https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/screens/2013-05-03/kickstart-your-weekend-skunk/

Kickstart Your Weekend: 'Skunk'

By Monica Riese, May 3, 2013, 12:34pm, Picture in Picture

With two weeks still to go on the Kickstarter campaign, Annie Silverstein's Skunk has raised $8,979, 128% of its goal. So why are we telling you about it?

Silverstein, a graduate student in the University of Texas' Radio-Television-Film Department, is putting this film together for her thesis. Her past work, which you can learn more about in the pitch video below, involved teaching kids filmmaking techniques to express themselves through documentary – and narrative, when things got too raw. She has a cast and crew lined up, comprising local students and professionals, and they're all set to begin shooting in less than a week.

But mostly, we think you should keep an eye on this project – and on Silverstein more broadly – because she's had the guts to work with two of the most notoriously difficult groups in all of filmmaking, and she's doing it in the same project: kids and dogs.

Besides which, the $7,000 goal covered the dog trainer and talent and casting, but any additional funds are being used to cover expenses like gas, food, and post-production costs like scoring and color correction.

Check out the pitch video below, the campaign over here, and keep an eye out for the finished project.

Kickstart Your Weekend is a series intended to showcase Texas film and tech projects that are crowdfunding their way to a goal, be it distribution, a prototype, or production costs. If you have a project that we should know about, email us at filmflam@austinchronicle.com.