Blue Like Jazz movie opens with a buzz

Civil Disobedience street team members in Philadelphia with Donald Miller and Steve Taylor

A Civil Disobedience street teamer robot ready for action!

More Civil Disobedience street team members with Donald Miller and Steve Taylor

One of the largest crowd-sourced creative projects in American history thanks to a fan-generated Kickstarter campaign, BLUE LIKE JAZZ will hit theaters on April 13, 2012.   The grassroots support that helped get the film made is now proving to build momentum for the film’s release through the “Civil Disobedience” street team, which received over 1000 sign up’s in the first 48 hours of the website going live.  Presented by Roadside Attractions, the film, one of PASTE magazine’s “most anticipated films of 2012” is based on the New York Times best seller by author Donald Miller, which has sold over 1.4 million copies to date.

With a desire to take the traditional street team concept to the next level, BuzzPlant and and Rhetorik Creative have partnered to help BLUE LIKE JAZZ street teamers an experience like none other.

By signing up, fans are given the rank of SuCCerR, an acronym used throughout the book and the film. From there they are encouraged through a plethora of assignments, some very simple, such as blogging and hanging up movie posters on their college campus, while some a bit more outgoing, like dressing up in a bear costume and showing up at a screening.  For each assignment completed, street teamers will be awarded points, as well as other rankings with terms related to BLUE LIKE JAZZ (“Reedie,” “Bear,” “Astronaut,” “Tall Biker,” “Sexy Carrot” and “Robot”), and at the end, everything from gift cards, movie posters and having lunch with Steve Taylor and Donald Miller in person are included in the prize packages.

“We know that it’s important to be be accessible and available to make the street teamers feel like part of the team,” said BuzzPlant Owner and President Bob Hutchins. “We keep in regular contact with our street teamers, emailing them weekly, offering screening tickets in various cities when we can, and responding every one of their questions and comments.  It’s been an exciting process to see their response and enthusiasm for this film.”

Directed by Steve Taylor, BLUE LIKE JAZZ centers around Don (Marshall Allman, TRUE BLOOD, PRISON BREAK), a pious nineteen-year-old sophomore at a Texas junior college, who impulsively decides to escape his religious upbringing for life in the Pacific Northwest at one of the most progressive campuses in America, Reed College in Portland.  Upon arrival, Reed’s surroundings and eccentric student body proves to be far different than he could possibly imagine from the environment from which he came, forcing him to embark on a journey of self-discovery to understand who he is and what he truly believes.  BLUE LIKE JAZZ features a cast of rising stars including Allman, Claire Holt (THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, PRETTY LITTLE LIARS), and Tania Raymonde (LOST).

Currently, Taylor, Miller and Allman, are hitting 27 markets via tour bus throughout March for sneak peak screenings, including a premier at SXSW this week, in hopes to excite and engage the fans who helped fund their film.

“The team that wrote, directed and filmed BLUE LIKE JAZZ is living on a bus, traveling around America screening the movie for the thousands of backers who invested in this film,” comments Miller.  “It’s our chance to show off what we believe is a terrific movie.”

BLUE LIKE JAZZ was filmed last fall in Nashville, TN and Portland, OR.

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BuzzPlant is a local internet marketing agency based outside of Nashville, in Franklin, Tennessee, specializing in social media and online marketing strategies for both national and local projects.   As a national award-winning creative marketing and branding firm, their clients range from local businesses to national films and campaigns.  Offering services such as developing social media strategies, social media execution and management, web design and development, consultation, web based application development, handling online publicity, SEO maximization, and more, BuzzPlant’s team is dedicated to helping clients tell their story and connect to a listening audience with authenticity and creativity.  For more information please visit http://www.buzzplant.com .

‘Rhetoric’ is defined as the art and study of using communication with persuasive effect.  Rhetorik Creative is a company that aims to create and deliver experiences that act as an invitation.  An invitation that inspires emotion, engages interaction, and tells a story. Co-owners Zach Prichard and Jonathan Frazier each bring to the table a unique blend of strengths that focus on content creation and the way it is received.  Their approach for each project stems from the perspective of a creative director: utlilzing all the parts of a campaign to work together seamlessly.  They’ve seen success in viral campaigning, marketing, photography and video production.

After seeing the news on the author’s blog that the movie was being put on indefinite hold due to a lack of funding, two fans of Miller’s famous Blue Like Jazz, Zach Prichard and Jonathan Frazier, created a grassroots style effort to save the film with the launch of www.savebluelikejazz.com. One of the movie’s investors committed to matching the amount raised if their campaign reached $125,000. To see the original video post from Prichard and Frazier, visit www.savebluelikejazz.com. The website encouraged viewers to download and pass along “Save Blue Like Jazz” posters, place Twitter hash marks of #savebluelikejazz, “like” on Facebook and, most importantly, donate on www.kickstarter.com, which is the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects. Pledge incentives included recorded voicemails from Miller, “Associate Producer” credits in the film’s end titles, t-shirts, screening tickets, copies of Miller’s script, digital downloads, personal “thank you” calls from the film’s director and more. The 30-day, fan-generated campaign raised $345,992 from 4,495 supporters in October of 2010 to save the making of the film.  Kickstarter.com, named “Blue Like Jazz” the “Best In Show: Project of the Year” for 2010 (hyperlink – http://blog.kickstarter.com/post/2732757621/best-in-show-project-of-the-year).