(2) Facebooks. (1) Dream.

Support Evans Scholar Filmmaker, Tom Shimandle & Comedian, Kirk Sells!

Hey Everyone!

It’s Kirk Sells (Northwestern ES ‘08) and Tom Shimandle (Northwestern ES ‘13)

First and foremost, we want to wish a Happy Holidays to all of our friends within the Evans Scholars’ family. It is our hope that 2013 has been a year of great prosperity and that you are able to enjoy some end of the year relaxation with loved ones.

As you may or may not know, we are both independent filmmakers who have discovered a shared passion for creating YouTube content that is both high-quality and entertaining! Our first production, Kisses Night (shot and released earlier in 2013), is a concrete testament to our collaborative potential and an inspiration to continue creating together!

In 2014, we want to focus on consistently making more entertaining content as we take our filmmaking dreams to the next level. Today we are asking you, our Evans Scholar family members, for your support…

We’ve set up a fundraising campaign centered around our next comedy rap production, (2) Facebooks, which we are using as a platform to raise $5,000. Our hope is that, between our friends, families and ES, we can find 100 people willing to make a $50 holiday donation. Below, we’ve included some details of where this money will go, what donors will receive, and a link to THIS SILLY CAMPAIGN VIDEO

Where Does the Money Go?

75% of this money will be used to make an investment in film equipment (Canon 5D Mark III & Lenses) that will ensure we have the ability to freely create and release more high-quality content on a more consistent basis. The remaining 25% will be devoted to the (2) Facebooks production, which we will film and release in January/February 2014.

What Do Donors Receive?
$25 Donors will receive a digital copy of Kisses Night: The Comedy Rap EP by Kirk Sells & Mr. Magnificent
$50 Donors will receive a (2) Facebooks T-Shirt, which you can sport while you s’port the Comedy Rap movement!

DONATE HERE

Also, we thought you would love to know that we strongly believe in post-graduate collaboration with our fellow Evans Scholars. To date, we have worked with 10 Evans Scholars (Actors, Extras & Crew) on projects in comedy and film. Links to a few of those videos are attached for your enjoyment! If you ever would like to be a part of one of our productions, simply reach out. We’d love to work with you!

Thanks everyone! We are genuinely grateful for the continued support of our ES family. Please consider donating today and keep an eye out for an invitation to the (2) Facebooks launch party in early 2014!

Kirk & Tom

—

Kirk is a writer, producer & Chicago’s #1 Comedy Rapper. Since 2011, he has committed his life to bringing others joy through the creation of comedy and video. His 15,000+ YouTube views direct fans to his debut Comedy Rap EP on iTunes with another album slated for release, Summer 2014.

Tom Shimandle is a young, aspiring filmmaker with a film degree from Northwestern University. His early work proves that he is right at the footstep of a long journey of being one of America’s great influencers in film. His demo reel can be found HERE.

Groupons Groupons - 6 Evans Scholars!

Oregon Trail, Bitch - 5 Evans Scholars!

My Comedy Rap Album Release on YouTube!

Dear Friends, Family & Fans-

Today, it brings me great joy to announce that, after two years of hard work, dedication, and collaboration, I am finally ready to release my 6-Song Comedy Rap Video Album on YouTube!

On June 27th, 2013 (my golden birthday!), I will become one of the first artists in the U.S. to release an entire video album online, while joining an exclusive group of Comedy Rappers who got their start by using YouTube as a primary means of music distribution. Though I'm not yet in the same league as artists like PSY, Macklemore, or Lonely Island, my journey is starting quite similarly to theirs: with a funny idea, a video camera and a big dream of sharing my music with the world...

TODAY, YOU CAN HELP TURN THAT DREAM INTO A REALITY IN TWO SIMPLE WAYS, WHILE ALSO SUPPORTING A GREAT CAUSE!

1. Visit the Kirk Sells YouTube Channel Today and Become an Original Fan! 

Take a few minutes to visit youtube.com/kirksells and explore my comedy videos. I guarantee that you will find at least one video of mine that puts a smile on your face (after all, that's the point!). If that is true, the greatest support you can give is in clicking SUBSCRIBE and becoming an original Kirk Sells fan. The Subscription is FREE and will send you notifications only when a new video of mine is posted.

2. Watch/Listen To My YouTube Album

When my Comedy Rap album launches on 6.27.13, take a few minutes to watch and/or listen. If you like what you see and/or hear, follow the links to purchase the album on iTunes for $4.99. 100% of the proceeds from the first 72-hours of iTunes sales will be donated directly to my charity partner, Music Unites. My hope is that, together, we can bring a huge wave of awareness and support to this amazing organization (more details below) while also expanding my reach as an entertainer.

Also, please note that, in the first 72-hours after the album release, all Kirk Sells videos will run advertising. I know it sucks to watch an ad before a video but 100% of the revenues generated in these first three days will also be donated to Music Unites. After that, Kirk Sells videos will go back to being ad-free!

My Vision for This Project & A Word About Music Unites

For me, this album release represents a huge opportunity to expand my reach as an artist, develop a strong and loyal fan base and take one step closer towards my goal of being cast on Saturday Night Live! More importantly, I view it as a great opportunity to support and raise awareness for my incredible charity partner, Music Unites.

Music Unites is by far the most awesome charitable organization I have ever come across. They are committed to offering free music education programs for inner-city high school students, while providing them with the opportunities and resources to pursue music as a healthy means of self-expression. Their overall goal is to introduce music to children who are in desperate need of an engaging and fun way to avoid self-detrimental lifestyle choices. As a musician and a creator, I could not be more supportive of this vision.

Over the past few months, I have had the opportunity to learn more about the Music Unites mission and have seen the impact of their work first hand. I have become a strong believer in their foundational principle: that music is one of the best ways to increase the amount of good in this world. That is why I have partnered with them to ensure that any success that I experience with my music, they will also experience in parallel. My growth is their growth and that's exactly the precedent I want to set as I strive for greater exposure as an artist.

I encourage each of you to take a few minutes to learn more about the Music Unites mission at musicunites.org and remember to keep an eye out for my YouTube album on 6.27.13. By simply watching & sharing, you are supporting an amazing cause, while helping me gain more exposure for my comedy. Thank you in advance for that support...

Let's do this!

Kirk Sells

Comedy Rapper

youtube.com/kirksells

--

*If you wish to no longer receive communications from this address, please respond 'unsubscribe' and you will be removed from the Kirk Sells Comedy email chain. I'm sad to see you go but completely understand! 

Yachts by 27. World Peace by 46.

Music Unites!

A Note About The Beneficiary For My Event on 6.27.13

Music Unites is a non-profit organization that focuses on providing music education for children, while working to 'transform inner city landscapes by empowering urban youth with music'. 

When I first came across M.U., I instantly fell in love with their vision of encouraging kids to embrace music as a healthy means of expression and as a deterrent from self-detrimental lifestyle choices. As an artist & entertainer, I could not be more excited to have found an organization with such a relevant vision! 

For me, Music Unites represents a collaborative partner with a shared passion for working towards a world of greater Peace through creation, expression, & non-violence. What a privilege it is to have the opportunity to work alongside them!

Quite simply put: Music Unites is awesome. I hope that you will take a moment to check out their website and look forward to learning more in the days leading up to 6.27.13!
musicunites.org

The Video Launch! - What it's All About

Dear Fans & Friends-

The countdown is on!

In less than 24 hours, my new comedy rap, 'Groupons, Groupons' will hit YouTube and change the face of nerdy online comedy rap forever! Before you decided to click or ignore the link that will be blasted out over Facebook, Email & Twitter tomorrow, I wanted to take a brief moment to shed some light on the project as a whole.

What is Groupons Groupons?

If I had to sum up it up in one sentence, I would say that Groupons, Groupons is 'a parody rap about the modern day ‘wheelings and dealings’ of leisure-loving middle-class Americans'.

The production started last summer in Chicago when a few friends and I bought concert tickets through Groupon. Since none of us had ever bought tickets that way before, we were a bit skeptical about how it might work, thus the phrase, ‘I hope they let us pay with our Groupons’ was born. The simplicity of the origin of an idea always fascinates me and it boggles my mind to look back and think that this whole project started with some simple lyric notes on my iPhone back in July. Now, in January of a new year, that little vision is all grown-up and represents, what I believe to be, a stunning finished product that is more than ready for its YouTube debut tomorrow.

After producing my first video, ‘Oregon Trail, Bitch’ in 2011, I realized that my favorite part of being an E.P. is facilitating collaboration between talented individuals in both music and film. I am fortunate to have had the honor and privilege of collaborating with so many wonderful people on this project and I can’t wait for the world to see the fruits of our collective labor. The principal goal of ‘Groupons Groupons’ has always been a simple one: TO HAVE FUN. With the help of people like Chris Da Cosse (Music Engineer), Keegan Shiner, (Director) and a whole host of others, I can confidently say... we have accomplished that mission.

So what happens now?

Naturally, I want everyone to like the video enough to share it and to encourage others to share it. Whether we get 10,000 views or 10,000,000 views, it doesn’t really matter. The real objective of 'Groupons Groupons' is to bring people joy. Whether that joy comes from having a good laugh in watching the video itself, learning 'The G' (our dance) with your friends, or even simply from thinking about the ridiculousness of someone committing their entire existence to making comedy rap music videos, I don’t care. In truth, if any one of those things brings a smile to even just one person, then this whole endeavor was a success. Seriously, go ahead and laugh at my expense... that’s the whole point!

In closing, I hope you’ll enjoy the video when it’s released on Sunday. If you like it, the greatest gift you can give as a friend and a fan is to talk about it and share it. I couldn't be more excited to share Groupons Groupons with you in the next days/weeks/months. Let's do this!

Be well.

Kirk Sells

YACHTS BY 27. WORLD PEACE BY 46.

Some Cool Quotes From Around the World

Some Cool Quotes From Around the World

What's Your Favorite?

Chinese

A worn out boat still has 3000 nails in it.

Madagascar

A lean ox is not licked by his companions.

Chinese

A fool plants a tree in the morning expecting to saw planks that night.

Unknown

The smallest flame is better than hot smoke.

Danish

If you stir up the bog, you must bear the smell.

Arabic

He who touches honey is compelled to lick his fingers.

Persian

The larger a man's roof, the more snow it collects.

Swiss

In calm water, every ship has a good captain.

Finnish

What can a man understand about a ladle?

English

Kisses are the richest dessert.

Bosnian

The head is older than the book.

Children of Men

You know those movies that you rent/watch atleast once a year because you just love them so much? You already know what happens, you can quote lines, but everytime you watch it, you discover something new that makes you love it even more?

For me, one of those movies is Children of Men, with Clive Owen and Julianne Moore. I watched it again about a week ago and was blown away, more so than ever before, by how well the film is shot. I definitely wanted to encourage my friends and fans to check it out if you haven't already so I asked

a movie critic friend of mine, Pete Spedale, to dive a little deeper into the film and do a more professional review. He did.

I've included the review below. Make sure to check out the below link to Pete Spedale's reviews on Rotten Tomatoes! He does a great job of reviewing new movies that you can see in theaters. 

Thanks Pete!

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/user/744271/reviews/?id=326459204&fb_source=message#reviews_main

Dystopian futures have been a staple in the movies since Metropolis in 1927. They can range from cutting edge (The Matrix) to ridiculous (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure). One thing all of them should have in common: they should immerse the audience into the new world they have created. This world is the driving force of Children of Men, a unique take on the future of mankind. Writer/Director Alfonso Curaon crafts a wonderful tale of despair, mystery, heroism, and suspense as Children of Men pushes its hero, Theo (Clive Owen) further into the desolation of a dying Britain.

A great tragedy has befallen humanity in 2027. The youngest person in the world has just died. He was 18 years old, because humanity has become infertile starting in 2009 (for reasons unknown). Right after the death, Theo unexpectedly gets a call from his ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore), who is active in a group of rebels fighting the British government. She asks him to escort a group out of Britain to a society called the Human Project. The group includes Julian, Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the leader of the insurrection, Miriam (Pam Ferris), a voodoo worshipper, and Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey). The reason for the aid of Theo and secrecy is a whopper: Kee is pregnant. Theo must navigate through multiple treacheries including betrayal, power grabs, and lots of weapons.

From its first scene, Curaon tells you there is something a little off about our current setting. His dying society bears an uncanny resemblance to a war torn Europe post-WW II. The color scheme is destaturated to paint the world in bleak grays. For every LCD billboard there are 10 poor homeless people staring at them. The uniqueness of showcasing a future society as one the audience has seen in the past makes it easier for the audience to understand 2027 Britain as well as provide a terrifying paradox of a future society than cannot advance. This hauting image of a poverty-stricken, urgent, dying society is elevated using a hand-held camera with long unbroken takes. By experiencing the world with the characters instead of above them, Curaon transplants humanizes this lovelorn place and allows the audience to personally feel the character's pain.

If only Curaon's script could match his setting. Overall, the script is very strong and emotionally competent. There is a violent unexpected attack in the first 5 minutes of the picture, which sets the script up for lots of twists and turns as the story goes along. There are two inherent problems for the story though: The Human Project is a macguffin (for those who don't know, a macguffin is a Hitchcock term describing a plot element providing motivation for a character's actions that is not explained to the audience), and the direction of the story is the path of least resistance. What this means is that the story does not bother explaining the epidemic of infertility or how a new baby will survive in the current setting. Instead, the script focuses on the consequences of the baby ending up with the rebellion or the government. Despite the macguffin, Children of Men's script does a great job of showing character depth and progression while providing some really suspenseful chase sequences and unexpected acts of heroism along the way.

The acting ranges from solid to great. Clive Owen is very good as Theo. The script gives him a haunted past, which he uses to push himself into perpetually more dangerous scenarios. Chiwetel Ejiofor showcases impressive complexity for a character that could have had one note to his personality. Pam Ferris and Clare-Hope Ashitey (in her 2nd role) provide spunk and determination to the story, and Michael Caine (as Theo's hippie friend) and Julianne Moore are always great. The one failing is that the government and rebellion are essentially faceless entities, making their causes unimportant to the central characters.

Children of Men is one of those rare instances where at the end we wish there was more time to explore the consequences of the story. It leaves you with plenty of questions about the fragility of humanity and the unsteady equilibrium of peace the world revolves around. Children of Men could make for a great TV miniseries; until that day, Alfonso Curaon's adaptation of P.D. James's novel is a cautionary tale about the value of human life that won't leave your thoughts very easily.

My Story...

I sent this excerpt in an email to a new friend.

I grew up in St. Charles, IL which is about 35 miles west of Chicago and went to a private Christian High School called Wheaton Academy. As a teenager, I was a golf caddy during the summers at St. Charles Country Club, which is where I started earning my first dollars (technically not true. I was a paper boy from 8-12). Caddying would eventually afford me the opportunity to go to college for free on the Chick Evans Scholarship: (http://www.wgaesf.org/site/c.dwJTKiO0JgI8G/b.6021361/k.8BED/WGAESF_Home.htm)

At Northwestern, I lived with 40 other Evans Scholars both men and women in our 'fraternity' house. The program and the scholarship were the greatest blessings I could have possibly imagined. I studied for 4 years at NU and got my degree in Communication Studies with a minor in Religion. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do for a job but it just so happened that, in April of 2008, while on my way toward spring-breaking in Spain, I met a man at a bar at O'Hare who was an Area Vice President for a company called Covidien, which manufactures and sells surgical supplies. At the time, Covidien didn't hire anyone with less than 3-5 years of sales experience, but a few weeks after meeting, that guy emailed me to tell me that Covidien was starting a new program where they were going to hire a class of Sales Associates right from undergrad and we thought I would be a great candidate.

Long story short, I got the job. I moved to Connecticut and worked for Covidien as a member of the very first Sales Associate Development Program. There were 11 of us, all between the age of 22 and 26 and we spent 15 months together learning how to sell Surgical Devices. I spent 6 months on an inside sales team, where I brought my base of 140 accounts from trending towards the high 70% to quota mark all the way up to 104% to quota. In that time, I might have been one of the wealthiest self-made 23 year olds in the country. I also met my current girlfriend, Amanda Markoya while I was there (www.amandamarkoya.com). 

From that role, I was promoted to an outside sales position out in Los Angeles where I co-managed a $6.3 Million territory. My partner, Eric Scharmach, and I, brought that territory, (which included accounts like UCLA) up to just over 100%. It was a very high visibility position within the company and, though I bumped heads a lot with my partner and my manager, at the end of the day, we did what we needed to do to reach 100%. Amanda and I lived together in North Hollywood for about 8 months, while she trained to be a makeup artist. 

In October 2010, I was promoted to take over my own territory as a Surgical Device Rep. One of the youngest people to ever do that within the history of the storied US Surgical (now Covidien). It wasn't until shortly thereafter, I realized that, even though I was continuing to pass through wonderful thresholds within the company and was making a good amount of money, I wasn't quite sure that selling surgical equipment was what I was meant to be doing. I pondered on that for about 6 months before I decided to leave the company in April 2011 to pursue 1. Starting my own companies 2. a career in comedy.

As you can imagine, this was not an easy decision to make but I did it anyway. I packed up and moved back home to Chicago where I focused on starting my companies and pursuing comedy (Amanda and I broke up and she moved back home to Connecticut). I worked at Chili's to pay the bills between July 2011-December 2011 and then in January, quit that job, sublet my apartment and went to live in San Antonio with my friends Josh, Rebekah and little baby Grace Gulley who essentially have been like my family. They helped me in every way possible while I focused more intently on developing my start-ups. In December of 2011, Amanda and I got back together and began our long distance Connecticut Girl, Nomad Boy relationship. I moved into the city more permanently in May of this year, when I started working at Wildfire. In August, Amanda moved to Brooklyn, so we now have a much cooler NYC Girl, Chicago Boy connection.

It wasn't until I began going around trying to raise money for my ventures (a video-sharing app vision and a surgical quality assurance company) that I realized how close I was getting to doing something that I wasn't ready to do, i.e. be the CEO of a company. While the idea of running my own startup is, and will always be, appealing, and I know that I would be successful at it, I realized that I more so should be focused, in this time of my life, on pursuing my passion: comedy.

Since making the decision to pursue comedy whole-heartedly, I have began creating a Kirk Sells brand on the Internet and everywhere I go. I continue to create content, perform shows, release videos, etc. While I work towards greater exposure in the comedy community. I stopped working on one of my companies and just recently turned the other into a production label so that I can help myself produce high quality creative material. I am trying to brand myself as a Comedy Rapper but have talents that include Standup, Improv, and Writing. I am also training in 3 classes at second city: Acting 1, Comedic Songwriting, + Clowning & Physical Comedy and will be auditioning for the 2nd time for the SC Conservatory next Friday. My goal is pretty straight forward: It is to be on Saturday Night Live. 

If you haven't seen some of my stuff online, here are some links:

Who Am I? - Kirk Sells

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFap9-qdXTI

Oregon Trail, Bitch- Kirk Sells

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n947p2QREqs

Kirk Sells - Comedy Demo Reel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJPPVpzyR14

In the shorter term, I should have a new rap video out by the end of October, done in the similar style of Oregon Trail, Bitch and I plan to have a 6 song EP out on iTunes by January 1, 2013. I will continue my improv and acting training at Second City.

Anyway, I know thats long-winded but that is my story. Hope we can learn a bit more about one another and I certainly have some introductions that I would like to make between you and some other influential men and women that I know.