainly important, but they're not nearly as important as giving great work to my ensemble or giving great shows to our audience. Maybe those values sound backwards to most of the people reading this... but without those values, there is no showbusiness. If 8 Sided Films is growing and our audience is growing, then my own needs and the needs of the ensemble will be taken care of in due time. Please, help 8 Sided Films and the truly exquisite performers of the 8 Sided Players flourish, and help us keep entertaining people in the wake of a disaster that no showperson should have to live with. Help bring DECLASSIFIED to the internet!
