Why Chris Higgins Needs Your $10

So check it out: I’m making a movie. It’s a documentary about the nature of money, and how money is changing. And I am asking you, today, to help me. If you have ten bucks you can part with, I want you to pre-order my movie so that it will get made.

The best part? It’s zero-risk. If I don’t bring in the full budget, you don’t pay anything — you keep your ten bucks. If I do meet the goal, you get a copy of my movie. And my movie will be awesome.

The thing is, this is not a movie about banks, or the recession, or the other stuff you might think about when you think “money documentary.” It’s about how money itself is changing from a physical thing — you know, like dollar bills and stuff — into a far more abstract notion. Many of us don’t carry cash anymore; we carry cards that tap into the cash some bank is holding for us (well, we hope the bank is holding it).

That transition from real to virtual is speeding up. Right now, people all over the world are using a kind of monetary system that sits outside of the banking system, with no cash anywhere to back it. It’s called cryptocurrency, and it’s very interesting stuff. It simultaneously has no value (it’s just bits on a computer), but you can use it to buy things. This is very interesting, and actually kind of amazing. Some people think it’s going to replace our monetary system; others think it’s a scam. I’m somewhere in the middle. That middle is where the movie gets made.

But here’s the thing: in order to make the movie, I need a thousand of my closest friends to chip in ten bucks. I’ve been working on this movie for five months, with my close friend Adam Cornelius (a fantastic director and deep thinker), and we’re out of dough. I want to make this movie, but it takes a village to fund something this big. If I’ve ever done you a favor, this is how I want to be repaid. If I haven’t done you a favor lately, I want to owe you one.

Okay, But What’s Actually in this Movie?

I’m going to level with you: this video is nerdy. There are going to be words in here (like “Dogecoin”) that you may not have heard, or that just seem made-up. That’s because they are totally made-up. But if you’re the kind of person who likes to watch a video about a thing, you can watch this:

I think it’s important to note: That’s not the movie. That’s a video trying to raise money on the internet for the movie. I promise that the movie will be, you know, movie-length, and also “fun to watch,” and have “pictures of people doing more things” in it. It will also have a lot less of me ranting about things on my back porch.

So Where Do I Put My Money?

I’m using Kickstarter to fund the movie. If you haven’t signed up, it’s easy — you can even use your Facebook account to sign in. Kickstarter is a great resource for filmmakers, because it allows us to put the project out there, tell you our budget ($72,000), and ask for people to come together and say, yes, I would pay ten bucks to watch that. If you guys come along and commit $72,000 to the movie, it happens. If we don’t hit our goal, the movie does not get made, and you are not charged. But it totally won’t get made if nobody even expresses interest. We don’t get partial funding here, folks — all or nothing.

So. Here’s the place to go to give me ten bucks. It even emails me when you pledge, so if we’re friends in the real world, know that my phone will light up and tell me that you pledged. That means the world to me. And yeah, if you give more than ten bucks, that’s super great (you can get bonus features for $15, or at $20 you also get a whole other movie Adam directed and I helped with — it’s about Tetris!). But what I’m asking for is the basics. Ten bucks, and my thanks.

Thank you for reading, and hugs from Portland.