Starring Emily Gateley & Justin Moynihan / Directed by Naomi Prentice

Story Summary

Everyone has little traumas they try to ignore with shitty coping mechanisms, until they don’t work anymore and we break down or mess up relationships. The writer took the “best ones” from his adolescence and made them into a comedy about roller skating and falling in love.

Always Crying Always in Love is about a half Japanese sad sap named Shane Sama, when he was a love sick romantic teen. And during a midlife crisis.

Teen Shane carries pianos for girls, he worships a lecherous heart-throb named King who teaches him seductive flute spells, and Shane gets his heart broken, a lot.  

Midlife crisis Shane “needs” to land a backflip on roller skates. Do this and his tortured life will have meaning.

Throughout the film he’s surrounded by toxic alpha males. And in both timelines Shane latches onto a creative and confident woman with daddy issues, until their friendships decay into failed romance.

The film is about the last ditch effort of the everyday person to do something big. Even if it’s as stupid as landing a backflip on roller skates.

What We’ve Accomplished

The 110 page script has won laurels from Script Awards Los Angeles & Hollywood Script Awards.

We have already shot 50% of the film! We’ve rough cut a bunch of scenes. And it is beautiful so far.

We have music for the soundtrack from Brandon Beaver (Me Without You), Zachary Miller (Dr. Dog), Eliza Jones (War on Drugs), Mike Tamburo, Jacob Brunner (Strawberry Hands), and Brendan Cooney.

We’ve received Fiscal Sponsorship from From the Heart Productions. So contributors can write their donations off from their taxes. And we’ve become eligible for many grants we were not previously.  If you are seeking tax deductible donations, do not contribute through this Indiegogo crowd fund. Instead reach out to Justin at justinmoynihan@gmail.com for donation guidelines through From the Heart Productions.

We’ve built an amazing, diverse team to bring this story to fruition. They’re giving a lot to make this movie. So finishing it and making it great is a must.

How You Can Help Us Finish

The film was written to be shot in three sections. Strategic chunking to help pace production and not make it insurmountable. It gives us time to gather funding/resources for each phase without the risk of big life events derailing the project. 

Funds collected would pay for: Cast, Crew, Props, Transportation, Meals, Equipment Rentals, Locations, Editing, Coloring, and Sound Design.

Other Ways You Can Help

Non-fund related support is welcome as well. Just reach out to the team if you want to be directly involved or have resources that might help us. Support with legal, marketing, distribution, social media, production support, cooking, muscles…

Most importantly, PLEASE SHARE this campaign with folks you know who might want to help finance this sort of project. Maybe we can Bernie Sanders this campaign?

The Impact

• Everyday Trauma needs a film. End of the World scale trauma has been seen a lot.
• Support a diverse team: first time female Director Naomi Prentice, Asian American lead, latinx, asian, black, queer folks in cast and crew.
• Through favors and lots of sweat equity we’ve shot 50% of this film with $50k. That’s nothing in terms of filmmaking, but it’s a lot for the women and men making this film on days off from their jobs.
• We’re planning on touring the film to Roller Rinks across the country and maybe the world. The international skate community hasn’t had a film in a long time. This is a movie about roller skaters made by roller skaters in iconic skate locations.
• Justin has been practicing backflips for months and roller skating for years to land a backflip on roller skates in the film. Contribute and he’ll have to.

Risks & Challenges

Whatever we raise will be used to film what we can. If we don’t meet the financial goals within the Indiegogo crowdfund we will continue to pursue funding through grant funding and donation collected through From the Heart Productions (our fiscal sponsor).

The seasoned cast and crew of Always Crying Always in Love have completed dozens of other projects. Shorts, features, documentary features for companies like Disney, FX, Bad Robot, Starburns Industries, SONY, and Frederator.

• We have connections within film industry and the roller skate community to have this film find a home when it is complete.