April 24th, 2013 
James Shotwell 
Filmmaker and former Scrubs star Zach Braff has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the making of his latest film, Wish I Was Here.
Nearly a decade has passed since Garden State was released, but a glance at the movie and music collection of anyone from 15-30 would prove the film’s impact still lingers in pop culture today. The story of a man trying to find himself falling in love with an equally lost woman and the search to find the calm between their two emotional storms connected with audiences worldwide. Braff continued working in films after that, but has until now kept original works away from the big screen. Read below to learn his reasoning for bringing Wish I Was Here to the light now:
I was about to sign a typical financing deal in order to get the money to make “Wish I Was Here,” my follow up to “Garden State.” It would have involved making a lot of sacrifices I think would have ultimately hurt the film. I’ve been a backer for several projects on Kickstarter and thought the concept was fascinating and revolutionary for artists and innovators of all kinds. But I didn’t imagine it could work on larger-scale projects. I was wrong.
After I saw the incredible way “Veronica Mars” fans rallied around Kristen Bell and her show’s creator Rob Thomas, I couldn’t help but think (like I’m sure so many other independent filmmakers did) maybe there is a new way to finance smaller, personal films that didn’t involve signing away all your artistic control.
Financing an independent film the traditional way often means having to give away your right to “the final cut,” casting choices, location choices and cutting down your script to make it shoot-able on the cheapest budget possible.
What if there is a different way?
The film is not a sequel to Garden State at all, just a follow-up in terms of original efforts from Braff. The script was written last Summer with his brother, Adam. According to the Kickstarter page, the film “is the story of Aidan Bloom (played by me), a struggling actor, father and husband, who at 35 is still trying to find his identity; a purpose for his life. He and his wife are barely getting by financially and Aidan passes his time by fantasizing about being the great futuristic Space-Knight he’d always dreamed he’d be as a little kid. When his ailing father can no longer afford to pay for private school for his two kids (ages 5 and 12) and the only available public school is on its last legs, Aidan reluctantly agrees to attempt to home-school them. The result is some funny chaos, until Aidan decides to scrap the traditional academic curriculum and come up with his own.”
You can view a video introducing the idea for the page and initial story concept below. Click here if you wish to learn more information about how you can back the creation of Wish I Was Here.
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