TAKEN IN is a handmade feature film about a man who must spend a weekend alone with his estranged teenage daughter at a roadside resort. It is here that Simon and Brooklyn must confront the issues that have driven them apart, and ultimately choose how they will move forward...together or alone.

TAKEN IN was written and directed by personal filmmaker, Chris White. It was made entirely with cash and in-kind contributions from friends and family. The story (co-written with his wife Emily), was inspired by Chris’ theatre work with students at a therapeutic boarding school. The film is dedicated to his own teenage daughter, Gibson.

TAKEN IN was filmed at South of the Border, Dillon SC USA in the Spring of 2011.

04 March 2011

ASKS

As part of a successful "crowd-sourcing" campaign to raise money to make TAKEN IN, writer-director Chris White produced and e-mailed 300, two and a half minute "video asks" to would-be backers.

"When I started, I thought, 'Why not? I’m asking people to give me their hard-earned cash. It’s the least I can do.' Then, after I’d made several dozen, I realized that 'facing' my potential backers was more difficult than I'd thought. Every video required me to imagine that person, remember them…talk directly to them.


“The more videos I made, the more deeply I thought about my film. As I asked for his or her support, I envisioned each person watching it. And that was very powerful. It’s made me think about my audience as a collection of individuals rather than rows of blithe faces staring at a flickering screen.”


The effort may be considered a rousing marketing success (25% of sent videos resulted in a pledge...making up nearly 60% of the total amount raised). But White insists it wasn't his most valuable discovery.


“My ‘video asks’ yielded an invaluable result: I really do know my audience now. And this has made me a better filmmaker.”

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