At every turn we have scraped together resources from the love of family, friends, and community to achieve a singular cinematic feat. Through screening Echotone in multiple cities we’ve discovered its universality across America and the world.

As the film approaches widespread release this month, we’ve chosen to continue telling the story through two initiatives: the Echotone Series Pilot and the Echotone Music Grant. Funds will be split evenly among the initiatives.

Echotone opens theatrically at the reRun Theater in New York on Sept 9. and at the Alamo South Lamar in Austin on Sept. 11. It will be available on DVD on Sept. 13 and Digitally Sept. 27 at Echotonefilm.com

Echotone: The Road to an Audience

After drawing 500 people to the small town of Marfa, Texas, for the World Premiere at the Marfa Film Festival (the largest turnout to a MFF screening ever), Echotone spent its time on the festival circuit playing large international festivals like the Starz Denver International Film Festival and small communities like Chambersburg, PA’s, Waking Giant Festival.

For the past 18 months we’ve worked harder than we ever thought imaginable, stapling Echotone flyers to every telephone pole in every city we could find, asking more of friends than we probably should – crashing on couches or asking them to drive us and the film’s musicians halfway across the country for a guerilla screening tour. Bringing Echotone to the world, whether in world-class theaters or projected onto dive bar walls, has been a full-blown marathon.

We have won the Hill Country Film Festival and the Northside Music Festival in Brooklyn, and sold out 10 screenings in our hometown of Austin. Now we charge toward widespread release on digital and DVD, and theatrically in New York on Sept. 9 at the reRun Theater in Brooklyn and again in Austin right before Austin City Limits Festival.

It’s been a difficult journey, bootstrapped from day one. At key moments in the film’s life, friends and strangers have stepped up and helped just as we thought we were about to falter, renewing our faith in the integrity of our creative community. This support is what has led us to keep telling the story in other cities. It also inspired us to find ways to empower artists and fans alike, and give back to the Austin music community that inspired us.

Echotone Series Pilot

Echotone’s relevance in other cities has been impossible to ignore, and has forged many partnerships that continue to reveal powerful stories. The Echotone series is a 6-part 6-hour expansion of the film, showing similar stories in Austin, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Kickstarter proceeds provide finishing funds for a series pilot episode, which will enable us to prove and pitch the concept and secure a broadcast deal to fund and produce the series.

Director Nathan Christ and Photographer Robert Garza have already been on the street filming in Chicago in June 2011 with the likes of Buddy Guy, White Mystery, Mannequin Men, and more, and now in New York in September 2011 with important stories at the endangered Chelsea Hotel, and with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Les Savy Fav, and others. We plan to shoot Los Angeles by the end of 2011 and finish the pilot by late January 2012.

The Kickstarter Campaign

Some are familiar with Kickstarter as a crowd-sourced funding tool. You receive a benefit package for your donation level, detailed to the right. We used Kickstarter early in Echotone’s life to raise $5,000 for production funding. Additionally we introduced one of Echotone’s musicians, Dana Falconberry, to Kickstarter and she raised 82% more than her target to fund production of a new album.

Now we are using Kickstarter to fund the production of the Echotone series pilot and a grant that will be dedicated to helping an Austin artist to release their next album. It’s important to note that we will not receive any funds at all until we meet our funding goal. Please contribute what you can and share this link on your Facebook, Twitter, blog, and email list to help us reach the goal.

Every time we’ve put Echotone on the big screen in Austin, we’ve sold out the theater, whether it was the “Cast and Crew Screening” more than a year ago or the 2 screenings at the Austin Film Festival, people came out in droves. Theater rules were bent. Lawn chairs came out. People hung in the rows and hid in the shadows against the back wall. Or there was Marfa (Austin in the desert). Almost 50 people had to be turned away. But we never expected this.

Every night of the 4 nights sold out. Then the 5^th night the Alamo Drafthouse gave us. The most remarkable part about it, something that could only be seen on the ground level, was how the lines grew with each passing night. Faces became increasingly unfamiliar. It was testament to the power of word of mouth and all the good press boiling up all at once. It got people out. I stood in the lobby, watching people asking for tickets and getting turned away.

It has truly taken a community to prop up Echotone. I just started writing a list to acknowledge everyone responsible, but immediately backed off. It’s ENORMOUS. The lines between friends, colleagues, and family all blurred together.

And now that the Drafthouse has agreed to give us a FULL WEEK run starting this Friday, May 6^th, we’ve reached a new benchmark. If we do well this week, the possibilities open up even further for our future: more screenings in Chicago, New York, LA. It also helps raise our profile and opens us up to more opportunities to continue shooting this fascinating story nationwide.

We’re slated to shoot the pilot for Echoton Chicago this summer and plan to do the same in LA and NYC by the end of 2011. It starts here. Please spread the word and help get people into seats for our extended Austin run! If we’re as successful as we have been, the sky’s the limit!

Thank you!

-Nathan

Get your advance ticket here before they sell out!

Screening Times:
April 24, 2011 – 9:45pm
April 25, 2011 – 7:00 PM
April 26, 2011 – 7:00 PM
April 27, 2011 – 9:30 PM

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Director Nathan Christ, musician Bill Baird, AMP co-founder James Moody, Mayor's Chief Of Staff Ritch Bailey, AMO's Brad Stein, and HAAM's Carolyn Schwarz discuss music, politics, and other issues facing Austin's creative class at #aff2010. Photo by Yusef Svacina

It didn’t really register that I’d moved away from Austin until coming back to the Austin Film Festival for the Echotone screenings. I didn’t brood and plan about moving away for much time at all. Austin doesn’t really let you do that. Just when you think you can’t possibly stay another day – when the heat melts you to the sidewalk, when the lack of work becomes too stifling, when your curiosity/travel bug begins to tell you that other pastures might be greener – just when you start to think that way, some incredible 24-hour coffeehouse opens just down the street, or you see an inspiring show from Sleep Good or Machine or Shapes Have Fangs, or the guys at Transmission curate another brilliant Fun Fun Fun Fest. You start to think, maybe I can stay here another 5 years!

It’s hard to know if it’s a velvet rut or not. All I know is that I left. We finished making Echotone in February and have been moving ever since. I was lifted West by the swell of the Robin Lombaria’s Marfa Film Festival, truly one of the strongest weeks of my life – nothing short of a rainbow gathering, a collision of creative people, family, and beloved friends from all over the country. From there, a short respite in Chicago before working as a cook all summer in a Buddhist community deep in the French countryside. It was a different kind of a work, a time to recharge and regroup before the next push – the Echotone film festival circuit and the upcoming plan to develop Echotone into a miniseries.

After France, I decided wintry Chicago was the place for me. We want to explore the concepts and themes we discovered in the Austin story in other American cities (specifically Chi Town, L.A., and NYC). I’ve been up here on an anthropological dig, exploring the massive, sprawling megalopolis, trying to figure out where the passionate individuals lie, whether in music, film, or theater. Chicago’s been my docking point for the growing nationwide Echotone expeditions: Los Angeles Downtown Independent Film Festival, Dallas Video Fest, Hot Springs Film Festival, the upcoming Starz Denver Film Festival, and our madcap Rumble Tour, where we drove all across the West Coast with the film and the musicians from the film in tow.

Coming home to Austin took me by surprise. Both of our screenings were completely sold out, with people in the aisles and on folding chairs. The hometown support was deeply moving. Then there was the annual ATX Converge event, where musicians from the film (Machine, Dana Falconberry, The White White Lights, and Sunset) sent vibrations from within the beloved Mohawk (one of the epicenters of our film).

We racked up a lot of critical praise and had plenty of Austinites come up to us and gush about how we nailed the story, how it inspired them to continue in their artistic pursuits. I even had a young woman come up to me and say that she was about to drop out of her Music Business degree before she saw the film, that it had lit a fire underneath her to keep going and not give up. It was a big step for me when the musicians in the film gave it a thumbs up. Now, it seems, Austin is behind it.

So, yes, Momentum. It’s on the tips of our tongues. I dream about the word. I ponder what it means. I wake up each morning recognizing its importance. It’s up to us to keep going, to turn the vision into a miniseries and scale the mountain before us: the nationwide Echotone story.
- Nathan Christ, Director

All photos by Yusef Svacina, courtesy of Swatch Photography.

Recent Press from Austin Film Festival

-Interview with Director Nathan Christ and Producer Dániel Perlaky on KUT 90.5′s Texas Music Matters
-Feature Article by the Austinist
-AV CLUB’s AFF Recap – Echotone earns ‘best hometown representation.’
-Review by Jette Kernion at Cinematical.com

The Line extends around the block for a sold out screening at the Alamo Ritz. Slated for the same time that day was the AFF Award's Luncheon with David Simon, and a Texas Longhorns Home Game...Live Music is Austin's Pro Sport! Photo by Yusef Svacina.

Mayor Will Wynne's Chief of Staff Ritch Bailey, and Producer Nicholas Jayanty discuss momentum and community action after a sell out screening at the Alamo Ritz during @austinfilmfest. Photo by Yusef Svacina.

Director Nathan Christ post Ritz screening at #aff2010. Photo by Yusef Svacina.

The Voodoo Highway team basks in a pitch perfect screening of Echotone. Photo by Yusef Svacina.

Soaking in success Associate Producer Nate Ferrone is A-OK. Photo by Yusef Svacina.

Bill Baird and Victor Moyers catch a breath at the Driskill post screening #aff2010. Photo by Yusef Svacina.

I get by with a little help...Photo by Yusef Svacina.

Dana Falconberry hypnotizes at the ATX CONVERGE 2010. Photo by Yusef Svacina.

Jenny Gacy of the White White Lights delivers a sonic sermon... the Reverend Gacy has the stage. Photo by Yusef Svacina.

Mountain passes. The terrible movie ‘Lawnmower Man’ playing in the car. Intermittent periods of silence, sleep, and roaring laughter.

We’re doing our best to bring folks out to the Seattle screening, but collectively we don’t know a lot of people there. We’re in such a grand theater, too. We’ll see. Tonight some drinks are in order for Jayanty’s 29th b-day. In Walla Walla.

The temperature’s dropping. Feeling electric about heading back up to the Pacific Northwest!

Video by Brian Johnston.

Woke up all of us in the Albuquerque Days Inn in good spirits, realizing we were in the midst of the balloon festival, the one that clouds the skies multi-colored once a year. We couldn’t stop and behold, though. We’re passing through too many captivating corners of this strange and vast country to get stuck in every moment.

As I mentioned in our first stream cast, the Stern Maid of the Partridge Family must be active. The role morphs hourly. Sometimes it’s Nick, which his Big Picture epic ideas about where the horizon is taking us, sometimes it’s Brian, our tour coordinator, who’s already handled some wicked late night driving weather, sometimes it’s John Kolar, Sunset’s drummer, with the commanding and very effective shouts: “Alright! Everybody load up!” Sometimes it’s me, like today, when I realized our route was potentially taking us directly into the Rockies – long, harsh inclines, switchbacks, and bone-narrow roads. It would’ve been bad. So we skimmed it at the last second and cut across the desert.

It’s all going surprisingly well. With so many creative people stuffed into van, one might think it could be like herding cats. At the moment, it feels like a laptop village, many people buried in their projects. Bill Baird worked for literally 13 hours straight yesterday on the mixing of some of his new tunes. It’s an inspiring atmosphere.

Our last-minute alternate route spit us directly into the Navajo Nation, where we happened upon the aftermath of a big,messy parade.

Nick said, “Third World America” and, lord, it was true. The streets were impoverished.

It jolted me to the conditions I’ve seen in Mexico and Morocco for a moment. Truly a marginalized people. It weighed heavy on our souls.

We found our way out, skirting Monument Valley and the Four Corners, as Neil Young/s After the Gold Rush embraced the melancholy open space. It was heavy.

We bear northbound now towards Salt Lake, then Washington, as we get closer daily to THE RUMBLE.

-NC

Director Nathan Christ and featured artists, Sunset, Dana Falconberry, and The White White Lights, will be onsite at select Q&As and performing live shows.

Echotone Sneak Preview Tour Schedule and Line Ups

Oct. 4
Echotone Sneak Preview Seattle & Q&A
@ SIFF CINEMA, 7:30 PM
Tickets $7 w/ RSVP
The Rumble: Seattle @ Havana Social Club, 9:00 PM FREE
With Performances by SUNSET, The White White Lights, Dana Falconberry

Oct. 5
Echotone Sneak Preview Portland & Q&A
@ Someday Lounge, 7:30
Tickets $7 w/ RSVP –
The Rumble: Portland @ Someday Lounge, 9:30 PM FREE
With Performances by SUNSET, The White White Lights, Dana Falconberry

Oct. 6
Echotone Sneak Preview San Francisco & Q&A
@ Café Du Nord, 7:00 PM
Tickets $7 w/ RSVP
Echotone and the Recording Academy San Francisco Chapter presents a live streaming panel @ Café Du Nord, 8:45PM
Tune in at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/echotonefilm.
The Rumble: San Francisco, CA Café Du Nord, 9:30 PM FREE
With Performances by SUNSET, The White White Lights, Dana Falconberry

Oct. 7
The Rumble: Los Angeles @ 3 Clubs, 9:00 PM FREE
With Performances by SUNSET, The White White Lights, Dead Trees

Oct. 8
Echotone Sneak Preview Los Angeles w/ Q&A
@ Downtown Independent 8:00 PM
Tickets $10 w/ RSVP

Oct. 9
The Rumble: San Diego @ Bar Pink, 9:00 PM FREE
With Performances by SUNSET, The White White Lights, Chairs Missing

Oct. 10
The Rumble: Las Vegas @ Bunkhouse, 9:00 PM FREE
With Performances by SUNSET, The White White Lights

Sneak Preview at the Dallas Video Fest:

Angelika Film Center
Mockingbird Station
5321 East Mockingbird Lane, Suite 230
Dallas, TX 75206
Get Tickets

Keep your eyes close to the facebook, the twitter, and here.  We have a big announcement planned for Thursday!

8:00 PM, Thursday Sept. 9 at the Downtown Independent, Los Angeles
Q&A With Director Nathan Christ to follow the Screening
Tickets to Screening are $15
FREE Sneak Preview Event After the Screening at the Downtown Art Walk!
Curated by Origami Vinyl
Featuring Twilight Sleep and Kissing Cousins
Spring Arcade Bldg., 541 Spring Street,
(between 5th and 6th Streets)
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Hope you can make it!