2018.02.14 You Cannot Spell Valentines Day Without a Big "D"

(Editor's Note: Why did somebody let Ken "Whit" Whitman have an outlet?!)

The last 24 hours have been far more interesting that any of us at Not Another Dime (For Ken Whitman) would like it to be. While we are glad that the KoDT:LAS Backers have some level of closure.

Of course now some of those backers are wondering where their other promised/paid for items are.....

Even though Erik Tenkar (Tenkar's Tavern) gave Ken "Whit" Whitman an opportunity to use his popular blog as am unedited forum to explain his side of things, our main-man decided to use David Flor's Blog: A Walk in the Dark instead. Please go ahead and read the entry over there, but the pertinent part we're most interested in is:

"About 2 years ago, I turned over the KODTLAS footage to Z.O.E. and today, both ZOE and Jolly Blackburn, announced are releasing all three Episodes of KODTLAS.

Now matter how much I may not enjoys Jolly's company personally, I can not belittle his amazing talent. Jolly is a true genius when it comes to storytelling and everyone at Kenzer was top notch to work with.

It was never my intention to take this long for people to see all three episodes, but due to a turn of events in my life, it did not allow me to financially keep working on the project. I messed up ran out of funds, and had a hard time paying for the project to continue out of my own pocket.

I could talk about the online slander/libel posed many times over the past two years about never turning over the footage, but why open old wounds, they fact is I did turn it over to ZOE.

I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed directing them. I will continue to work on this project in my free time, hopefully finishing up the project in the near future.

To Jolly, Kenzer, the actors, the crew. It was an honor working with you.

- Ken Whitman"

A casual reader of this blog probably won't catch some of the right-out falsehoods, misdirects, and BS that comes standard with an online post made by Ken "Whit" Whitman.

Normally we'd pick apart his commentary and specifically point out, with sources, everything wrong with his statement. This time, however, we'll just let the primary sources involved cut us out largely as the middleman. The comments to this post at the A Walk in the Dark contain most of what we need and we'll share that here instead.

In response to some specific & direct questions regarding his Kickstarters:

"From here on out, I will only respond to questions from people who are backers of my project. Please state what item your were a backer of and your questions.

Thank you."

"Ken, I was a backer of four of your kickstarters. (KODT, Traveller, Castles & Crusades, and RPG Pencil Dice) Now that I have covered my being a backer, my questions.

1) Why was the original footage never handed over to ZOE?
1a) Will you turn it over to them now? You have said above that you still have it after all.
2) What work is left to do on getting Spinward Traveller finished?
3) Is there a plan to get the Pencil Dice produced and out to backers?"

"1) it was given to ZOE 2 years ago. there were 4 or 5 clips that were lost and low res footage was used.

2) see above

3) i am working with Marc to release the green screen edition shown at Gen Con. No date has been determined for the final.

4) with the sucess of my store i have been able to afford two heat foil machines so i can prodyce them myself. I have placed an order from the machines coming from china,"

"In the interest of keeping facts straight, several years ago Ken mailed me a hard drive that included a) ALL of the raw footage from Episode 1, b) SOME raw footage from episode 2, and c) ZERO raw footage from episode 3."


Now for the next round of comments:

"My only response here will be this.

If you have the time or inclination simply go read the comments on KODTLAS kickstarter and updates. Read Ken’s own words on the project. If you want to save time you can read a compilation quotes/statements (with citations/sources here: http://notanotherdime.blogspot.com/p/ken-s.html). Again, Ken in his own words without editorial commentary.

As I told Ken last night in an email, my only desire these past four years has been for the episodes backers paid for to be seen. That has now been accomplished thanks to Ben. Happily, I can close this chapter in my life and move on.

I wish Ken luck on finishing his kickstarter projects.

If he ever decides to release a final edit of the film project to backers, I’m sure they’d be grateful. I myself would love to see that. Especially the blooper reel and on set diaries. Or even the cast commentary that was recorded to go on the DVD.

I encourage him to do that in fact (Although the license now having lapsed might need to be addressed)."

"The White Elephant in the room is that Jolly has had access to footage for years now, but has posted several times that he did not.

Does he have access to the RAW files no.

The SPIN here could be be considered lible as many belive anything was provided.

Secondly, been had negotiated the raw files from me almost 2 years ago, this is what I didn’t have any money, and jobless, I requested that they spend $200 on a hard drive. Jolly refused to provide one saying that it was my own problem, deal with it.

Feel free to believe whatever spin you want about me, the truth is somewhere in the middle 🙂"

"Ken is referring to 480p MP4s of his assembly edits, compressed at a low bit rate and not suitable for delivery. The existence of those edits was never a secret. Ken is also neglecting to mention my offer to send a mutual friend to his then-residence in Atlanta and copy the original footage on site from his hard drive. This would have been a more secure option for everyone than sending more cash in exchange for promises of future action."