A film about Jim Varney and Ernest P. Worrell. See more at BeingErnestFilm.com
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Hello, Ernest P. World! We are wrapping up week two of our fundraising campaign with just over $26,000 raised... which is fantastic! I get the sense that everyone on the documentary team (and probably many of you) will collectively flip out when we hit 50% ($30k), so I'm looking forward to that. Thank you so much to everyone who has shared, posted, and otherwise forwarded our campaign link to new supporters!
Meanwhile, we still don't have any information about the air dates / times of our first radio interview... but we do for our second one!
Justin will be interviewed LIVE on "Lexington’s Morning News With Jack Pattie" this Monday 6/7 at 9:05am. Local folks in Lexington, KY can tune in to 590AM / 97.3FM, while the rest of us can stream the interview simultaneously at the following link: https://www.wvlkam.com/category/on-air-now/
Speaking of links—here's one to our fundraising campaign video, now available on YouTube! You can also find it on the Facebook page for Justin's book. Both of those uploads (as well as the version on our main Campaign page) have captions now, too! We've been working hard to make this fundraising video as accessible and easy-to-share as possible.
One reason it took a little longer to get this video posted elsewhere was because I was doing a bunch of tests, trying to convert the ad footage we've digitized from the Ernest master tapes into HD:
Even though the Ernest ads were shot on film, the finishing and everything else was done on standard-definition video. Without turning this into a discussion of digital video formats, I'll sum it up this way: if our fundraising video was shot in 4K resolution, then the Ernest ads by comparison are something like 0.89K—they're less than a quarter of the quality we'd want, in order for them to look good side-by-side with HD footage and photo scans.
The trick has been finding ways to increase the resolution without making Jim look like some kind of strange wax figure in the process. (Check out the bottom-right Convenient ad image; you can see that the software in that test was doing something funky to his nose.) And the success of this approach also depends on the quality of the source material. In some cases, we're working with a copy of a copy of a tape, which can be tough to do anything with.
Anyway, now that I've had some more experience doing this kind of upscaling, I'm planning to use it for—among other things—some future promotional purposes. We'll have more to show on that next week!
- David
Hello, Ernest P. World! We have recovered and regrouped after the holiday weekend, and have been hard at work on pushing this project forward!
We're very happy with this progress—especially since a holiday weekend usually means folks are away from their computers, spending time outdoors with family and friends. (It probably didn't hurt that the Jim Varney discussion was continuing on through the weekend.)
Meanwhile, the first of our promotional interviews happened! Our own Justin Lloyd had a 15-minute conversation with host Dustin Wilmes for KMSU 89.7 FM-Mankato & KMSK 91.3 FM-Austin in Minnesota. We don't have exact airdates / times for that interview yet, but as soon as we do, we'll let you all know!
Justin has also been hard at work scanning more of the photos we received from Jim DeVault—including this photo shoot of Ernest flexing on followers of Green's Dairy from York, PA. Comparing Jim and Ernest to other muscle-bound performers happens regularly, so these made for amusing discussion on social media.
You can find that (and more of the photo shoot images) here and here.
- David
The 105th Running of the Indianapolis 500 is this Sunday—the perfect time to look back on Ernest's own appearance at the event, 36 years ago this week.
Why? Well, without the Indy 500, there may never have been any Ernest movies at all. Here's the full story from Justin Lloyd's book:
In May 1985, the annual Indy 500 Festival was held. Like every year, thousands of people descended on Indianapolis to attend the festival events leading up to the Indianapolis 500 Race. The theme of the festival was “The Wonderful World of Disney,” with cartoon icon Mickey Mouse serving as grand marshal of the celebrity car parade around the famed track...
During the parade, Mickey Mouse received predictable applause as he waved to the throngs of cheering onlookers. Jim, dressed as Ernest, followed shortly behind riding atop a red convertible. As people began to recognize the blue-jean vest and khaki cap, they cheered wildly, far more than for Mickey. Ernest’s huge reception was not lost on Disney’s new CEO, Michael Eisner, and new studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg, both of whom were in the crowd. Eisner later recalled the experience: “I was at the Indianapolis 500 … and there was a parade … 500,000 people were there. The governor went by and: applause. Mickey Mouse went by: more applause. All of a sudden, Jim Varney went by (as Ernest), and 500,000 people went berserk. So I said, ‘We ought to do something about that.’”
This event, of course, led to "Ernest Goes to Camp" being released almost exactly two years later.
In other news: this fundraising campaign was just selected as one of Kickstarter's #ProjectsWeLove! You may have noticed the tiny banner just below the project video on the main Campaign page. We quickly created this updated promo art to celebrate the occasion:
We're thrilled and humbled by the response this project has received. None of us would be here without the support of the entire Ernest P. World, so on behalf of the documentary team: THANK YOU!
- David
Hi all! David here with a day 2 update. We broke $17,000 during the night, giving us a solid and respectable bump up from launch day. Crowdfunding curves typically start to flatten out after launch, so this is about what we expected.
I finally had a chance to write a (reasonably long) Director's Statement, explaining what all of this is and why we're doing it in more detail. You can check that out on the main Campaign page.
One thing I included is a current list of folks who have signed on to participate in the film. We're definitely looking forward to updating that as we reach out to more people in the weeks and months to come.
(If you know anyone we should be talking to for this film, please hit us up with an introduction.)
Meanwhile, donations of another sort have been pouring in to our campaign. Ernest fan Randy Schmitz listed these rare Ernest concept sketches and storyboards on eBay, saying:
"These are items provided directly to me from the generous Cherry family back in 2013. Original artwork in the creation of Ernest movies. 100% of this sale will be donated to The Importance of Being Ernest documentary."
Thank you so much, Randy! If you'd like to bid on these items, you can find the auction listing here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Ernest-P-Worrell-storyboard-Chiodo-Brothers-Scared-Stupid-killer-klowns-/265174165044
Finally, there's yesterday's mystery box, which we can now finally reveal the contents of...
Another generous donation—this one from official Ernest photographer Jim DeVault, who sent us 24 pounds worth of Ernest photos, prints, and other items! We've been talking to Jim about this content for a while now, affectionately referring to it as "The DeVault Vault".
There's tons of files, negatives, and other stuff to go through—lots of things we've never seen before! (And perhaps some new add-on items for this Kickstarter campaign?)
Wonderful stuff. Thank you so much, Jim!
- David