hey everyone it's Casey rain from The Violet reality here I know that you guys haven't heard from us in a while it's been a minute since we last uploaded a video that is because there have been lots of things going on some of them are personal things some are work things and some of them are projects that I haven't been able to talk about yet and some of those are things that you will hear about later in the year one of them is something that you're going to hear about right now I am co-producing a
short film about Prince and Michael Jackson and I'm so excited that we can share it with you the reason that we're sharing it with you right now is because it's a Kickstarter back project and the kickstarter page is live right now you can go into the description for this video and click through the link read all about it and see all of the various reward tiers available in exchange for you contributing and supporting this project and making it happen we can't make this project without support that's exactly why we're going to Kickstarter because we're doing
this for the fans and by the fans so we're going to talk right now with director co-writer Bobby Huntley who I'm working with on this project let me roll the video for you directly from the kickstarter page here we go hey everybody my name is Bobby Huntley I'm a writer director producer are based out of Atlanta Georgia I've been a filmmaker since I was 10 years old with that being said there is one project that I would just love to make I'm going to get in trouble I'm nervous I'm nervous I'm nervous I do have
to say that I'm terrified but I don't know about you but for me as a creative I move towards things that terrify me but I'm really really truly passionate about this story and I feel like it needs to be told and this is an amazing story you guys and it's based off of a true story not a lot of people know about it that's why I wanted to be the first if I may to bring it to the public Consciousness so about 2 three years ago I was in can screening a film of mine and
I came up with this idea is based on a true story about Michael Jackson and Prince now I know historically we the fans the critics everybody has been pitting them against each other it's played out I really feel it's played out really what this is it's just a fan-made thing for the fans by the fans a creative expression of our mutual love respect and admiration for both of them this particular story is about a faithful night in early May of 1988 now Michael was in Minneapolis wrapping up some concerts Prince backstage invited Michael back for
a private meeting in this private meeting SL dinner not a lot of details came out about this particular evening cuz it was just Michael and Prince for the first time but here is where my creative licensing comes in and I believe this is the first time that they got together oneon-one to actually get to know each other and break those walls down this is just one night I was heavily inspired by one night in Miami which of course tells the story of Malcolm X Muhammad Ali right before he changed his name from Cash's clay Sam
Cook and Jim Brown four of the most prominent men is sports media music politics and what a conversation would look like between them in one night and this film ladies and gentlemen is called royalty at the park you get it cuz they're both Royal and they're at Paisley Park I get that right okay so there you have it you heard from Bobby directly let's talk a little bit about it got Bobby right here hey Bobby hey what's going on all good man glad to have you on the channel I'm so excited to be here I've
been waiting to get on your platform for so long and now the time let's get it there we go as you know we have a lot of Prince fans that follow our Channel I think we are at 25,000 subscribers on the channel right now we made a very deliberate decision way back when we started this channel that although we knew we wanted to do a lot of Prince videos we would try and shape the channel so that it wasn't exclusively Prince now our balance has been mostly Prince because we started the channel not long before
he passed and then when he did it's pretty much all we wanted to talk about for a long time but we have made Michael videos as well I think we also have some people from the MJ community that have been following our Channel and obviously they have heard me a few times on platforms like the MJ cast or interacting with other people in the community like co-producers and co-writer Andy and Jay both very well known in the MJ Community as well so let's talk about when you got the idea to do this project how long
were you sitting on it before you reached out to me got it so I think it just kind of hit me like a ton of bricks out of nowhere I've been a fan of of both for definitely my entire life I really dug into Prince from um as I was entering year 12 in high school and going into college that seems to be a lot of people's trajectory in terms of fandom going to film school doing different projects I would have a a bit of prints and a little mic in there somewhere whether it be
in the mix of the sound or how I do my framing selections of the shots of characters or costuming they were always interwoven through u a bit of my work so at this point I believe it was the summer of 2021 I was in Ken screening a project meeting everybody and getting a whole International feel of uh I was hearing stories through different podcasts of this magical night when Michael Jackson and Prince you know got a chance to really actually sit down and you know have had a private conversation and then my creative mind you
know looking at all the different things that you know we now coming to know that they had several instances of being around each other for several years to different degrees of situations from going roller skating with prin going roller skating with the family in the late 70s early 80s to appearing in the crowds at different concerts and you know of course the famous James Brown concert situation and the bad duet situation and all those things that we know and love but in my mind iel like this was the first time that actually got a chance
to connect and get to know each other without the management the hangers on and the Entourage where you know there might be a feeling of I have to you know peacock in this moment and try to show who's on top so I felt like there was a story there that needed to be told I was also inspired by one night in Miami which is about a a story which involves Sam Cook Malcolm X Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali and it's a fictional telling of an actual kn about their friendship dealing with life in the times
of segregation and civil rights and being at the top of their respective Fields I'm a huge Beatles fan I was inspired by a movie I saw when I was really young it was a VH1 original called two of us and it was about the night where Paul McCartney and John Lon you know there a bit of you know uh dissension between them but they just hung out one time in the mid 70s and you know got a chance to talk about a lot of different things to get some things out and that was expressed through
a film you know using the director's creative licensing so I started you know planting all that seeds in the summer of 2021 and here we are now I'm so excited to finally get a chance to work actively with you Casey Andy and Jay we've all just kind of been around each other in the fan communi for several years and like we're actually coming together and building something and that's what I'm really excited for for anyone that doesn't know myself Bobby Andy and Jay we were all we were all part of of the kind of small
sub community of a community that would hang out on mostly on prince.org but also on some MJ message boards and and various social networks that the kind of sub community of people that equally love Prince and Michael so we were very aware of each other you know all having this like a ven diagram like being in the middle of this ven diagram um I think we were all very aligned on this the prince org days that was was my first experience in the prince world and I got into housequake forms a little bit later but
it was such an interesting world to just jump in and meet all the different characters of people it was interesting to say the least I'll just say that I think one thing that we want to get across to everybody that's watching this really is our love letter to two icons equally like there's a there's people in the prince community that either not interested or or don't know that much about Michael and equally this the same in the Michael Community I don't want anybody to think that we are coming from this from just either one of
those perspectives and that's not what this is I I think there's a group of people familiar with our passions and work in this way that understand that but I think we have to make that very clear hopefully when you look at the kickstarter page the the videos and the promo material we're putting out that that becomes obvious so let's talk about why we decided to do Kickstarter for this I was trying desperately for three years up to this point to not go through the crowdfunding route typically for all my other films I've gone the way
of private investors and it and it's for a much lower budget typically a few thousand here a few thousand there just piece it together and make something but with something of this caliber and the fans we have on both sides who are very protective of them as people as a brand as Legends it just requires so much from the hair the makeup the Wardrobe the props the cars the locations so it just required so much fi from a financial perspective I couldn't really get the financiers that I typically go to to see the vision for
the price tag that it requires to go this depth to do a regular film project is pretty expensive but to do a period piece this film is based in 1988 pretty much triples your budget and you go back even further to the 50s the 1920s the 18 whatever it gets even more astronomical in the price so even though this is a short film that in itself kind of like we were very strategic within our reasonings number one we wanted to create something that the fans can enjoy that we can get into film festivals hopefully both
of states can see mer in what we're doing and want to get behind us for feature film version the best way to go about that is to create a short film I think one of the frustrating things is been we know that we want to do this now and that there are these massive upcoming projects coming out you've got the the Michael biopic you've got this Prince Netflix series which is kind of on hold right now pending what happens with the estate it it feels like people would be coming to us for these kind of
projects if those things were already out but then it also feels like you're following on from successful things that already happened so it's a real tough place to be in but I think Kickstarter makes sense because this is such passionate love letter for these two fan bases that were all part of of both of them and that that middle ground like we were talking about one thing I think people are going to be very interested in let's talk about it we did some auditions last year some castings um Nationwide in the United States I was
very impressed with some of the people we saw and I think it's really hard to impress us in this for sure it's the hardest thing like I mean 99% of things that have been made where somebody's playing Prince or somebody's playing Michael we're just like oh no that's so tough but there are good people out there and I think that's what I got out the process yeah and and I was so thankful to have one of the best casting directors that has done a couple of major biopics she agreed to come on board because she
saw all the hard work I've been doing over the past several years I told her the story she's like yes whatever you need let's go I was so glad that we made the distinction of no we're not going the way of impersonators we want actual actors who are able to emote embody and just lose themselves in this role who even went so far as to not let the actors know who they're actually playing we used fake names changed the information so when I got sent out into the world it just like another film let's really
focus on the talent and all the other things in terms of the physical aspects Talent has to come first and you know the people that we chose they really made us cry they made us feel and I think we're all going to be really pleased with uh what we're putting into this project for sure yep absolutely I mean from my perspective I was really happy when you asked me to be part of this because I feel like I've been un unconsciously subconsciously making this thing for years already I told you when we started discussing the
treatment oh yeah I interviewed this person that worked in Prince and they talked about this thing and we're bringing all of that into the script using every bit of real life example of meetings that we know about or things print said about Michael Michael said about Prince that have been relayed to other people we're bringing that all in I think that is reflected so well in the script I think people will love the script and I'm just so happy that you came on board because being attached to this gives so much credibility to it for
all the hard work that you've done for the Phantoms on both sides and Andy as well as Jay it was really important for me to make sure that I had people from the community that the fans could trust you know because I was always there but I'm in the background I'm quiet I'm focusing on films and trying to make things I wasn't really in the Forefront but I knew I needed to come out with some Heavy Hitters with me so thank you for being a part of it oh of course man so one thing that
I think we should discuss the V diagram of people that equally love Michael and prince in terms of people that we're aware of and online that we know of we think it's somewhat of a niche group but at the same time it's a project that could appeal to everyone so everyone what would you say to people in the prince Community who haven't historically been interested in anything that relates to Michael and vice versa people in the Michael community that really don't know all that much about Prince what would you say to those groups of people
people to say this is something that you will love why should they be interested in support this taking my director hat off in just from a Humanity standpoint I've personally always been intrigued by people who have reached a tremendous level of notoriety power respect and accolades what was going on behind the scenes what were they dealing with on the day to day from family and friends and all these different things that happened to them from childhood and on what is the recipe for success in creating a legend so with that in mind I think people
all over the world have interest in both of these people they're familiar with him at least with the song or something attached to them I think telling this story which is very poignant very humanizing very hilarious there's some hilarious moments in here too like it it's very light in different ways it just really gets you from the writing perspective and then when we get a chance to produce it and and film it it will get you to see these two young men very young and all that they were dealing with professionally and personally we all
just love stories where it's two unlikely people getting together and finding similarities and a bond is established so I think that is what will transl L the most out of all of these cuz you think Michael Prince all this stuff around them but you don't think like let all that Stripped Away when it's just two people in a room having to figure out each other should I say this should I give this away it's just an interesting dance from an artistic and creative perspective I think that that will really appeal to people I agree I
agree totally and I think we've all had these conversations where there are people on one side of the fence and they're just the the the certain things that they're not getting and a lot of a lot of those fans can get very defensive these conversations happen and they start getting very partisan and picking aside and defending this is some Prince is so much better than Michael Michael's so much better than Prince and all of us know we stay out of that conversation this is a pointless conversation to have um but what I say to those
people is if you're a Michael fan and have some kind of chip on your shoulder about Prince you have to still respect the fact that when Michael's making the followup to the most successful album of all time he's envisioning the title track of that followup to be a duet with Prince you can't ignore that level of respect and you can't ignore the respect Prince had for Michael on the other side as well like you know we know all these stories we've been through all these stories you know there's still stories coming out right there's still
you appollonia not that long ago saying that she was with Prince When you know when they watched the Thriller video together he was jumping around the room he just loved it so much all these stories prove what we've known and been saying for a long time that these two guys recognized that the each other were on the same level as them in terms of success and being at the peak they've achieve things that nobody else in the industry has achieved at this point trying to correct that media driven misconception is a powerful driver for all
of us thank you for saying that cuz that's all it is it's just media driven crap I talked to Cynthia horer editor of Ryon magazine she was doing some kind of Q&A session that I was involved with year or year or two ago I had theia asked question I was like where did this media prince versus Michael didn't come from and she said I made it up she said I did it to S magazines exactly somebody started in like yeah it was me but I think the way that we correct this historically is by doing
projects like this and and and that's why I I really want the term for the fans by the fans to be the center of this whole project because we're at a time in history where we can create things of quality of of Merit of production value and we can leave a little piece of something behind for the other fans to come after us to really enjoy Now's the Time to do it you're a fan You' love loved and invested in these artists and bought all these CDs and DVDs and tapes why not share piece of
your love and appreciation for the other fans so that's where we're coming from all right I think we should wrap it there to everyone watching all of our subscribers link to the kickstarter is in the description of this video Bobby remind me how long this kickstar is running for it's running for they said do it in around 30 days so I picked 37 had the number seven in there we tried to do a little something and it's so important to like with Kickstarter when you donate we don't receive anything until we hit our goal if
we don't hit our goal nothing comes out of your account so we need to make sure we hit our goal during the next few weeks we really need your help thank you yep uh any final words uh to everyone watching about this project support the art support the independent filmmakers and just keep being the light of love that I'm sure Michael and Prince wanted us to be support this film we want to get it done please royalty at the park links there let's get those pledges in let's see if we can make this happen thanks
everyone for watching don't forget to subscribe hit like on this video leave us a comment if you have any questions about the kickstarter you can comment on the kickstarter page you can comment on this video you can hit me up privately you can hit Bobby up privately I'll put his links in the description as well um we are here to answer any and all questions about getting this incredible film made and for anybody and everybody that does choose to support this project at whatever level you have our complete gratitude and we thank you so much
37 Days let's see if we can do it catch you later everyone peace
