Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alex Winter is turning to fans of film and music alike to help fund the first definitive documentary about the life and legacy of musician, artist, and revolutionary Frank Zappa.
On Wednesday morning, Winter launched a Kickstarter campaign, Who the F*@% Is Frank Zappa?, to not only help fund the film but to raise enough to catalogue and preserve Zappa’s private, at-risk archives. Known as “The Vault”, the never-before-seen archives have been locked away beneath the Zapper home in Hollywood Hills since Frank’s death in 1993. Winter and Glenn Zipper (Undefeated) are the first people outside of the immediate Zapper family to be given access to the collection, which consists of a vast repository of unreleased media both by and from Frank. Before her passing, Gail Zapper, gave the film’s team unprecedented access to Frank’s life and archives, saying she “couldn’t be happier” to be working with Alex and his crew to create the first full-authorized, all-access documentary about Zappa’s life.
The Kickstarter’s original goal of $5,000, 000 is enough to digitize the critical parts of the archive and begin production on the film, and backers can expect a range of rewards including digital vault access, T-shirts, a strip of film from the documentary production, a personal visit to The Vault or a personal item from around Frank’s home. Alternatively, if you’ve got some serious cash to splash, why not just buy Frank’s entire Hollywood Hills home; for a crisp $9 Million, you’ll receive full ownership the Zappa home and receive an Executive Producer credit for your efforts.
Winter describes the film itself as, “an epic saga of a great American artist and thinker; a major film event worthy of the scope of Zappa’s prodigious and varied creative output, and the breadth of his personal and political life.”
The campaign runs through April 8, 2016. See Winter’s explanation and learn more on the Kickstarter campaign page at whoisfrankzappa.com, and follow the project on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @zappamovie.
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