SKREEONK!

Evening, fandom! Jon @ UnCanny here with some very exciting news for all us Westerners, as well as an exclusive interview with our pal Kyle Yount of Kaijucast!

Kyle has been hard at work on his upcoming documentary Hail To The King! Recently, the project was fully funded on kickstarter – but this is such an amazing opportunity that we want to keep the ball rolling! If their secondary goal is met, not only will Kyle be filming a Godzilla documentary for all of us in Japan, but kaiju photographer extraordinaire David E. Dopko will be traveling with to photograph the incredible journey as well! Sound awesome? Thats because it is!

For those of you unaware of Kyle’s fantastic project, here’s the jist from the main kickstarter page:

2014 marks the sixtieth anniversary of Godzilla, the world’s most famous movie monster. Around the globe, people are celebrating this momentous occasion in many different ways, but no one honors Godzilla better than his homeland of Japan. The Big Godzilla Special Effects Exhibition will display original props, suits, production art and memorabilia in one centralized location – and it’s only on display in Tokyo for two weeks. Exhibits like these are rarely seen by westerners and only a small fraction of the English speaking world has ventured to the land of the rising sun to view them. They return home with tales and photos of movie history and have had them published in fan magazines and on websites for decades. But with recent advances in technology, we can now share these stories and images in beautiful high definition.

If successfully funded, Kyle Yount, the host of the Kaijucast will travel to Japan to document the Big Godzilla Special Effects Exhibition and interview key members from Godzilla’s sixty-year history. The images and footage collected will be edited into a feature length documentary that will be available on YouTube titled Hail to the King: 60 Years of Destruction. If we meet some stretch goals, this documentary could eventually be available through Video On Demand services.

Kyle’s killer campaign has reached its modest $8,000 dollar goal, and as of this article is at about $14.5k with a whole two weeks left! They’re close to doubling their initial target, and that can only mean more amazing content for us fans. To give you guys a better idea of what your donation will go toward, we had a one-on-one chat with our good pal – The ever awesome Kyle Yount!

Jon @ UnCanny: First off, Congrats on reaching your goal, and super early at that! Can you tell us a bit about what any further funding will go toward?

Kyle of Kaijucast: Thank you so much, we were doing quite well and then one extremely generous donation pushed us past our goal. I was simply ecstatic about this venture before this backer and now, I am just over the moon with excitement. The documentary, as we laid it out at the beginning of the campaign, was a modest concept – the money from our original goal covered my airfare and hotel, hiring a fantastic camera crew for two days, creating the backer perks and meagerly compensating my US-based team. Now that we have blasted past our original goal and with so much time left in the campaign, I get to set our sights a bit higher. The first thing I just had to get out of the way was hiring the camera crew for another day. That gives us 50% more footage to play around with while editing and more opportunities for interviews as well. I’m happy to report that with our current funding, we can check that box and move onto the next task, more interviews. While every Japanese actor I have ever met is extremely appreciative of their fans, they require a fee if they are going to be in any kind of production. I’m making a short list of Toho actors who I would love the opportunity to interview specifically for this documentary. If the funding continues to pour in and we double our goal, I would love to take a photographer with me to help document this documentary. I have a few more things in mind, but honestly haven’t had the opportunity to find out how achievable those goals actually are – this happened so quickly. I’ve always said that this is a scalable project, I am simply thrilled that we get to scale up!

Jon @ UnCanny: I think we all want to know, now that your adventure is surely a’go-go, what you are most looking forward to documenting upon arrival?

Kyle of Kaijucast: Since this documentary is about the King of the Monsters, the top priority is the Big Godzilla Special Effects Exhibition. It is, of course, the centerpiece of this entire project. The other two locations are the Kaiju Bar (an Ultra-kaiju themed watering hole) and the large Godzilla statue in Roppongi’s Tokyo Midtown Park. Because of the 60th anniversary, Tokyo is hosting several Godzilla displays – so my Tokyo based camera crew is scouting a few more locations that have a kaiju theme. Lastly, and this is for the collectors out there, part of the campaign’s perks involve picking up some kaiju toys for backers at a certain level. I’m absolutely going to be doing some kind of filming at the world-famous Mandarake. I just don’t know which one yet!

Well there you have it, fandom! The man has a plan and the plan is golden, I say! I absolutely cannot wait to see all of this. Hopefully, after reading this – you can’t either!

If you’re interested in backing this terrific project, please pay the kickstarter page a visit by clicking the banner at the top of this article, or simply by clicking these words here. Even something as small as $1 to $5 is generous, and certainly helps. You have twelve whole days left to donate.

Keep on doing what you’re doing, fandom. You guys rock. Thanks for reading and be sure to congratulate Kyle (and David!) on Facebook!

Until next time, true believers!

Jon @ UnCanny