The School of Communications graduate launched a fundraising campaign in January to promote his project ‘Gossamer,’ attempting to crack the Hollywood standard of creating original content.
The Media Arts & Entertainment major’s first Hollywood experience came in 2010 through the Elon in Los Angeles program and an internship at Paramount Pictures. After graduation, Jackson enrolled in a UCLA professional program for screenwriting, where he “found my voice as a writer,” he said. This month, his journey continues with the kick off of “Gossamer’s” crowdfunding campaign.
Over the past year, Jackson has taken “Gossamer” from concept to script, and currently serves as the project’s co-producer. “It’s about three college friends who start a visual black book as part of class experiment and, when the experiment leaves the classroom, it has deadly consequences,” he explained.
The objective of Jackson’s 45-day crowdfunding campaign is to finance a pilot presentation, roughly two-thirds of a pilot that can be pitched to networks and investors, giving them a sense of the project. Jackson and his team take encouragement from knowing that other projects have embarked on similar paths, including “Dear White People,” “Twenties” and “Bros.”
Jackson understands there is an abundant amount of original content being produced in entertainment circles, but his project has banked on finding talented actors and creating a polished script to make the story “genuine.” “We are taking the time to do a lot of character development, but still have an interesting plot,” he said. “We want to produce something that people want to return to every week and follow the characters.”