Guest Post By Jeff Galfer
Jeff Galfer
Last year on my blog Marty After Dark, I went to a CineKink festival featuring a film by actor/director, Leslie Hope called, GAYKEITH. Leslie’s a friend of my friend and sometimes guest star on my blogs, Lex, so I was able to do an interview with Leslie and it was a nice evening and a post I’m proud of. Leslie’s lined up to direct a new movie and she introduced me to the man behind the movie, Jeff Galfer. Jeff wrote and is co-producing his first movie, entitled, BURIED TREASURE. Here’s the one line synopsis of the film from their website: Fortunes shift for a man stricken by tragedy when he unwittingly stumbles upon hidden treasure. Check out the video below to learn more about the film.
Since I have open days here at TWM now that I’m just posting Friday through Monday for now, I asked Jeff if he’d like to write a story for a guest post about the movie and that’s just what he did. It’s right below and so is a link to the Kickstarter page to help fund this film and get it made, if you’d like to contribute. And now...take it away, Jeff, the blog is all yours!
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Movie Making Is Hard OR Warning: Titles May Cause Death
Almost nine months into working on a script and movie inspired by the loss of my father, I received an unsettling message on my Kickstarter account (the place where I’ve been trying to fundraise to make said movie for the past 25 days). The message at hand was from a representative of the geocaching community, a community of hobbyists who hide treasures or “caches” for fellow geocachers to find, condemning my movie and politely requesting me to disassociate it from the geocaching community.
At first I was confused by the complaint. How did I cause so much harm through a movie nobody has even seen and has yet to be filmed? Was it my cast? Surely not. We have Anna Douglas and Eloise Mumford: two beautiful and talented actresses. Were geocachers against beauty? Did the look of a geocacher somehow affect ones ability to enjoy a geocache? Or conversely, was Eloise’s recent television success with THE RIVER and LONE STAR not enough star power to properly represent the geocaching community?
Anna Douglas and Eloise Mumford
Maybe it was our male actors that were causing the trouble. We do have the stupidly talented and prolific Gregg Henry, who starred opposite Mel Gibson in PAYBACK and has been working as a regular on the series HUNG for HBO for the last few years. And we also have Scott Klace, who has worked in just a mere 80 films and television shows over the last 35 years. Had we offended geocachers by utilizing actors who were talented and well known?
Greg Henry and Scott Klace
While I considered recasting to uglier, less talented and less well-known actors, it occurred to me that maybe it was our crew causing such vitriol. Perhaps geocachers found Emmy and Academy award winning crew members counterproductive to telling a touching and informative story? Should I have just gotten a handheld camera and shot the film by myself in my backyard? Would that have more accurately showcased how fun and aesthetically pleasing to the eye geocaching can be? I did hear once that ten minute YouTube videos that look and sound terrible always get hundreds of views!
But wait! I know! It’s not our crew at all. It must be our director who is turning off the geocachers from this movie. Who else but a renowned actress and critically acclaimed director such as Leslie Hope (THE RIVER, THE MENTALIST, 24) could create such a negative stir with her carefully crafted shots and thoughtful interpretation of my words? Yet, shouldn’t a director who has won awards for her various films (GAYKEITH, WHAT I SEE WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES) be beneficial to making a good film? Ugh. I just don’t know how I already seemingly screwed this movie up.
Leslie Hope
My mind was spinning in circles when it suddenly occurred to me that if it wasn’t the cast and crew, then someone must have gotten a leaked copy of my screenplay and had clearly disagreed with my celebration of the hobby of geocaching and my admiration of the geocachers’ creative style. My fascination with exposing their beautifully egoless system of hiding very personal items for others to witness and share was surely too intimate for their comfort. But, that can’t be. My computer wasn’t hacked and I haven’t sent the script out to the public.
It was only then did I realize exactly why my movie had caused such chaos. And to think, it was so obvious from the start. Of course it wasn’t the beautiful actresses or talented actors or experienced crew or smart director or thoughtful screenplay provoking such furor. But rather it was the one part of my movie that was the most public and most unapologetic from the very start. My title! BURIED TREASURE! Of course that was it. You see because geocachers are eco-friendly, they never ever bury caches as this would disrupt the very planet they are trying to engage with and appreciate. How could I have been so ignorant?! And why had I made this mistake so close to completing my fundraising to make the movie? What if now I don’t get the funding? Or worse yet if I get the funding, shoot an amazingly beautiful and moving film and then truly scorn the very community I had intended to celebrate.
Needless to say, I was shocked and embarrassed to think I had shamelessly manifested and guiltlessly unleashed upon the planet a full blown ecological disaster. I couldn’t live with myself having been so literal. I didn’t want to be associated with those other silly movies with ridiculously literal titles like SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (you know, that movie about the sheep that don’t speak) or BLACK RAIN (the movie about African Americans falling from the sky) or God forbid GOODFELLAS (the one about that really nice group of guys that all hang out together and perform acts of charity wherever they can).
But it may be too late. The geocaching community has quite possibly already abandoned me. And sadly, just before I could release the brand new title I had so thoughtfully reworked: A SHORT FILM ABOUT A GUY WHO FINDS A HIDDEN CACHE AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTER HE FINDS IT AND AT NO POINT DOES HE BURY IT OR UNDERSTAND HOW TO USE A METAPHOR.
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About The Author
An actor and photographer, Jeff Galfer holds a Master’s Degree in acting from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and a Bachelor of Science in Theatre and Political Theory from the University of Evansville in Indiana. He has worked professionally on stage in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, & Los Angeles and can be seen on screen in the shows LAW & ORDER, NUMBERS, Z ROCK, GUIDING LIGHT, as a recurring character on ALL MY CHILDREN and most recently on the Steven Spielberg/Oren Peli produced THE RIVER for ABC. He has also been in over thirty commercials and is currently producing a number of feature film projects alongside Rick and Julie Yorn’s LBI Entertainment.
Jeff and his team are close to getting their goal, but time is not on their side, they’ve got less than a week to get about five thousand bucks, so let’s show them what the TWM crew can do. Pop over to Kickstarter and throw five bucks or more their way if you can, to help get this movie made. Thanks and we’ll see you this Friday with a brand new post.
Further Reading: Buried Treasure Updates, Twitter and facecrack.
Buried Treasure, Independent Movies, Kickstarter Posted on Tuesday, June 5, 2012 at 10:16AM 
