The RISE of an X-Men Indie Film: Miami Natives Create Their Own Nerdy Fan Film

Meet Apocalypse.

Kickstarter campaigns have been used to fund everything from albums to video games. It is only natural that Miami natives and long time X-Men fans Miguel Ferrer and John-Paul Bermudez took to the platform to help fund their fan film, RISE. RISE is comprised of three scenes as a way of prologue devoted to the, well, rise of X-Men villain Apocalypse.

These guys are not your run of the mill nerds with a video camera. Looking at their Kickstarter video, it is clear that Ferrer and Bermudez have the industry chops to pull this film off successfully. Ferrer in particular has years of industry experience including award-winning music videos and commercials. So far, they have lined up actors and have begun shooting in L.A., but they need your help to finish the film. At the time of this writing, the campaign has already achieved $24,731 of their $38,700 goal with four days left.



Cultist: Why choose Apocalypse as the subject of your film?
Ferrer: First, he's never been used. Why has he never been used? He's one of the greatest and most powerful Marvel villains of all time. He's an incredibly complex character that would translate very well to the screen. He is the first mutant, born in Ancient Egypt. To me, he is the embodiment of pure evil. One, he never disappears. He always comes back. His consciousness is always transferred into someone else. Two, he doesn't believe himself to be evil. There's a great line in the comics where someone says his evil needs to be stop and he says, "Evil? I'm not evil. I just am." He's here to purge the Earth and everything around him of the weak and build a new Earth in his image. Michael Gonzalez, our executive producer said it best: "Apocalypse is Darwin meets Hitler."

Why use Kickstarter to fund the film?
Ferrer: As far as the Kickstarter model and putting a fan film together, it just makes sense.

Bermudez: Miguel, coming from the industry side, had some peers that used that model and were successful with it. Thought it was a good idea to apply it. There's a lot of tech blogs I read that have broken down the Kickstarter model. It was interesting.

Can you give us an update on your funding progress?
Ferrer: We feel really good about it. The amount of support we've gotten is amazing. We're at 70% [of our goal]. We had a fundraiser last Thursday. We were screening all the stuff we were doing, had a showing of the teaser, and we were raffling off items (signed posters, signed autographs). It was a really good event.

Bermudez: After Thursday, I felt really good about it. Not just the money, but the support overall.

Ferrer: The general public has been really impressed.