I'm so grateful, I'm so fulfilled, I'm so tired.

By: Elena Weinberg

People keep asking me how I'm doing, if I'm relieved now that the campaign is launched, how excited I am, etc. I keep smiling and nodding and saying all the right things like "OMG yeah this is so exciting!" or "Well, now that the campaign is launched I'm feeling better!" But, as I sat down to write this blog, knowing that I meant to write about the Hometown Heroes portion of this campaign (I'll get to that in a minute) is I'm so tired.

This is my life, everyday: I wake up at 6am to catch up on social media client work, because I'm always behind. I fight traffic to go into the Austin Film Festival office (working in an office is great when the people you work with are great, which they are, but leaving your house an hour before what should be a 20 min drive makes no sense to me) and I'm there from 9am-6pm, sometimes later, then I come home and work my other new job, Stitch Fix (which I felt I had to take, because AFF only lasts through November), for 3-4 hours, THEN I WORK ON THIS CAMPAIGN WTF and then I sleep for a couple of hours and do it all over again. Sometimes, I fit in catching up with my Facebook messages or getting drinks with people even though I don't have time because I want to be on everyone's good side so that they will just follow this campaign god dammit.

I'm not writing this to ask you to feel sorry for me. I am aware that I did all of this to myself. And I am aware that a lot of people have it a lot harder than me. Like, come on, Elena. You're complaining about going into work to watch movies and come up with creative ways to market awesome films that have been selected for one of your favorite film festivals in the world. You're chasing your dreams one piece of content at a time. I get it, I get it. I'm writing this to hopefully let y'all in on a little secret: I'm constantly trying to keep it together because I care so damn much about this.

Okay, now I can segue into what I meant to write about. The Hometown Heroes part of this whole thing. The Duplass Brothers have put a $25K (INTEREST FREE) loan on the line for up to 5 people that are participating in this rally.

The Duplass Brothers are some of my heroes. I know I should probably have some female filmmaker heroes at the top of my list but right now, these guys are it. I'm not lying, sometimes, I just watch Mark Duplass' SXSW Keynote Speech and cry. I was in the room that day, I felt that energy, and video of it still moves me to tears. 

They're from here. Sorta. They were living in Austin when they made This is John. Literally 10 minutes (even in Austin traffic) from my house. They actually thought it was a prank call from Sundance when they got in because they had no help from the system, they were paving their ways themselves. They were a two man team for so long, counting on only each other, and it worked. And that's what Duncan and I have been trying to do. I'm not going to say we're modeling our career after them, or are trying to be them, (I did not know who they were when we first started making films back in 2013. I had to catch up a little) but their success has been extremely influential because they make it seem possible to do this.

I really wanted to put this clip in our pitch video, but the video was too long, so I settled for getting to push it out as peripheral content later:

Me, talking about timing before I knew the true definition of tired.

So, yeah. This Rally feels particularly special to me. I want to win. Like really badly. I know that if we don't we will still have some funds to make our first feature film and an audience that cares about us. And that's really really good. And we'll be in a position to create jobs for people in a dying industry in Austin right now - we'll just be able to do that BETTER if we win this thing. 

So please join us. And keep asking me to go for drinks, and let me be kind of a zombie when we're there. Crowdfunding doesn't just exist on the Internet, and no matter how tired I am, I want to see your face and I want to hug you when you follow the campaign out of nowhere or make a contribution that's way more than I asked of you, or, maybe you're still on the fence about joining this crazy adventure and you're open to me talking your ear off over a Negroni and convincing you. I promise we'll talk about you too.

Fund/Follow here: seedandspark.com/fund/a-room-full-of-nothing

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.