kickstart proposal draft

Andy Herz is the author of this draft.

hank you, andy, for an excellent start. hello jason. may i introduce you both to the growing team here, students dakotah burns, abhishek banerjee-shukla, and robert fountain, and to the harvardx team for our jamaica project, lisa brem and saptarishi bandopadhyay.

Greetings Dakotah, Abhishek, Robert, Lisa, Saptarishi - and Anthony -

Charlie

As always, you field a fine team. Glad to see the scope of our talents matches the reach of this project's ambitions. My draft was just the kickoff document with much room to improve and grow.

Look forward to hearing everyone's vision and specific ideas on the screenplay and broader project.

Andy

Thanks for all your work on this project, Andy. Abhishek and I have started working on a script treatment for a Nanny film, which may become less relevant after you receive quality full-length screenplays via the contest (we have no background in scriptwriting). Nevertheless, our work on the treatment has alerted us to some interesting questions that will undoubtedly crop up in any film about Nanny. In part because there is so little information in the historical record about her, it seems that the screenplay will have to take some creative liberties in order to flesh out the story. In particular, we've found that there is a lot of conflicting information surrounding the "bookends" of Nanny's life:

1) There are several different accounts of Nanny's arrival in Jamaica; some say she came as a free woman with slaves of her own, but others suggest that she came as a slave and escaped from captivity at some point thereafter, either by jumping off a slave ship or escaping a plantation.

2) Regarding Nanny's death, some records suggest she was killed before the treaty was ever signed, while others say that she lived to an old age.

Abhishek and I are conflicted about the extent to which a Nanny film should try to hew as closely as possible to the most historically accurate account of her life, as opposed to the most cinematic account. It would be much more dramatic, for example, to say that Nanny came to Jamaica as a slave, escaped, and was killed before the treaty was signed, but I don't know how the Maroons would feel about that version of the story.

We'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts.

Nanny came to Jamaica as a slave, escaped, and was killed before the treaty was signed:)

This is fascinating Charlie:

Non-Profit Fiscal Sponsor for Roy Anderson's "Akwantu" documentary:

The Council of Overseas Maroons, Inc.

40 Lincoln Road, Suite 2B

Brooklyn, NY 11225

For about 18 years, I lived a block from this home/address in Brooklyn.

Some preliminary notes on potential contributors and inspiration. Anthony has already reached out, I believe, with Roy Anderson, whose production company - Action 4 Reel Filmworks, may have begun a Nanny documentary.

amazing

Have spoken with anthony and we would like to schedule skype or other connection with Roy anderson for this week. Charlie let's discuss best approach and find time Thursday or Friday if possible. /andy