Sound of Freedom - What are they up to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Film earnings are up to 125 million.

Clarification: Ticket sales are up to 125 million.

There is a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Film earnings are up to 125 million.

Clarification: Ticket sales are up to 125 million.

There is a difference.

You are confused. Don’t you pay your costs before you count your earnings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Film earnings are up to 125 million.

Clarification: Ticket sales are up to 125 million.

There is a difference.

You are confused. Don’t you pay your costs before you count your earnings?

It's currently $127m but that is gross, which does not include costs. With costs accounted for it would be net, not gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Film earnings are up to 125 million.

Clarification: Ticket sales are up to 125 million.

There is a difference.

You are confused. Don’t you pay your costs before you count your earnings?

If I'm churning my profits back into buying more tickets, then I don't fudge the books and call it more "profit."

This is like the Church of Scientology buying and then re-selling the same books to drive up its numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's weird he isn't working there anymore.

This is pretty weird too.

Wow, that's a whole lotta crazy.

[Anonymous]

Most Americans just want to see what’s being covered up by our news outlets. “Based on a true story” is tons better than nothing.

“The Sounds of Freedom” is an excellent film done on a very low budget. No one in corrupted Hollywood would touch it. What does that say about Hollywood?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Most Americans just want to see what’s being covered up by our news outlets. “Based on a true story” is tons better than nothing.

“The Sounds of Freedom” is an excellent film done on a very low budget. No one in corrupted Hollywood would touch it. What does that say about Hollywood?

that they refuse to support the tinfoil hat agenda. Duh.

[Anonymous]

And yet Hollywood made Taken. Also Memory. And Rambo:Last Blood. And Red Light. And Saving Zoë. And Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. And Lethal Weapon 4. And Eden. And Border Run. And The 11th Hour.

All of these are about human trafficking in one way or another, sometimes sexual trafficking, sometimes involving children. Maybe it's not about "Hollywood" so much as it is about this movie, and whether people want to be associated with the people who push it so hard.

Recall that THORN has been around for over a decade, and RAINN for literal decades. This RWNJ wet dream of being the first the break the story, the only resource that can make a difference, and all the other persecution fantasies (not by people who are being persecuted, but by the ones with the savior complex) is just that -- a masturbatory fantasy.

I don't know why you all are so into that, but you are. It's weird and kind of gross.

[Anonymous]

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/07/sound-of-freedom-child-trafficking-movie/amp

I think the Vanity Fair article likely paints the most accurate description of what’s going on with this movie.

In short: the actual filmmaker wanted to tell a story and raise awareness about trafficking. He didn’t aim to lionize the unbeknownst to him controversial Ballard.

Ballard and others co-opted the film and politicized it.

The filmmaker has refused to go on any outlet that politicizes the film.

That doesn’t mean the actual film is a Q Anon crazy film…it just means some crazies are glomming onto it and using it to promote their agenda.

FTR: all human trafficking is bad. And this is a dangerous weird hill for Dems to seemingly dig in on since the Rs can easily spin this anti-film stance into pro-trafficking.

I haven’t seen the movie and don’t plan to. I don’t need to watch a film to know trafficking is evil. But I’m stunned by the politicization on BOTH sides.

[Anonymous]

"BOTH sides"

Yep.

[Anonymous]

^^(That phrase appears like clockwork.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/07/sound-of-freedom-child-trafficking-movie/amp

I think the Vanity Fair article likely paints the most accurate description of what’s going on with this movie.

In short: the actual filmmaker wanted to tell a story and raise awareness about trafficking. He didn’t aim to lionize the unbeknownst to him controversial Ballard.

Ballard and others co-opted the film and politicized it.

The filmmaker has refused to go on any outlet that politicizes the film.

That doesn’t mean the actual film is a Q Anon crazy film…it just means some crazies are glomming onto it and using it to promote their agenda.

FTR: all human trafficking is bad. And this is a dangerous weird hill for Dems to seemingly dig in on since the Rs can easily spin this anti-film stance into pro-trafficking.

I haven’t seen the movie and don’t plan to. I don’t need to watch a film to know trafficking is evil. But I’m stunned by the politicization on BOTH sides.

It's more than that. The film is about lies and mistruths. I don't doubt that the original guy with the glimmer of an idea that had nothing to do with Ballard wasn't politicized or poorly motivated. Sure. But then the move became about Ballard (instead of the first story he came up with), which is as much a problem as the subsequent politicization. It became inherent in the subject matter.

This is all from your link -- the very one you included above:

But according to Erin Albright, an attorney and longtime adviser to anti-trafficking task forces, Ballard and OUR aren’t actually central to the international fight against human trafficking. “The majority of the [anti-trafficking] field views them as fringe,” she tells me. “They peddle sensationalism…and they fundraise off it.”

In 2018, when Monteverde was making his movie, these critiques weren’t part of the conversation. “I never in a million years imagined that this would be political,” he said of the film, which would become a Ballard biopic—albeit one that takes great liberties with the facts. After all, he says, “I saw the piece [on child trafficking] on the mainstream media … I always thought that this was going to be a film that we would all come together over.”
...
Several critical things happened in the years between the film’s wrap and its arrival in theaters. In a series that kicked off in 2020, Vice journalists Anna Merlan and Tim Marchman began a probe of Ballard and OUR, discovering “a pattern of image-burnishing and mythology-building, a series of exaggerations that are, in the aggregate, quite misleading.” In a subsequent report, they alleged Ballard and his organization had engaged in “blundering missions—carried out in part by real estate agents and high-level donors—that seemed aimed mainly at generating exciting video footage.” (Ballard has not yet responded to Vanity Fair’s requests for comment. Though a representative from Angel Studios initially proposed an interview with Ballard, they later said they were unable to reach him to arrange a meeting.)

It seems to be about money, as well as glorifying the fraud Ballard.

According to Harmon, there’s little difference between selling a physical product like the Squatty Potty and “selling seats for a movie.” That seat-selling strategy is arguably one of Sound of Freedom’s most controversial elements. After Angel bought the film’s distribution rights, the company added a call to action to its credits. It encourages patrons to help “raise awareness” of child trafficking—but instead of donating to anti-trafficking groups or even directly to Ballard’s efforts, patrons are asked to “pay it forward” by purchasing additional tickets for the film. “We don’t have big studio money to market this movie, but we have you,” an out-of-character Caviezel says before a QR code appears onscreen.

Also,

... “These people say that they care about trafficking,” says Alfaro. “But at the end of the day, you’re sitting there calling trafficking survivors pedophiles and traffickers because they don’t agree with this film.”

The politicization ALSO victimizes the real victims. But as above, that's not all that is problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/07/sound-of-freedom-child-trafficking-movie/amp

I think the Vanity Fair article likely paints the most accurate description of what’s going on with this movie.

In short: the actual filmmaker wanted to tell a story and raise awareness about trafficking. He didn’t aim to lionize the unbeknownst to him controversial Ballard.

Ballard and others co-opted the film and politicized it.

The filmmaker has refused to go on any outlet that politicizes the film.

That doesn’t mean the actual film is a Q Anon crazy film…it just means some crazies are glomming onto it and using it to promote their agenda.

FTR: all human trafficking is bad. And this is a dangerous weird hill for Dems to seemingly dig in on since the Rs can easily spin this anti-film stance into pro-trafficking.

I haven’t seen the movie and don’t plan to. I don’t need to watch a film to know trafficking is evil. But I’m stunned by the politicization on BOTH sides.

It's more than that. The film is about lies and mistruths. I don't doubt that the original guy with the glimmer of an idea that had nothing to do with Ballard wasn't politicized or poorly motivated. Sure. But then the move became about Ballard (instead of the first story he came up with), which is as much a problem as the subsequent politicization. It became inherent in the subject matter.

This is all from your link -- the very one you included above:

But according to Erin Albright, an attorney and longtime adviser to anti-trafficking task forces, Ballard and OUR aren’t actually central to the international fight against human trafficking. “The majority of the [anti-trafficking] field views them as fringe,” she tells me. “They peddle sensationalism…and they fundraise off it.”

In 2018, when Monteverde was making his movie, these critiques weren’t part of the conversation. “I never in a million years imagined that this would be political,” he said of the film, which would become a Ballard biopic—albeit one that takes great liberties with the facts. After all, he says, “I saw the piece [on child trafficking] on the mainstream media … I always thought that this was going to be a film that we would all come together over.”
...
Several critical things happened in the years between the film’s wrap and its arrival in theaters. In a series that kicked off in 2020, Vice journalists Anna Merlan and Tim Marchman began a probe of Ballard and OUR, discovering “a pattern of image-burnishing and mythology-building, a series of exaggerations that are, in the aggregate, quite misleading.” In a subsequent report, they alleged Ballard and his organization had engaged in “blundering missions—carried out in part by real estate agents and high-level donors—that seemed aimed mainly at generating exciting video footage.” (Ballard has not yet responded to Vanity Fair’s requests for comment. Though a representative from Angel Studios initially proposed an interview with Ballard, they later said they were unable to reach him to arrange a meeting.)

It seems to be about money, as well as glorifying the fraud Ballard.

According to Harmon, there’s little difference between selling a physical product like the Squatty Potty and “selling seats for a movie.” That seat-selling strategy is arguably one of Sound of Freedom’s most controversial elements. After Angel bought the film’s distribution rights, the company added a call to action to its credits. It encourages patrons to help “raise awareness” of child trafficking—but instead of donating to anti-trafficking groups or even directly to Ballard’s efforts, patrons are asked to “pay it forward” by purchasing additional tickets for the film. “We don’t have big studio money to market this movie, but we have you,” an out-of-character Caviezel says before a QR code appears onscreen.

Also,

... “These people say that they care about trafficking,” says Alfaro. “But at the end of the day, you’re sitting there calling trafficking survivors pedophiles and traffickers because they don’t agree with this film.”

The politicization ALSO victimizes the real victims. But as above, that's not all that is problematic.

Coming from a nonprofit background, every sector criticizes their competitors so I take criticism from competitors with a grain of salt.

Someone can easily cherry pick the counter argument from the same article.

VF is typically fair and balanced, which is why I posted the link.

Both sides sensationalize everything (this isn’t limited to trafficking) because our media has become politicized. Everyone has an agenda.

As a Dem, I stand by my take that hyperfixating on blasting this film doesn’t serve our political agenda well since the crazies on the Right and their more reasonable moderate compatriots can and will use our talking points related to this film against us.

[Anonymous]

You don't think Ballard is a problem? The movie is about Ballard.

The problem isn't just with the funding or the PR. It's with the actual subject of the film, PP.

[Anonymous]

I know only one person who went to see it and posted about it on social media. She has also posted many times stories like “a friend of my cousins neighbor was at Target alone with her adorable baby and this man with an ear piece kept showing up in the same aisle as her and finally she escaped to the parking lot and got away and the security guard told her she was DEFINITELY about to have lost her daughter to sex traffickers so this is a warning to KEEP VIGILANT! It happens EVERYWHERE!”

What I want to know is, if there are SOOO many close call stories of white toddlers being nearly abducted and sold into slavery from suburban big box stores and playgrounds, where are the stories where it actually happened? These people really do this hundreds of times a month all over the country but always , ALWAYS, just barely fail? Never succeed?