A press release from Tom Durham:
A new sci-fi movie trailer just hit YouTube. It’s packed with fancy special effects, cryptic villains, and cosmic mysteries… and it was made on credit cards, donations, and the kind of guts and determination you only see in over-the-top movies.
In the basement of Thomas and Alesandra Durham’s home you’ll find futuristic body armor, high-tech gadgets, cryptic diaries penned by mad scientists, tangles of computer hardware, and schematics of time machines… all part of 95ers, an epic new science fiction movie. Over the last five years, this eccentric couple, along with a ragtag team of filmmakers and enthusiasts, have been scrimping, saving, mortgaging, and filming their way towards completion of a full-length sci-fi flick. With the release of the movie trailer and with talks beginning with distributors, the project is finally seeing the light at the end of the TimeSpace continuum.
95ers is a sci-fi thriller with a spiritual core. It’s The Time Machine meets X-Files, with a good dash of The Matrix and a pinch of A Christmas Carol for good measure. Packed with special effects and trips to the 27th century, 95ers is an extraordinarily ambitious project for such a tiny budget (around $200,000)—less than a typical Hollywood film goes through in a single day of production. In 95ers, new technologies, guerrilla tactics, creativity, extreme perseverance, and buckets of elbow grease are delivering production values and special effects you’d see in popular TV shows, and even the big screen.
Perhaps the most obvious example of the indie-filmmakers-meet-picket-fence-suburbanites phenomenon (and the Durhams actually do have a white picket fence) is Alesandra’s tummy. She plays the lead role in the movie, FBI agent Sally Biggs, who is pregnant. For the first round of shooting, Alesandra was pregnant with the Durhams’ third child. But then it took 18 months to scrounge up enough money for the next round of shooting—when she was pregnant with the Durhams’ fourth child. It’s probably safe to say that very few filmmakers have gone to those lengths for continuity and authenticity!
Professionally, Tom works as a producer/director of corporate video, commercials, and tv shows. Alesandra has appeared in various commercials and indie films. Also associated with the project is Hollywood special effects pro (and brother-in-law) Clark Schaffer, whose credits span from Star Trek: Generations to Iron Man 2. Clark is “old school,” constructing the very unique time machine seen in the movie as a good ol’ fashioned miniature, instead of the typical CG that seems a bit overused today. And the results are stunning.
Having more than tapped out their own resources the Durhams have received some $20,000 in donations from sci-fi nuts and empathetic dreamers from all over the world, through Kickstarter and 95ers.com. “People are just awesome,” says producer/director Thomas Durham. “They love the movie’s story, and they love our crazy story. People want to watch cooler, more interesting movies, and they want to help get them made. With today’s technology, it’s possible.”
As the villain in 95ers cryptically states: “What I’m telling you is the tip of the tip of the iceberg.” So apparently it is with indie sci-fi—basement studio and all—since this movie is the first of five planned installments! (The plan however, is that the next four will be fully funded by outside sources!) For a sneak peek at this amazing project go to www.95ers.com/ECHOES/95ers_movie_trailer.html. For a behind-the-scenes discussion of making the movie, see this video.