The Blogathon Is Officially Toes Up

By Marilyn Ferdinand

“For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.” —Alfred Hitchcock

I won’t kid you—doing a fundraising blogathon is not a piece of cake. There are months of planning, hours of reading, writing, and linking, moments of great joy and great frustration. In the end, however, these blogathons really are as sweet as German chocolate cake and far more filling for the mind and soul. For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon III is over, and everyone who was part of it can sleep the sleep of the righteous. You did good!

We had 208 posts in six days from 112 bloggers. We raised $6,490, which tops last year’s total and helps the National Film Preservation Foundation get a running start on reaching the $15,000 they need to premiere The White Shadow.

I’m going to give it to you straight. According to Annette Melville, the executive director of NFPF, “The NFPF is humbled and very pleased by the outpouring of support from around the world. While this is not enough money for the NFPF to present the web premiere this fall, it is a great start. We can’t host materials that are not ready to present. There is no presentable digital copy of the film now. We have to raise sufficient money to make a digital copy, record the new score, pay the composer and musician, mix the score, and lay it down to the digital copy, in addition to the web hosting. That is why the goal was $15,000. We hope to raise these funds over the next few months but don’t have them now. Plans are afoot but cannot be finalized until we have all the necessary money.” 

Because Rod, Farran, and I don’t wish to emulate the endless pledge drives on public television, we will not be asking for any more donations. The blogathon is over, and it was an unqualified success as far as we are concerned. The quality of the posts was unparalleled in blogathon history, a true privilege to link to and read—a job I’m not quite done with. I’m sure, dear readers, you aren’t either, and that’s something we’d really like you to finish. Comment, post to Facebook, tweet, do whatever you feel is appropriate to express your appreciation for the ones you like most. Every donation link will remain live, and with any luck, we’ll get a few more donations from more delighted readers.

Congratulations to the following donors who won our random drawings:

• Shannon Fitzpatrick has won an autographed copy of Roger Ebert’s memoir Life Itself.
• Rebecca Naughten will receive an autographed copy of Betty Jo Tucker’s Confessions of a Movie Addict.
• Peter Nellhaus is about to be the new owner of the French Notorious poster.
• Aurora Bugallo has won the photo of Alfred Hitchcock and the giant telephone.
• Treasures DVDs from the NFPF go to Jill Blake, Thomas Bolda, Kenji Fujishima, Catherine Grant, Katherine Kehoe, and Lee Price.

Our thanks to the NFPF, Donna Hill, Betty Jo Tucker, and Roger Ebert for their generous contributions of these raffle prizes.

Finally, to quote from Hitch again, “A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.” I sincerely hope you enjoyed our party and found it worth your time and money.

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