My Million Dollar Movie

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1 My Million Dollar Movie

[edit] My Million Dollar Movie

My Million Dollar Movie is a website conceived by Casey Walker, a television and commercial director from Thunder Bay, Canada. The idea for the site came about when Walker was trying to come up with a way of funding the production of a feature film he had co-written with his friend and colleague Jon Tucker. Around this time, Walker saw a report on Alex Tew’s The Million Dollar Homepage and My Million Dollar Movie began to take shape. The idea is relatively simple. The screenplay for the movie, “Free For All...But You!”, is already written, what it needs now are producers. Frames are on sale for $10 Canadian (current exchange rates) and anyone who buys one becomes an Assistant Producer. This entitles them to upload a picture or video onto the site and also link to their own website, a number of producers are already using this feature to advertise their own sites. Each producer will also receive a credit in the movie and a share in any profits the movie makes. Producers may purchase as many or as few frames as they would like, the more they buy, the higher they move up the credits and the larger their share in any profits. So far, My Million Dollar Movie has attracted investors from all over the world and from all walks of life. There are producers in New Zealand, China, Hungary, UK, USA and Czech Republic to name but a few. In total, Walker has attracted producers from eighteen countries on five continents. The producers themselves are very diverse and include a former World Junior Karate Champion (Will Bokan), a former Miss United Kingdom (Brooke Johnston) and a co-founder of Netscape (Bill Foss) amongst others. This seems to illustrate quite a wide appeal for such a project.

[edit] Origins and Development

Walker had always wanted to direct a feature film but the process for obtaining funding for independent films, either through the government or privately, can be a long, drawn out one. Not wanting to wait for this, Walker was determined to create an alternative. He hit upon the idea of funding the movie by selling individual frames but didn’t know how to go about it. Around the same time, he saw a report on The Million Dollar Homepage created by Alex Tew and decided to set up the My Million Dollar Movie website as a platform for selling the frames. The My Million Dollar Movie site began steadily with Walker promoting it through social networking sites such as facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Eventually, once things had started moving, Walker secured the services of a PR company and launched officially on 9th May, 2008. My Million Dollar Movie has now appeared in articles for The Times and Reuters and Walker has started to receive more and more interview requests. If My Million Dollar Movie succeeds, then "Free For All...But You!" will be the first feature film ever funded entirely via the internet. Walker is aiming to begin shooting the film in late summer 2008 or early spring 2009.

[edit] Social Responsibility

Walker has also shown with this project that he has a strong social conscience. He has committed to giving 10% of the movie’s profits to three charities, Make Poverty History, David Suzuki Foundation and Heart and Stroke Foundation. Walker has also committed to donating 1% of the production company’s profits to another good cause, 1% For The Planet.

“

I'm delighted to be a part of this exciting project. Casey's efforts to assist worthy charities and work carbon neutral is to be commended. We're not only producing a great film, we're ensuring a cleaner planet at the same time.

”

- Brooke Johnston, PETA spokesperson and former Miss United Kingdom 2005