Category Archives: Ghost Phone

Ghost Phone: Hear the Buzz!

We’ve done it! After five years of toiling in the gladiator pit of indie filmmaking, GHOST PHONE is now in theaters! We parked ourselves at the Storyteller 7 in Taos a couple days ago and interviewed people as they came out of movie. We could tell you what was said, but it’s so much easier for you to just watch the video.

If you haven’t seen GHOST PHONE yet, take some advice from the people in the video below and see the movie–four or five times. We’re running through December 19, 2013. On December 23, 2013 Taos Mayor Darren Cordova will draw the winning ticket on Taos Plaza. Think about packing the moving van, because you just might be a winner!

We’ve also received some good newspaper and television coverage. Check these links out:

Thanks,

Jeff and Darien

Ghost Phone in Theaters: A Call for Help

Ghost-Phone-movie_watch_to_win

Have you ever wanted to be involved in a movie production? If no, we don’t blame you–it’s a lot of work. If yes, Darien and I have a great opportunity for you. Either way, keep reading. It might change your mind.

So here we are three days away from our World Premiere of GHOST PHONE in Mitchell Theatres. Starting on Friday Dec. 6 every person who buys a ticket for GHOST PHONE and watches the movie will have a chance to win five acres in Taos. That’s right. Every ticket gets you in the movie and also in the running for a land giveaway. GHOST PHONE, WATCH TO WIN!

Cool stuff! But there’s more.

We have a vision of both marketing our film and using it as a test rocket, a template so to speak for the Resurrection of the Taos Talking Pictures. It’s a fairly complex project we’re entering into. We’re bringing back a film festival AND starting a film distribution company. The film festival will be a showcase for films we accept into the brand and market internationally.

It’s hard work but someone’s gotta do it.

We’re hammering away day and night to promote the movie and the new Taos Talking a Pictures. We’ve emailed and called more media people than that lady in the now-infamous Taos-area police chase video. Darien and I have even scored some interviews in print and TV!

But we still could use some help. We want the Ghost Phone Watch to Win giveaway, and the new Taos Talking Pictures, to go viral, explode over the internet like that Gangnam Style video. That’s where you come in. Please help us spread the word virally through your social media networks. Share our stuff on Facbook, Twitter, Pinterest. Even good old-fashioned word-of-mouth is fine with us. Just get the word out. Please.

We’ll acknowledge your help on our website and social media accounts. We’ll return the favor if you have a cool project you want to share. We might even ship you a movie from our catalogue.   Simply put, we cannot be grateful enough of your help here. We’re including our GHOST PHONE press release that contains details about the movie and the new Taos Talking Pictures. All you have to do is share!

AND REMEMBER: GHOST PHONE, WATCH TO WIN!

Thanks friends,
Jeff and Darien

The Resurrection of “Taos Talking Pictures!”

WATCH GHOST PHONE AND YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN FIVE ACRES IN TAOS, NEW MEXICO!

A VISION? Or a HALLUCINATION? Or a classic ACID FLASHBACK?

What is going on? Is this some sort of dream? Why do I do what I do? All these are fairly universal space cadet questions. I’m older now and should be giving up on those types of questions. But, nooo, I’m still eccentric and perhaps eclectic.

First let me confess I’ve consistently broken the cardinal rule of film-making which says you only use OPM (Other People’s Money) to produce your films. I’ve funded my films myself with the grace of Taos land as our sponsor. But, as a result I’m often on the verge of bankruptcy because of this passion.

I’m impatient and can’t stand the process of trying to take your script and film vision and run it through the Gladiator School of Hollywood fundraising. For a humorous view of what I’m saying, see Kevin Bacon in THE BIG PICTURE. This is similar to what I experienced in Hollywood.

Another film that applies to me is THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Many of my old high school friends thought “the Dude” was based on my early days in Venice Beach. This is not true, but in fact the real life “Dude” that inspired this Coen Brother’s character was another guy named Jeff who coincidentally had an office two floors directly above mine in Santa Monica when The Big Lebowski came out.

So, why am I writing this blog? It’s to get a flow going in relating to the viral world, i.e. my friends all around the world many of whom I’ve yet to meet. Hi, hello, nice to meet you, please don’t stalk me if I offend or attract you.

I’m writing to let you know GHOST PHONE is going to have it’s World Theatrical Premiere beginning December 6th, 2013 and running for two weeks to December 19th, 2013, EXCLUSIVELY at MITCHELL THEATRES. Yes, we’ve formed a partnership of sorts with Mitchell Theatres. They are great people to work with, humble dirt farmers in Oklahoma who have expanded into movie exhibition.  They’re excited to work with us on putting out GHOST PHONE in this highly unique and unusual way because? — I guess life is an adventure to them too.

And, we’re inviting you to join us. My new associate and partner in the Resurrection of the Taos Talking Pictures, Darien Fernandez, has brought combustion into our thinking processes and we’ve come up with a “Vision.” And here it is…

We’re putting GHOST PHONE out into the world as a test rocket, an explorer, breaking ground, setting a new paradigm for getting an independent film out before the masses. There are no clear pathways, lost hopes of hitting the homerun deal at Sundance or Toronto or Cannes, even though that’s the goal of all independent filmmakers. The filmmaker spins in confusion as I have also. Everyone is an expert out there, offering sage advice and access to their connections and knowledge, if you’ll only pay them a small fee. The pathways are not easily found, the jungle of distribution and marketing is fraught with overgrown vines, snakes and even Chupacabras.

I’ve been holding back on GHOST PHONE entering this “marketing Jungle” for a few years due to a general state of confusion and doubt about how you traverse this jungle. Then about two months ago the “Vision” started to appear in the ethers as Darien and I bludgeoned about with our ideas. He’s young and naive and I’m old and cynical; a magic elixir of concepts emerged from this catalyst.

We’re the little engine that could (from that children’s book I read so many times to my kids). By giving five acres to some lucky GHOST PHONE audience member we hope that you’ll pack the theatres. The real star of our film is not Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, but it’s land in Taos and you the audience members who support us by coming to the movie.

In our ideal goals, we will get a phenomenal turnout and the national media will pay attention. We then plan to take the movie to a wider national theatrical audience. Then we plan to set up a relationship with either HBO or IFC or AMC or FX or Showtime or Netflix for us to launch our World TV Premiere with one of them. Again, this is just a test rocket or a scout sent out to clear a path through this jungle.

The second part of the “Vision” is, it’s just about as much work to distribute 50 films as it is one film. And there is strength in numbers. So, this is where the “Resurrection of Taos Talking Pictures” comes into play.

The old and currently existing paradigm for film festivals is there’s one in almost every town these days and they’re great for the local economy and they bring films to a community that that community would probably never have an opportunity to see. But, the actual filmmakers really get very little from this endeavor. They’re kind of like Gladiators who’ve been invited to town to put on a show and what the audience’s don’t usually realize is that these “Gladiator/Filmmaker’s” have put their lives on the line to create their films. This is where we’re at with GHOST PHONE too.

So, we’ve Resurrected the name TAOS TALKING PICTURES (TTP) as a combination film festival and distribution co-op. Here’s how it will work…

We’re going to put out a call for entries for filmmaker’s to submit their films to TAOS TALKING PICTURES. We’re guessing we’ll get apx. 3,000 entries. We’re hoping that we’ll find at least 50 films out of these 3,000 which we think are inspired, innovative, stimulating and great stories to experience. The brand we hopes emerge is that we are discovering the next Tarantino, Linklater, Rodriquez, or maybe even a young Altman.

And with these first 50 films we will program our first Viral Film Festival which will serve as a combination festival and money-raiser to launch the TAOS TALKING PICTURE’S FILM CO-OP. It will take place as a KICK-STARTER CAMPAIGN where each film will be presented as a potential “Gift” on the site. So, there will be 50 different gifts in the form of films. The filmmaker whose film garners the most “Gift donations” will receive the Grand Prize of 5 Acres in Taos, NM.

What I’m theorizing is that by having 50 filmmaker’s driving their social media networks towards our KickStarter site, we will have a chance for a massive funding launch of the TAOS TALKING PICTURE’S FILM CO-OP. All 50 filmmakers will participate in the funding and profits of the TTP. Each of the 50 films participating in the first Resurrection of TTP will also have an opportunity for a theatrical release (as exemplified by GHOST PHONE) and we hope to have established a partnership of sorts for their World TV Premieres with one of the entities I referred to above. From their we work on selling the Co-op films to foreign territories and getting them effectively out into the world of Video on Demand (VOD) such as being available on iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, DirecTV, etc.

So our strength will come from the viral banding together of many filmmakers with the common goal of having their films both seen and making money on them so they can continue their careers.

Eventually, I believe we can use this viral strength in numbers to raise production funds for co-op members’ future films. We also plan to do a local version of the TTP Festival here in Taos.

We invite all of those people interested in the TTP to help us in launching this endeavor. Please feel free to contact us with your thoughts and desires along these lines. If you would please pass this on to those in your social media networks. Thanks for reading this whole thing.

Here’s a link to some of the old TTP publicity articles

THE HISTORY OF TAOS TALKING PICTURES LAND GRANT AWARD

http://www.taoslandandfilm.com/LandPrizePublcty.html

And here’s the GHOST PHONE trailer.

Muchos Gracias!

Jeff

GHOST PHONE, A True Story…

Okay, so I’m working with my buddy Todd as we start to promote our feature film GHOST PHONE. He tells me, “I was visiting my ‘Energy Therapist’ and she told me the following story: A friend committed suicide by jumping off the Taos Gorge Bridge about a year ago. Afterwards another friend received text messages from the dead man.  The first one stated that he wanted to score some heroin. The second one was a message was to say hello to a friend of his. And the third one was to tell her that things were okay on the other side and he was sorry that they were sad that he was gone.” Ghost Phone Title We’d like to hear if any of you have had similar experiences or heard of them. Please pass this on…

Ghost Phone Calling Coast to Coast – Come in George Noory…

The following is a copy of a letter the Taos Land & Film Company recently sent to George Noory and the Coast to Coast AM team in an effort to get the director Jeff Jackson on the show to discuss his latest film and fundraiser campaign, Phone Calls from the Dead.

GHOST PHONE Calling COAST TO COAST – GEORGE NOORY

“Mr. Noory, you have a call on line one. It’s an odd number, not collect, not long distance. Definitely a bad connec–oh my god, I think it’s from beyond the grave!”

Stories abound about ghost phone phenomena, people receiving phone calls from dead loved ones. Most people, upon receiving a phone call from the dead, would be mortified. Not so for conspiratorial filmmaker Jeff Jackson, whose Taos Land & Film Company (TLFC) team have just completed GHOST PHONE, their epic, four-years-in-the-making feature film inspired by true events in Jackson’s life. Jackson and his ghosts seek a guest appearance on COAST TO COAST AM on or right before Halloween 2012.

Ghost Phone: Phone Calls from the Dead

The TLFC team are launching a revolutionary KICKSTARTER.com campaign a week before Halloween to promote the movie GHOST PHONE and fund the development of a unique phone application entitled PHONE CALLS FROM THE DEAD. Apropos to the movie’s theme, the app will be downloaded on an individual’s cell phone and that person will receive daily a random call from a famous dead person providing advice—a kind of Oracle Effect. The Kickstarter contributors will become our beta testing audience for the app’s development. They will be interacting with us, submitting reactions to the various personalities and messages, thus evolving the effectiveness of the Oracle. We are asking for COAST TO COAST’s help in bypassing the Corporatocracy holding back independent artists and thinkers everywhere.

GHOST PHONE SYNOPSIS:

“Nobody believes William Pierce. Not the cops, not the shrinks, not even his own mother. And why should they? You see, Will has a direct hotline to the afterworld: his dead fiancée’s cell phone. Here’s the problem: the dead talk only to him.

In this dark Twilight Zonesque comedy, Will straddles this world and the next, jumping through hurdles to appease those who have crossed over, in an attempt to exonerate himself from a murder charge, prove his sanity, and find closure with his fiancée. Yes, she’s dead, but she’ll go to any lengths to make their relationship work, including asking Will to do the unthinkable: join her on the other side.

GHOST PHONE MOVIE TRAILER

WHY WOULD COAST TO COAST WANT TO INTERVIEW JEFF JACKSON?

Jackson has many reasons to be a target of nondescript agents and black helicopters.

Jackson took on the IRS and other government malfeasance as an investigative reporter for Larry Flynt during Flynt’s trials and tribulations with the federal government. DEATH & TAXES, Jackson’s documentary of tax protester Gordon Kahl, was found in Timothy McVeigh’s vehicle after McVeigh was arrested for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Also for Larry Flynt, Jackson wrote an article entitled, “Are You Legally Sane,” an expose of government which ironically ties into the theme and ending of GHOST PHONE.

Investigative journalists still consult with Jackson regarding CATTLEGATE,
his documentary about the Michigan PBB poisoning, the worst preventable agricultural disaster in the history of the world, and the government cover-up that still sickens people almost 40 years later.

Jackson is an avid lucid dreamer. Discover your Reincarnated Roots, Jackson’s guided visualization to lucid dreaming, has been used by people across the country for decades to connect with their files in the Akashic Records.

With Jackson, no subject is taboo. POSTAL WORKER, Jackson’s dark comedy exploring the roots of violence in the industrial-age workplace, earned widespread acclaim and regular airings on HBO.

Jackson’s work has taken him to violent crime scenes and other haunted locales. He’s no stranger to metaphysical and paranormal experiences in writing and filming.

Much more could be said of the work Jackson has done to uncover the unsettling and upsetting truths that governments and corporations seek to keep hidden from the people. We’ll save that for another show. His work, past and present, is the perfect fodder for the annual Halloween Ghost to Ghost show. We’d love to hear about EVP experiences from COAST TO COAST callers. What else could you expect from the TLFC team living amidst the ley lines and energy vortexes within the Taos Hum. Looking forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

HOW TO BOOK US

Jeff Jackson
(575) 770-2685
jeff@taoslandandfilm.com
Darien Fernandez
(575) 779-1478
darien.fernandez1@gmail.com

Thank you,
Darien Fernandez

Phone Calls From The Dead Resurrects Your Reincarnated Roots

Some years ago I wrote a book entitled, DISCOVER YOUR REINCARNATED ROOTS. I recently converted this book into an audio CD, which includes a guided visualization leading the listener into a hypnotic trance allowing them the opportunity to explore their past lives. Look for it in the Taos Land & Film indy film store in the coming weeks.

Now, many of you may be skeptics? Scoffers if you will. Non-believers. But, as I explain in REINCARNATED ROOTS, practical science as reflected in the evolution of cloning shows that a single biological cell holds almost unfathomable amounts of information. Combine that with the notion that we utilize a relatively small portion of our brain capacity then perhaps in the vast oceans of dormant brain cells lurks our biological connection to the Akashic Records.

Ghost Phone movie and Phone Calls from the Dead Phone app Kickstarter campaign coming in October

GHOST PHONE: Phone Calls From the Dead is our evolution further into the exploration of our metaphysical pasts. There’s tons of evidence now emerging through the miracle of the internet, witnessing the existence of this phenomena. Try googling, “time is simultaneous” and see where that leads.

Many years ago I wrote a screenplay entitled, EDISON’S ELECTRICAL ELEPHANT EXPERIMENTS which was inspired by my finding an old news reel from the early 1900s showing Thomas Edison electrocuting an elephant. I was so curious about what the heck Edison was up to, that I started researching what he was doing with this electrocution. I discovered that one of the last inventions Edison was working on at the end of his life was an ASTRAL TELEPHONE.

It turns out Edison was involved with Madame Blavatsky, a renowned spiritualist in the late 1800s & early 1900s. Harry Houdini was also part of this group of famous people migrating around Madame Blavatsky. While this may seem like far-fetched folklore, I remember seeing some of this material reflected within an old episode of THE SIMPSONS, where Homer got involved with the Astral Telephone. I can’t remember all the details of this episode, but for those researchers, it might be an interesting task to track down the Simpson’s episode.

And that brings us back to our current pursuit of the development of a new phone application we call PHONE CALLS FROM THE DEAD. Very simply we will be channeling the wisdom from these historic figures into what might be an oracle type of phone app where people will get a random phone call once or twice a day from a dead person giving the person with the phone app a bit of advice for their day. It’s an app which will hook up the subscriber with a bit of the Akashic Records. Hopefully, we will see what I call a “Serendipity Effect” – a mystical intervention of the universe in our lives through mindful coincidence.

Check out This web site and also this one where you might find additional interesting testimonials regards this phenomenon of receiving PHONE CALLS FROM THE DEAD.

KEEP AN EYE OUT for the upcoming launch of our KickStarter campaign of GHOST PHONE: Phone Calls From the Dead.

GHOST PHONE Movie & Phone App is on the Launch Pad for its KickStarter Campaign.

Ghost Phone movie and Phone Calls from the Dead Phone app Kickstarter campaign coming in October

That’s right, we’re going out into the social media/viral messaging world to raise money to promote our latest film, GHOST PHONE the movie. Five years in the making. Untold human sacrifices. Pain and suffering. I’m cutting my ear off to get this movie out into the world. We’re planning to launch just a week or two prior to Halloween & the Day of the Dead. We’re developing a phone app called Phone Calls from the Dead which when downloaded will allow you to receive one or two phone calls a day from famous dead people giving you advice on your day. It’s a kind of Ghost Phone Oracle combined with a sort of serendipitous cosmic intervention. That’s right, we live in a manic world, where daily we swing up and down emotional/spiritually/financially. And, now we offer you help! Hope! A chance to communicate with your dead grandma.

Let me just say, GHOST PHONE is based on true events! We’re going to be asking all of you to help us spread the word. Some of you may scoff. May be cynical. But, let me tell you a story of when I was ten years old. I lived on Riverside Drive outside of Battle Creek, Michigan. I was a restless, disturbed youth. A chronic criminal, a near professional shoplifter. My fifth grade teacher, Ms. Hicks, told my mother at the end of my 5th grade year, that she should flunk me, but she didn’t want me back at the school again for another year of torture to her. So, I was passed on to Highland Junior High. I was troubled. I was walking in my sleep a lot. The phone rang late one night. I heard it but no one else in my family did. I got up and wandered through our brick ranch style house and answered the phone. An old, old voice crackled through the wires, “Jeffrey? Jeffreyyy.” I froze in the dark, my hand trembled so hard I could hardly keep the receiver up to my ear. “Yesss?” I stuttered.

“Jeffrey, you’ve got to stop stealing!” It’s hard to admit, but I peed my pajama bottoms as I stood there listening to my dead grandmother calling me from the grave. “If you don’t stop stealing and smoking cigarettes you’re going to end up in prison!”

Out of the darkness over my shoulder a hand reached down and jerked the ghost phone out of my hand. It was my mother. She put the receiver up to her ear and all she heard was a dial tone. I was crying now. She put the phone back down on it’s base and guided me back to my bedroom. “Jeff, you’re walking in your sleep again,” she said gently, not wanting to wake me up. But, I was awake and somewhere deep down I knew my grandma had reached out from the other side to set me straight. And from that night forth I never stole another thing and I’ve yet to end up in prison.

Interactivityness

In the movie Ghost Phone, starring Melissa Ordway and Nelson Franklin, Amanda (Ordway) teases Will (Franklin) to complete a classic phrase. Complete the phrase yourself to suit your creative fancy and share it with us in a comment!

Please complete the following sentence by commenting on this post:

Parting is such_