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TwitterErin Prather Stafford has signed on as Executive Producer for WONDER WOMEN! THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN SUPERHEROINES. Erin’s interest in the film started in 2008 when producer Kelcey Edwards mentioned it to her at a mutual friend’s wedding. Ironically it was their love of film that brought Kelcey and Erin together; they met and became fast friends while volunteering on the same crew at SXSW.
“I was ecstatic about the film from the beginning,” said Erin. “A lot of commentaries about Wonder Woman mention she’s a difficult character for authors because they aren’t sure what exactly do with her. I think that ‘challenge’ often applies to the mainstream media and how they generally depict female characters. There is a real need for more well-developed, complex and strong women in our culture, especially in visual mediums. And creating characters that simply act like men doesn’t cut it. I’m thrilled to be a part of this dynamic project that not only examines where Wonder Woman has been, but where she could go.”
Erin earned her MA in Gender and International Studies from the University of Warwick and is a communications specialist residing in Dallas. Her full bio is available of the “team” page of this website.
The History of the Universe as Told by Wonder Woman had a fabulous experience with our panel at Geek Girl Con. The issues and facts presented in the film seemed to really resonate with the crowd and there was a general acceptance of the material even though it was presented in rough-cut form. We had a great panel and a great time and we got a WONDER-ful review from Fan Girl you can read here.
Fangirlblog.com writes, “The panel was set for 90 minutes; it could have gone 190 minutes as far as most of us in the room were concerned. A disappointed sigh rose from the audience when we were asked to move on to make way for the next panel.”
Like many other women, she grew up with Wonder Woman, and wonders what effect that this 70’s TV show had on her life. Fan Girl agrees that women have not been given the same opportunities to be super. Wonder Woman in particular has yet to make a big screen presence when so many male heroes take up the spotlight.
She closes saying that the film, “… will encourage more women to believe that they too can make a difference. Most importantly, though, I walked out of that room realizing I’m not alone.”
Thank you Fangirlblog for coming to see the film at Geek Girl Con and sharing your views on the film!
The Sundance Institute has given a grant to THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AS TOLD BY WONDER WOMAN! WOO!! Check it out here!
Out of 650 applicants from 80 different countries, we are lucky enough to be one of the 29 feature documentary films from 9 different countries, chosen to receive the grant. This is great news and will no doubt help the film to its completion. We are thrilled to receive the honor!
And we are not the only Super Hero film to get it:
A film called Wham! Bam! Islam! by, Isaac Solotaroff, is one to watch out for. It is about the first comic book in Islam called “THE 99″ and the controversy over it. Tradition vs. Change. (watch the trailer on their web site)
“Naif Al-Mutawa is on a mission to create THE 99 – the first Islam-inspired superheroes with their own comic books, theme parks and animation series. Conceived with the intention of countering political and religious extremism, THE 99 now find themselves at the center of a debate over shifting definitions of the sacred and the secular that calls THE 99′s future into question.”
Looks interesting!
In the continuing production of Wonder Woman, Kristy has spent the last week shooting with “Reel Grrls” in Seattle. “Reel Grrls empowers young women from diverse communities to realize their power, talent and influence through media production.” It offers workshops and skill training to help build filmmaking competencies as well as develop long lasting relationships with filmmakers. It was all so much fun to be a part of their summer video camp. We learned a lot and we made new friends!
THANKS REEL GRRLS!
and THANK YOU SUNDANCE!
- Jackie Grieff
Aspiring Director/Editor working on a Bachelors degree in Digital Film and Video Production at The Art Institute of California – San Francisco. Interning with Kristy Guevara-Flanagan for the project THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AS TOLD BY WONDER WOMAN. Self-proclaimed nerd, and long time super hero lover.
As you may or may not know the new Wonder Woman pilot episode was not picked up by NBC, reason being, the outfit did not match the original Wonder Woman.
The argument that was made was that “She is meant to be an inspiring feminist icon, but she represents a vast array of things that feminism despises. By which I mean, she dresses like a stripper.” However, an article from “DC Women Kicking Ass” entitled, “It’s not the costume, stupid” argues that the costume argument is just an excuse for the real reason they are rejecting it.
When asked why there was no Wonder Woman movie Darren Franich from Entertainment Weekly said, “It’s just much easier to sell a male action film to studios than a female one.”
When the only audience they think of is men, that may be true, but “Women want to see characters that are strong and smart and capable. They don’t want to see characters that are cliches or bastardizations or characters that are seen through the lens of male writers and creators who don’t write authentic women but as archetypes and a mindfield of sexist tropes.”
They say it is hard to sell a female hero, but when is the last time they tried?
Click here to view article!
- Jackie Grieff
Aspiring Director/Editor working on a Bachelors degree in Digital Film and Video Production at The Art Institute of California – San Francisco. Interning with Kristy Guevara-Flanagan for the project THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AS TOLD BY WONDER WOMAN. Self-proclaimed nerd, and long time super hero lover.
Thank you all so, so much!
More than 400 people stepped up over the course of the last month to contribute to our Kickstarter fundraising drive, and your generosity helped us hit our original target and then some — a whopping 50 percent beyond our target! Your help will enable us to complete the film that much sooner, and also demonstrates to funders, programmers and backers that we have an audience just waiting for us to get THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AS TOLD BY WONDER WOMAN to the screen. Furthermore, for us to hear from so many of you, through your contributions, comments and other expressions of support, gives us a tremendous boost!
We have a lot of exciting developments in the works, not all of which we can talk about right away, even though we’d like to. For instance, we’re lining up a few celebrity interviews that should really rock. We’re also, through our fellowship with the Bay Area Video Coalition, developing some interactive multimedia components to launch in coordination with the film’s release. Those’ll rock too!
Stay tuned for other updates. We have thank-you goodies to send out, some addresses to collect, and an update to our honor roll which will now officially move to our website.
But for now, the main message is simply to express our heartfelt thanks to all of you for being the superstars you are!
Talk to you soon,
Kristy and Kelcey
We are coming into the homestretch of this incredible fundraiser here at Kickstarter. Thank you everyone for your support! As a token of our appreciation, here is another honor video roll this time with everyone’s name (unless you donated in the last 24 hours when we were compressing!) And it’s 8 minutes long, which means that there is just a lot of you that have really come through!
So to everyone who has donated, who has tweeted, forwarded, and even sent out your own postcards. Thank you! You have gone above and beyond and for that we are so appreciative. Go team!!
Things have been progressing really well. We’ve begun working with our editor Carla Gutierrez on our rough cut. We’re meeting with animators to work on original illustrations for the film. We have a new intern, Jackie Grieff, who has been working hard on creating all those fabulous “honor rolls”. And I just came back from the San Francisco Star Trek Convention where I went to to set up an interview with the incredible Ms. Nichelle Nichols–who played Uhura and broke so many racial and gender barriers.
Needless to say we’re feeling super excited about reaching this breakthrough moment in post-production. Given all this, we’re pushing hard to exceed our original fundraising goal of $10,000. We only have 72 hours left on our Kickstarter campaign. Help us reach $15,000 and let us know that YOU want to see this film finished and playing in your neighborhood.
So if you have a moment and can pass this along one more time, please do! Our Kickstarter page is simple to tweet, post on Facebook or forward via email to friends.
Thank you again!
Kristy
Thanks so, so much to our Kickstarter supporters — 250 strong and counting — who’ve helped us to already reach our $10,000 target goal in a little more than a week! We’ve very nearly averaged $1,000 a day in this campaign thanks to your generosity!
Over here at Wonder Woman Central, we wish we could tell you that with this support in hand, it’s nothing but blue skies and smooth sailing ahead, but the fact is, of course, and as those of you in the film business already know, that it takes quite a lot to get a film off the drawing boards and onto the big screen. This $10,000 figure represents, really, a starting point, albeit a starting point that comes with the film already well on its way to completion.
The Kickstarter campaign has a couple of weeks left to run; for the moment, we’d like to see if we can elicit enough new contributions to offset the 10% cut we’ll owe Kickstarter.com.
But to be clear, this campaign has already demonstrated a level of support and enthusiasm that we hope will prove invaluable as we approach more “deep pocket” funders to help us wrap up the editing of the rough cut and proceed onward through the rest of the project. So we’re very, very grateful for the support you’ve shown us. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU and thank you again!
The more money we raise from the public, the more money we can raise from larger funders and investors. Even $1 donations help us prove the viability of our efforts.
In just two weeks — actually, about 10 days! — we met our initial goal and this gives us great clout. We have also gotten some good attention and press from all of your efforts. So keep telling your friends about the project and the this site. We’d like to surge over the top and finish strong!
Congratulations to us all for the collective effort we’ve made so far. And thanks again for all your ideas, your time, your energy and your donations!
Our Kickstarter campaign got off to a great start this week! We’ve had a truly heart-warming response from more than 200 different people. Thank you all SO much! And every bit of it means much more to us than just the money. I was perhaps most moved to get this note from donor, Paula:
“I was sooo excited to see this project in my Working Mom’s Break email…my oldest daughter broke my heart when she asked me (at age 4) why are all the heroes in movies boys? She also recently (now age 9) went to a storytelling day at the SF Asian Art Museum and was completely annoyed that the folktales all featured boy heroes – the only female was a wicked step mother. We need projects like this! Thank you!”
We owe a special thanks, too, to those who reposted our link: http://kck.st/fJlDpO and emailed it to your various networks. If you haven’t peeked at our “thank you” video please do so. We will be posting new video and updates every week! And offering new rewards….
….such as: The person who gets us over the $10,000 mark will receive a limited edition woodcut print, Speech Bubbles, by printmaker Rebecca Foster (printed on archival handmade Japanese paper). See image below!
Our goal is get to the film to a rough cut to persuade the bigger funders that our project is worthy. Funders, programmers, and investors recognize that a project’s ability to attract support from people like you bodes well for its worthiness and makes a case for their backing. So while we are ever-so-grateful for the almost 200 people who have already stepped up for us in little more than a week, we hope that in the 21 remaining days in this fund drive, we will continue to show even more clearly that the world is ready and eager for our film to finally hit the big screen!
If you like what you see, please help spread the word! From the Kickstarter site you can easily pass our link along to friends, repost it, retweet it, or just email it to anyone you like!
Thank you & love to you all,
Kristy
To our 129 backers, thank you!! Over the long weekend we hit our half-way mark.That is in just one week! This is great news. Now we just need to double the amount!
Coming into the President’s Day holiday weekend, I wanted to personally thank all of you. Just a few days after launching our Kickstarter fundraising drive, more than 100 different people have pledged.
So: Many, many thanks to all of you for stepping up to help us as we hit the home stretch in getting THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AS TOLD BY WONDER WOMAN completed.
A word of caution, though: This Kickstarter campaign is an all-or-nothing affair. If we don’t hit that $10,000 target by the morning of March 17 — St. Paddy’s Day — we don’t get any of those funds you’ve so generously offered us.
We got a big boost this week from Shelby Knox and the Women’s Media Center, who tweeted to their followers, and from MANY friends who posted strong words of encouragement on their Facebook pages.
Please join these people and others’ efforts to keep our momentum going. From our Kickstarter page you can easily forward the link for our fundraiser via email, Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler (I am not even really sure what that last one is!). Maybe you know some die-hard Wonder Woman fans, comic book geeks, people who LOVE documentaries, or those who just want to see more films about empowering women … Tell ’em all!
I am so thrilled to be sharing the latest trailer with all of you. Our editor, Carla Gutierrez, is working hard behind the scenes to put all the other pieces together. Look forward to more video pieces popping up here before the campaign is done, and more prizes as well. And a special “thank you” video that our fabulous intern, Jackie Grieff is putting together right at the moment.
And speaking of prizes, some of you aren’t even aware of the limited-edition prints we have available. For $500 you get this very sweet woodcut print by Rebecca Foster, Speech Bubbles printed on archival handmade Japanese paper.
For a larger donation – and there is only one of these available – you get your choice of print from Dulce Pinzon’s Superhero series.
All this to say that I am overwhelmed by all your support. And it’s not just from friends and family (because let’s face it you are ALWAYS there for me) but former students and interns, colleagues, struggling artists and fans. IT ADDS UP! The majority of pledges are between $10-$35 and that is EXACTLY what this grassroots campaign is all about!