Made in partnership with community, 'V' is the first project made by the creative, collaborative minds at The Jamaica Inn Collective. A journey of movement and story, the film is made up of five steps from a state of gender extremes to true diversity. Featuring Australian performers, choreographers and professional film crew, as well as music contributed by our crowd. We'll be announcing the themes in an Update to come! 

'V' is a project that came together when I met Kaila in November 2014. I'd had several ideas for dance shorts, music videos and performance concepts, but they had been separated in my mind, disjointed. I asked Kaila to dance one of the pieces, and shortly after that, ideas that laid dormant for years burst back to life and demanded to be filmed and shared with the world.

All of the participants in this project aren't the type to do something for the sake of it. When we realised all the dances made a statement about gender and diversity, we knew it was important we get the community involved so we could participate in this conversation responsibly. Which is how I met with Sally Goldner at TransGender Victoria and understood that we really had a tool to deliver a message of gender equality for everyone, freeing all to explore their gender expression.

 

We were inspired by many changes to this way of thinking about something that has been a binary for so long, by people like Laverne Cox, Chaz Bono, Conchita Wurst, Aydian Dowling and recently Bruce Jenner. These people head up a long line of gender diversity advocates like Boy George, Mauro Cabral, Raewyn Connell and Antony Hegarty. We're excited to follow in the footsteps of dance projects like 'Gaia', and performers like Kate Jablonski and  So with these heroes as our %23inspirateurs, we set off into it. 

We knew we'd need help though, from friends, family, but also the wider community of people we didn't know yet who we were sure would be as passionate as we are about coming together to connect over this remaining frontier of equality. We truly can't do this without you from a financial, communal, or creative standpoint. We have built 'V' to be something everyone can get involved in, because this issue affects everyone whether they know it or not.

So with that, we thank you for everything, we urge you to keep fighting the good fight, and help us make something incredible.
-Brodie

The Jamaica Inn Collective is creating this project from scratch to help our followers learn about making their own dance and film dreams come true. We're receiving a lot of help from amazing professionals to make it happen, and showing people where the money needs to go to pull off projects like this.

V Campaign Budget

As the budget develops, taking into account anything given in-kind we'll be providing updates to our contributors and over social media as this will mean a bigger margin to support TransGender Victoria and our artists/choreographers/dancers.

We'll be using the funds for:-
Pre-Production: Rehearsals, Venues, Costumes, Props, Music
Production: Crew, Equipment, Crafts
Post-Production: Editing, Screening Event
Also important things like Insurance and Eating!

With any creative project there are elements you can't predict, but the challenges we’re looking forward to overcoming fall into two categories:

Community

The key to a successful crowdfunding campaign is -of course - its crowd. We are a new presence in the industry and although we have our own connections, we want to really connect with the people who this conversation impacts most. The gender-diverse community itself is one we want to treat and work with respectfully. We do also want to be sensitive so that people who may not have been allies before have the chance to get involved now. Our campaign is ambitious and it is our first large-scale one so we want to do it right.



We’ve planned lots of connection points and opportunities for involvement other than financial to give people every chance to get on board. Also, we’ve engaged gender-diverse support organisations to make sure we are being responsible in the message we put out.

Big Stuff

This project is something we’re proud of, passionate about and hugely invested in the vision for. Our vision involves some pretty ambitious components including music licensing, underwater filming, crowd scenes (aspiring and accomplished performers we want you!), professional crew etc. We’re equipped and experienced, but these are the things we need to get right. We’ve pre-organised most of these elements before the campaign has even gone live, and we have left a few things to the grace of the universe so everyone can enjoy the serendipity.