OUR WHY
THE INSPIRATION BEHIND DANDI
I was in the process of putting together the story and characters for Black Hat, when I read in the NYC tabloids about a teenage girl from The Bronx, Vada Vasquez, adaughter being raised alone by her mother, who had been walking home from school that week and was caught in a crossfire of bullets by two rival gang members, and was struck in the head. She would lay in a coma in the hospital for over a week.
She was a bit alternative, fiercely loyal and protective. She was a huge fan of the band Slipknot, anime and horror films. I had recently completed and released a horror feature, “iMurders” and one of the stars was Tony Todd, “The Candyman”. I was compelled to get a bunch of swag from Tony and drop it off at the hospital in hopes it would be a cool surprise if/when she came out of the coma. And to my surprise, when I went to drop it off, her family greeted me and brought me to see her. She had not been able to speak to anyone for almost a day. But she mustered up the strength to look at me, and utter her first words, “thank you”. We quickly became friends and I created “Dandi” in her honor.
bullying. Her one true joy and escape was dressing in cosplay and going to her favorite anime conventions. My friend shared the story with Cassie’s grieving father, who called me in tears, thanking me for doing this for his daughter, and asked to help by going to New Orleans Comic Con, trying to raise us money. I knew the effort would be kind, but unsuccessful, but I wanted to meet him and flew down and we sat at a booth. I think we raised seven dollars! But, unbeknown to me, Logan had called the local NBC News affiliate, WDSU, and they came to the convention to do a story on Cassie and the film. Immediately, news outlets and blogs called and emailed from everywhere! Including the NY Daily News. Soon, I had a publicist and there were bookings scheduled for The Ellen and Katie Couric shows. Fate intervened however, and soon after, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and all the pomp and circumstance went away. But now healthy, and making films again, I am ready to honor Cassie, Vada Vasquez and all the fans of the wonder- ful world of anime, manga and cosplay, and the millions who are bullied for being “wrong in all the right ways”.
The INSPIRATION BEHIND “CASSIE”
A few years back when our FB page was at 200,000 followers, before it would swell to its current 2 million, it was suggested I try a crowdfund
to start raising money for the film. We aimed really high, trying to raise $200,000, the theory being, if every follower gave us one dollar we would be set! That didn’t happen and we were at $49,000 with only a couple days to go. I received an email from a high school friend from the past. She inquired (as one of the rewards were that for a certain donation you could name a character after anyone you chose, and a friend’s disabled daughter had just passed away from a rare skin disease called Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB)), if she could donate and name a character Cassie England.
I was so moved by her story, that I promised that night, I would change the best friend from“Ashleigh” to “Cassie” and even include the real Cassie’s trademark cat ears that she frequently wore into the character. Cassie was in a wheel chair, and her disease made her a frequent target for