Our Story

The Escapement is the third short film by award-winning writer/director, Ryan Hanson and producer, Richard Towns of Parktown Productions. It will be shot in Ottawa, Ontario over 4 days.

The Escapement is the story of elderly Mitchell Nicely's attempt to escape his inevitable fate of growing old, by building a time machine in his basement, only to find that playing with time can go horribly wrong.

The story was born from the concept of people imprisoning themselves in their past and facing difficulty focusing on the present.

Please feel free to email me (Ryan) if you're interested in reading the story, I'll gladly send you the script so that you can visualize the story behind the film you'd be supporting.

Once completed, The Escapement will be submitted to all major international festivals.

The Impact

With your help, we'll be able to pull off this visually stunning tale that we are confident will garner success within the festival world. Furthermore it will showcase the talent within Ottawa's growing film community. With the dedicated crew, a great story, and state of the art equipment being supplied by Parktown, The Escapement will help escalate the careers of everyone involved  and you'll be directly responsible for making that happen.

What We Need & What You Get

The $2000 we're asking for will be mainly used towards the art direction of the film. We will actually be constructing a time machine that is both convincing and authentic. As well, with Mitchell going back in time, we will be buying up props and wardrobe from different eras, which, we've realized can quickly add up.

We are very fortunate to be working with local Ottawa artist, Tick Tock Tom, on the construction of the time machine as an interactive element in the film. 

The remainder of the funds will go towards special effects make-up. Mitchell will be changing ages within the film. He'll go from an 80-year-old man all the way back to a young man in his 30's. To do this, we'll be using professional make-up to ensure an authentic, great-looking transition through his ages. However, to pull it off, requires specialized talent and materials.

There are also some costs associated with post-production. There will be some visual FX used within the film to help tell a convincing story, and show Mitchell's time machine in action.

Any extra funds will be used to feed the crew of 15+ people. In order to get through the long 10-14 hour days of film, you'd be surprised how helpful food can be.

Our goal is to raise 10% ($2,000) of our financing through this Indiegogo fundraising platform. Additionally, we are applying for a media arts grant from the Ontario Arts Council. At this point, we are pushing forward with the talented crew donating their time and skill; however, we feel it is vital for us to support the Ottawa film scene by finding a way to actually compensate our dedicated cast and crew. Considering that Parktown is allowing us to shoot on the Red One (a camera many Hollywood films are shot on), we can confidently stretch our budget enough to create a high end finished project.

If our goal isn't met, we will still continue on. I can't abandon my vision and abort the project due to not hitting our mark. If we don't hit our total, I'll tap into the unfortunate credit card method of funding. Please don't tell my wife.

For those of you that come on board and help us out, I can't thank you enough.  

Other Ways You Can Help

For those of you that can help our project through funding, feel free to help us spread the word. Tweet and link us via Facebook. If you want to keep up with what is going on with the film, you can follow us on Twitter @RyanMCHanson and @parktown and like our Facebook page (http://tinyurl.com/3o9v2t9).