Contacting Chris Paine, Part Two

Months after initially contacting Chris Paine, the Dastolis told me of an interesting development. They were doing visual effects for a project that was directed by a guy who knew Chris Paine. The guy even said he had worked on Who Killed the Electric Car? at a very early point in its development. He gave the Dastolis Chris' e-mail address. It was then my job to contact him. This is the e-mail that was sent:

Chris,

Last year, you visited the UCF campus to show Who Killed the Electric Car. I introduced myself to you, I was a film major at the school. A few classmates and I graduated in May and have been since working on a film called Who Stole the Electric Car. I've tried to contact you in various ways through various e-mail addresses and websites to no avail.

I only today obtained your e-mail address after the directors of the film James and Robert Dastoli told me they've been working on a freelance project for **u* *ih*****.

Attached I've included an e-mail I sent Plug In America in October in an effort to contact you. Please take a look at our website electriccar.dastolidigital.com

We look forward to being in contact with you.

To my amazement, Chris responded:

Brett- Thanks for your email. Not sure what to make of this except it sounds like the producers are trading on the name of our film for their project.

CHRIS

To my disappointment, this is the way he saw the film. I also felt I didn't explain the project well enough. So I sent him this response:

Re-reading my last e-mail to you I'm not sure if it was entirely clear as to who we are and how we're approaching the making of this film.

From what I wrote I feel like I gave you the impression that maybe I'm working on this film with some large company, perhaps the same company that made Snakes on a Train or that Zodiac movie that came out on DVD the same time Fincher's came out in theatres.

That's not the case. We're a group of young filmmakers (none of us over 25) making this movie for nothing. We have zero money and we're working hard for this movie to come to light. We believe in the film and it's message. The last thing we want is for you to think we're trading on your name to make a quick buck, that's just simply not the case.

The event at UCF, meeting you, and seeing your film have all been direct inspirations in the making of this film. And actually have all been documented in this video : http://electriccar.dastolidigital.com/Webdoc1.mov

We're about to shoot for the next 4 weeks a large bulk of this film in the Los Angeles area and we would love to meet with you and maybe discuss the project if possible; if anything maybe just to get your blessing on the project.

Please let us know.

www.electriccar.dastolidigital.com


I never heard back.

P.S. My last Chris Paine post received this comment from Felix Kramer: I hope you can be understanding: Chris Paine is just one person, who gets many unsolicited requests of all sorts.

That certainly applies to me and CalCars--when I got your email, saying,

"Who Stole the Electric Car is a new independent film of which I am the Executive Producer. We are currently trying to spread awareness of the film and are accepting donations via paypal. A teaser trailer is currently available.
If this is of interest to your newsgroup (of which I am an avid reader and subscriber) please post this.

I saw that email, but didn't respond because I wasnt in a position to support the effort, and the newsgroup is pretty much focused on the plug-in hybrid campaign.

Good luck in your efforts!

-- Felix Kramer, Founder, CalCars.org

I left a comment asking how he found the blog, seeing as how it was only a few hours after posting that he responded. Felix is yet to respond to that.