Do It Again

Good news. We’ve been offered a chance to create a 57-minute version of the film for a nationally syndicated series of broadcasts. But there is a downside. This is for public television, which doesn’t pay very much. (But does offer us a chance to show the film to lots and lot of folks.)

Cutting an 85 minute documentary to 57 minutes will take some work. We anticipate two, very intense weeks of 20 hour days in the editing chamber. To broadcast, we also have to get something called error and omissions insurance and pay to lay our new cut onto an HDCam tape.

I estimate the whole thing will cost between $7,000 and $10,000.

I’m not going to create a Kickstarter campaign for this sum because I want to reserve that idea for a larger need. What’s that? Our major hope is to get approval from the record companies to license “Do It Again” for DVD/download and wider broadcast. We’re waiting on our request.

In the meantime, we want to create this shorter cut.

Can you help? If so, I’m going to accept paypal contributions at gedgers@mac.com or checks at my home address. (Write me at gedgers@mac.com for that.)

What can you gain? We’re going to offer a few of our collectibles and, much in the spirit of Kickstarter, an awards system.

$50 gets you a signed, 12-by-18 “Do It Again” poster OR a limited edition, signed 45 record (it plays!) of “Victoria/Big Sky” recorded by Figgs leader Mike Gent. The record also includes original art by our poster man Dave Plunkert.

$50 also gets you a signed DVD if “Do It Again” is released on DVD. I don’t want to mislead anybody. There is a chance it’ll come out on DVD. There’s a chance it won’t. If you contribute to this, you’ll have to accept there’s a chance we don’t get released. (And you can always turn your reward in for another gift.)

For $75, you get a signed copy of my Beatles or Elvis children’s books for kids, ages 8 to 12.

For $90, one of our remaining “Do It Again” t-shirts. I only have about three medium and two large left.

For $200, I’ll add your name to the credits for “Do It Again.” Just beware… we may not get long credits for our TV cut. If that’s the case, I’ll add you to our IMDB listing.

For $300, you get one of our 10 remaining, full-size “Do It Again” posters. I’ll sign it or I won’t. You decide.

For $1,000 – and airfare, lodging – I will bring “Do It Again” and outtakes from the film to your home for a private screening. We did this in Los Angeles earlier this year and it was great fun. I’ll even put you in touch with Steve, who hosted us, to give a full accounting of the experience.

For $1,000, you can get a one-of-a-kind, full size “Do It Again” poster signed by Sting and Zooey Deschanel.

For $1,500, you get the acoustic guitar that Dave Davies plays in “Do It Again.”

For whatever you can give – $1, $10, $100 – we remain eternally grateful.

Those of us who couldn’t travel to Denmark for Pete’s memorial service can at least think of him when we gather in Los Angeles later this week for our screening of “Do It Again.”

Allison Anders sent along some pretty heart-warming news.

It turns out Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz is a huge Kinks fan. So on July 2, Koretz adjourned the LA City Council’s session in honor of Peter Quaife.

Thursday night, at the Silent Movie Theater, Koretz will be letting our audience see this document of adjournment before sending it off to Elisabeth, Pete’s fiance, in Denmark.

Here’s what the certificate looks like:

I came back from lunch and found the red light on my phone signalling a message. It was a call from overseas. Peter Quaife, original Kinks bassist and all-around great guy, had today received the screener of the film that I’d sent. So he’d popped it in. “I wanted to let you know, I have seen the movie,” Pete Q. said into the machine. “It is brilliant.”

What can I say about Crutch? First, one of my big regrets in making this film is not scraping up a few thousand dollars and heading to Denmark to interview him. Because every time I called over the last two years, he was charming, full of humor and totally selfless in his commentary.

Here’s a good example. Sometime in 2008, a Kinks fan sent me a DVD showing what appeared to be Super 8 films taken by Quaife while touring in the ’60s. They were called “Pete Quaife’s Home Movies.” I wanted more information and called Crutch. He said something along the lines of “a ha” and told me the film had been “misplaced,” a euphemism for stolen or taken without his permission. He was glad to hear I had found them.

Most people in his position would probably get angry and demand they be returned. Not Crutch. He asked if I could send him a copy. And when it came to cutting our film, he agreed to license the material for a very reasonable fee. (I don’t want to say how much because, frankly, he should get more in the future.)

So that’s Crutch. I wish he were healthy enough to come to one of our screenings. But he did say he’ll be there if we’re able to score a festival close to his home, which to me says “Copenhagen.”