A year ago next month, I headed down to the Florida panhandle to help shoot a documentary. It’s the project I mentioned in my review of the Canon 60D last year.

Joe Stapp, the man behind the project, recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the post-production. Here’s what he has to say about his project:

“My project is a documentary entitled ‘Rite of Passage the Film’. What I want to do with this faith based documentary is to demonstrate an example of a tradition that is all but extinct within the American culture. It is one father’s journey to usher in his oldest son’s transition to manhood through a biblical, family centered rite of passage.

A rite of passage is the perfect catalyst to help fathers affirm their sons transition into becoming a man. This has been manifested within the Jewish community through the practice of the Bar Mitzvah, and the Australian Aborigines through their ‘Walkabout’. Unfortunately, within the current American culture our fathers have become too distracted to perform such ceremonies for their sons, the contemporary Christian culture is no different. As a result a vast number of our boys are transitioning into their twenties with an identity crisis and are left wondering what real manhood truly is. Young men often try to define their manhood or manliness among their peers through demonstrations of how tough they are, how many sexual exploits they’ve had, or through other potentially destructive behaviors. This is why it is so imperative that fathers step in and define what true manhood really is. I would surmise that the true definition of manhood is transcendent. Authentic manhood is defined by service, service to a cause greater than one’s own self interests. Service to God, service to one’s family, service to country and community. In the absence of this definition, we as human beings default to our own self-serving desires, and as a result become a detriment to mankind.”

Mr. Stapp started this project on a budget of zero; he’s active-duty Air Force. All of us who have helped on this project thus far have donated our time to it. The film’s post-production progress has been kinda slow in the past few months, mostly because of a fund lacks to bring on dedicated editors for the footage we shot.

Mr. Stapp’s hoping to raise $10,000, which will be used to fund the remainder of the work needing to be done on the project. If he’s successful, Rite of Passage will finally become a reality! But we need your help; there are only 31 more days to go before the campaign ends.

Here’s the cool thing about donating to the project through Kickstarter: it’s completely risk free, because it’s based on pledges. If enough people back the project to reach $10,000 before our deadline, the project gets funded. If less than $10,000 is pledged by our deadline, backers don’t pay anything. Of course, we hope to raise the full amount, but it’s nice knowing that if we fail to reach our goal, no one loses out.

And if you can’t or don’t want to donate, you can still help us by sharing the link with your friends. We can’t do it alone!

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