A Billion Lives - What's Next? - You Don't Know Nicotine

[Countrypami]

Got this e-mail from Aaron yesterday... Please give him your feedback!

"What's Next?





Happy Monday from toasty Los Angeles,

Today marks two years since our North American Premiere of A Billion Lives. Just for kicks, I looked back at some of the stats my team shared with me. It is amazing to see the noise we made together!

Facebook
From just May 2016 to November 2016, we had 17,710,000 impressions on Facebook for posts on our English A Billion Lives page. Our posts were shared 45,010 times!

Twitter
In the 91 day period between our World Premiere in NZ & our North American Premiere, we had 1,500,000 impressions from the @ABillionLives twitter account and nearly 10,000 retweets.

Instagram
Instagram reports that you guys made 36,000+ posts about #ABillionLives.

YouTube
Our community watched 824,000+ minutes of content, shared our videos 11,057 times, and featured them in 1,641 playlists.

I watched "The Movement" video again this morning. I'm so proud of what we did together.

On a more personal note, many of my friends who watched A Billion Lives messaged me to tell me they'd stopped smoking and were using a smoke-free nicotine alternative. So much joy!

However, last week, one of those friends messaged me to confess that she'd gone back to smoking after only a couple months. Her vapor device wasn't enough to conquer a lifetime addiction....

Even worse, she told me that she has mouth cancer now....

...

As much joy as it was to help so many folks trying to stop smoking and help change the laws in several countries, I must admit that in many ways we failed to get the job done.

Public health officials are still shaming former smokers. They're banning the same flavors that would help my smoking friends decide to try vapor systems. Innovation to help smokers is basically illegal in the US and the older vapor devices aren't working for many lifelong smokers. Now another one of my friends has cancer...

She goes into surgery to remove part of her face in a couple weeks.

I wanted to email you and let you know that I'm getting fired up. I've been thinking of ways to finish the job...end the unscientific fear-mongering that is costing lives.

Next month I am scheduled to begin a new project. I was developing a movie about Poverty and the cause of it (broken relationships & disconnection). However, I now find myself wondering if I should get back into the fight we started with A Billion Lives. I'd like to investigate the science of nicotine, take a look at new developments, and expose some new scandals I just found out about.

I wanted to check with you and get your thoughts:

1) What feedback do you have about A Billion Lives?
2) What new topics should we cover in another movie?

I'm in LA meeting with my agent about future projects and I brought this up. Basically, we're running into the same questions we had last time. Here's where I'd need help if we're going to do a new movie:

1) Do you know any celebrities who would tell their story?
2) Do we have enough passionate friends to help carry the message on social media?
3) How do we pay for making the movie?

We took no money from any outside organizations last time to make the movie and while it helped our credibility, it hurt our ability to get professional publicity and marketing going at an early stage. We simply didn't have enough funding...and I'm stubborn.

This time around, I'm thinking about trying a Kickstarter. Do you think people would support it? Do you have any ideas of what perks we could offer supporters?

Ok, that's enough questions. Please hit "reply" to my email and let me know what you think.

Also, Kevin from THR4Life asked me if I'd do an interview looking back at A Billion Lives and I wanted to share it with you. We had a very long and deep conversation.

Click here to listen to it

Thanks again for being a part of the fight. I look forward to your thoughts.

Talk soon,

Aaron"

REPLY TO: [email protected]

 

[Countrypami]

Update from Aaron...

"The First to Know



I've been working on a couple really special projects and I wanted you to hear about this one directly from me.

Watching what's happened since A Billion Lives came out has been very difficult. It seems truth doesn't matter anymore.

I've spent the past year talking to people who smoke cigarettes, those who use nicotine for various reasons, and researchers from around the world.

Their answers keep leading to more questions. Why do so many people want to use nicotine, even from unhealthy forms like cigarettes? Are there benefits of nicotine? What are the risks?

Why is there so much propaganda and money being funneled into lying about it?

Sadly, after A Billion Lives came out it seemed that many folks were okay with a billion smokers dying.

But what if "clean nicotine" products (not from smoking) extended your non-smoking grandma's life? What if there's a surprising reason so many people (up to 90%) with schizophrenia use nicotine?

When I found out that nicotine is being used to treat Parkinson's and other neurological disorders, a switch flipped in my head. My family has lost loved ones who suffered from brain diseases.

What if nicotine could have helped?

Despite a lot of evidence showing benefits to clean nicotine, I've heard terrible stories about the great lengths some are taking to cover up the evidence and to demonize ways people take nicotine.
Some of it will make you sick.
I'm fired up and ready to announce that we've begun another movie. This time it's about nicotine.

We've already been filming for months. Barring any massive new developments, our goal is to wrap it up by the end of summer 2019 and have it ready for film festivals in winter (Sundance, Berlin, True/False, SXSW, etc.).

If you'd like to follow the You Don't Know Nicotine project on Facebook, click here. This will be the beginning of another amazing movement, so don't hesitate to say "hi" and let people know you were an early part of it. All the activity lets visiting journalists know how much the topic matters.

Also, we'll be using the hashtag #YouDontKnowNicotine for online posts that need attention from the community. Feel free to use it in comments of ignorant or misleading articles on social media. We need to cut off misinformation at the source.


Looking back, we learned a lot from our experience with A Billion Lives:

1) We need to collaborate earlier, with more people, especially in Hollywood
2) We need a bigger/earlier publicity budget
3) We need to get it out faster
4) We need to make it easily accessible to the public without compromising credibility or losing my team's personal investments
We're excited to announce The Film Collaborative in LA will be working with us to tackle some of these big issues. Not only are they well connected in the movie world (many of their films premiere at big film festivals like Sundance, SXSW, etc.), but they've agreed to be our fiscal sponsor, which means the funds people give towards this effort can be tax-deductible because TFC is a non-profit entity.

If we raise enough money through crowdfunding to make this a wide release (we have a million dollar production/publicity budget, which is similar to most known documentaries), we can reach tens of millions of people.
To do that, we're planning a Kickstarter campaign in the new year. However, I wanted to give you a chance to reduce our costs (Kickstarter takes a %) and join a very elite group of early crowdfund supporters with special perks.

$99+ Launch Supporters

As a Launch Supporter, you'll get your name in the film credits (optional), a ticket to the big Milwaukee premiere (sold out last time), and your name on the website "Wall of Supporters" (optional). We'll also put your face in an exclusive mosaic movie poster similar to the one we created for A Billion Lives. You'll get a digital file of the artwork to print or share.


$499+ Launch Captains

As a Launch Captain, you'll get everything the Launch Supporters get (above), but you'll also get an exclusive Launch Captain t-shirt, a signed copy of the A Billion Lives Collector's Edition Blu-ray, and a license to publicly show A Billion Lives to your group (shop, church, school, or wherever).


$4,900+ Launch Leaders

You'll get all the perks above and will be invited to join the team for a tour of our movie studio, a sneak peek of the new movie, and a meal with the crew. You'll also get red carpet tickets for the Milwaukee Premiere and a special VIP badge with gift bag.


$9,900+ Launch VIPs

You'll get all the perks above, but you will arrive by limo with other VIPs to the red carpet and will have access to the green room area. If you cover travel costs, I will also come to your home, work, church, school, etc. at a mutually agreed time and host a private screening of A Billion Lives or You Don't Know Nicotine with a personal meet n' greet afterwards.


$49,900+ Launch Stars

In addition to all the Launch VIP perks, I'll also bring cinematographer Jimi Jake Shaw with me for the day to shoot a mini-documentary about you and your story. You'll also get my personal mobile number to chat about project updates.


You can see our project page on The Film Collaborative website, with a link to contribute at the bottom. Please let me know when you decide to support this pre-launch effort or if you have any questions.

I'd also love for you to reply with any ideas, comments, or concerns before we go public with this. I don't want to miss anything.


Talk soon,

Aaron

Director
You Don't Know Nicotine"

 

[JuicyLucy]

So glad for this project - these folks are right on target!

 

[Countrypami]

Aaron released this video on Jan. 26th...
#YouDontKnowNicotine