How You Can Help Bring This Story To Life
The Murdered on the Fourth of July filmmaking team has spent almost two years so far doing extensive research, collecting police reports, court transcripts, and news stories, as well as gathering archival footage and photos. We’ve conducted almost 20 pre-interviews with family, friends, colleagues, law enforcement and legal experts, and we’ve already filmed more than a dozen on-camera interviews as well as various B-roll and other additional footage. But we can’t fully bring this story to life without additional support.
Our total budget for this documentary is approximately $246,000. We believe this budget is necessary to conduct thorough research, secure rights to archival footage, carry out interviews with those directly involved in the events, and pay our dedicated production team.
So far, we have raised approximately $12,000, resulting from a successful crowdfunding campaign and individual donations to the project. This amount has allowed us to begin production and produce fundraising samples that can be used to solicit further funding. But we are looking for donors to specifically fund the next stages of this important project to help see it through to the fullest vision of its creators. Your contribution to this project could help with essential expenses, such as:
- $10,000 to complete principal photography, which includes travel and production team expenses to about a half-dozen locations around the United States
- $16,000 to hire an editor who can fully complete the visual storytelling
- $5,000 to hire a composer to create a compelling, original score
- $5,000 for licensing of footage we are not able to have donated
- $5,000 to cover legal fees, including contract writing and review, liability audit/opinion letter, and any other issues that may arise in the course of production or distribution
- $3,000 for errors & omissions insurance (which will be required for distribution)
Because “Murdered on the Fourth of July” is a fiscally sponsored project of the International Documentary Association (IDA), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization, contributions in support of “Murdered on the Fourth of July” are payable to IDA and are tax-deductible as allowed by law. Your donations will directly support the production of the film.
In-Kind Donations
Donations are not limited to financial contributions. We are actively seeking in-kind donation of services that will offset budgeted expenses. Examples of such support include:
- Providing pro bono legal services
- Lending needed equipment or filming locations
- Donating use of post-production services or facilities
- Contributing marketing or public relations support
We can also accept donations in the form of checks, wire transfers, stocks and securities, as well as the in-kind services noted above. If you are interested in contributing via any of these methods, please contact us directly.
With the support of generous donors like you, we can fulfill our mission to not only to shine a light on this under-told story and the true cost of the struggle for racial unity and harmony, but also to ensure that Lin Newborn and Dan Shersty’s unintentional sacrifices were not made in vain.