Angel’s Perch – From Script To Screen | 048 - Actors Talk - Come Inside The Acting Business

Angel's Perch - The Story

Everyone has an emotional home. It’s not necessarily where you were born, or even where you grew up, but it’s the place that you dream about in the quiet moments—the place that defines your happiest memories.

A young man must return to his small Appalachian hometown to face his grandmother's worsening Alzheimer's disease only to discover that his own painful memories are holding him back in his life.

Set almost entirely in the small, historic logging town of Cass, WV, Angel’s Perch examines the delicate relationship between past and present, memory and loss.

The material was so heartfelt that it made it possible for us to bring in these well-known, talented, amazing actresses and have them work for scale for us because they were so inspired by the script.

Angel's Perch - The Cast

Not Waiting For The Phone To Ring

While listening to Stacey Parkes' Startup Film School podast with Angel's Perch producer Kimberly Dilts and writer-producer-actor J.T. Arbogast, I shouted in agreement when I heard Kim Dilts say:

We were at a point in our careers where we were starting to see that there's a limit to what you can do if you're not making your own work. You're waiting for the phone to ring. Always.

I knew then and there that I wanted to have Kim and J.T. on Actors Talk to tell the story of this journey of theirs from actors,to theatrical producers to filmmakers. And a great story it is.

If you're a regular listener to Actors Talk you've no doubt heard me say something similar to the quote above on more than one episode.

In fact one of my goals for this show is to encourage actors, especially actors who are in the early stages of their careers, to understand this concept: Be creators, not just interpreters of someone else's work.

We can do more than sit impatiently waiting for our agents to call, text or email about the next audition. We can do more than 'just' go to class. We can learn how to create work and in the process we can only enhance our abilities to be interpreters as well.

In an ideal world we would be able to take this film and leverage it into good representation that sees that we’re capable of making work and helps us get our work produced so that we don’t have to wear 300 hats for the next one.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Angel's Perch and I'm delighted to say it's a terrific 'little' film. There are no explosions, no wrecked cars no FX sequences that cost millions. I say 'little' not in a negative way. Angel's Perch is about character and heart and story. In short it's the kind of movie I really like.

Take a look at Angel's Perch official trailer.

Kickstarter Success Tips

Why Kickstarter:

There was something for us on the Kickstarter side...something about a goal and an amount of time...if you didn't raise it by a certain date you didn't get anything... there was something about the pressure and urgency of that we both responded to... we felt like this was an all or nothing venture.

The other thing was at the time, Kickstarter had much more traffic than Indiegogo...[There was] a reporter out of Roanoke, VA who was looking for a story that was local [so] he could highlight Kickstarter as a platform to help artists regionally to make work. We sort of became a great case study for him and he became a great champion for us in terms of tracking our story in the region on the local news broadcasts.

As you can see from the graphic below, Kim and J.T. not only met their Kickstarter goal of $25,000, they exceeded it by raising $32,005!

I see so many indie film projects on Kickstarter or Indiegogo that do not reach their goal that it's impressive to see filmmakers that reached 128% of their target.

The Angel's Perch Kickstarter campaign ran for 45 days. In the interview, Kim and J.T. outline some of the successful strategies they employed.