Zach Braff is hoping the internet will kickstart his writing/directing career back to life. After I saw the incredible way “Veronica Mars” fans rallied around Kristen Bell and her show’s creator Rob Thomas, I couldn’t help but think (like I'm sure so many other independent filmmakers did) maybe there is a new way to finance smaller, personal films that didn’t involve signing away all your artistic control. "If you don't like how things are, change it! Oscar-nominated power players Stacey Sher and Michael Shamburg will produce the project, which Braff co-wrote with his brother Adam. With this movie, I’m so passionate about this movie I was really about to sign on the dotted line with a traditional financing arrangement, and it’s been ten years, God I want to make a movie more than anything. For $8,000, fans can see an early screening and give suggestions for the final cut, and $1,000 earns a premiere and after party invitation. "I don’t want to cast those people, I don’t want to do those many things on that list required of me to get that money, including giving up final cut, because I’ve been in test screenings and I’ve seen the way one person’s commentary can steer the whole way that a financier wants a movie to go. The movie, about a struggling actor who agrees to homeschool his young son, will be set in Hollywood but -- as a nod to Braff's roots -- feature characters originally from New Jersey. So unless I have the budget to afford to shoot here (where it takes place), I’ll have to shoot the film in Vancouver or Georgia or Louisiana and fake it to look like LA. I’m not going to do that with this film, because it’s too important to me, it’s too close to my heart.
– Using Kickstarter to fund an indie movie is officially a Hollywood thing now. After the folks behind Veronica Mars proved it could be done, Zach Braff is taking his turn, reports the Hollywood Reporter. The Scrubs star aims to raise $2 million for his Wish I Was Here project, about a struggling actor forced into home-schooling his kids. Braff hopes to repeat the success of his cult hit Garden State, and he's well on his way: In its first hours, his Kickstarter page had already raised nearly $1 million.