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SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITY

A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT MUD, MASOCHISM & MODERN LIFE

First, the obvious: OBSTACLE COURSE RACING IS EVERYWHERE. !In 2014, twice as many people will cross a finish line caked in mud than marathons and half marathons… combined. According to a new industry report, 4.3 million people will collectively shell out over $350 million to suffer through ice, fire, electricity, barbed wire, mud and more. Pretty wild. Especially when you consider that just five years ago, Tough Mudder, Spartan Race and Warrior Dash hadn’t even thrown an event. OCR is the fastest growing sport since, well… ever. !

And it makes you wonder…

INTRO

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WHY?

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WTF?

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REALLY?

RISE OF THE SUFFERFESTS is the first feature doc about the obstacle race phenomenon. The film explores the history of the sport, psychology behind it, personalities that drive it, and most importantly, WTF it says about the world we’re living in. Specifically…

WHY THE HELL IS EVERYONE SUDDENLY PAYING FOR PAIN?

Rise of the Sufferfests follows my quest to find out why—when the thrust of civilization has been to make life more comfortable—are the masses suddenly paying for pain? !• Is it a reaction to an ever-sedentary

society? !• Are experiences the new luxury good? !• Is this a backlash against the

“Death of Masculinity”? !• Is the Internet making us lonely?

Do we crave the camaraderie? !• Is social media making us more

narcissistic? Are we just peacocking for an epic profile pic?

!• WTF would a farmer in India think

about people paying $150 for this?

THE CONCEPT

THE CASTWhile the majority of ‘mudders’ will do one event, post the epic profile pic and move on, a growing number of OCR apostles are crisscrossing the globe, braving as many sufferfests as they can squeeze into their schedules. !Rise of the Sufferfests features a motley crew of unforgettable characters from all corners of the cultish OCR community: elites, weekend warriors, Wounded Warriors, event producers, entrepreneurs, etc. Each of our heroes reveals something different about the phenomenon, and speaks to a different motivation and hypothesis.

!For bio sheets of several of our film’s stars, CLICK HERE, but here are a few standouts…

“THE UNSUNG HERO”MR. MOUSE is the wildly eccentric Godfather of Obstacle Racing. An ex-barber in the Grenadier Guards, he pioneered the industry way back in 1987 when he hosted Tough Guy, a subzero sufferfest on his horse farm in England. Unfortunately, however, he has little commercial awareness (or interest), and is now on the edge of insolvency. While almost nobody in our community knows who he is (yet!), his fingerprints are all over our FB newsfeeds. !Given the man’s many philosophies, inventions, idiosyncrasies, and influence on modern fitness, Mr. Mouse is a folk hero waiting to happen. He’s not just a once-in-a-generation character, but once-in-a-wormhole. He’s the kind of figure you only ever see in great works of fiction… or Daniel Day Lewis films. And we have exclusive access to this incredible character. !For a taste, watch The Legacy of Mr. Mouse, a fantastic short by one of our production partners.

MR. MOUSE

HUNTER McINTYREYou’d be hard pressed to find a more (comically) narcissistic person on the planet than a Malibu SoulCycle instructor named Hunter McIntyre. With the help of a sub-16 minute 5k that defies his linebacker stature, the hard-partying former male model is one of the most dominant athletes in the sport. The Reebok-sponsored athlete is OCR’s answer to Patriots star Rob Gronkowski. Or like a young Schwarzenegger, if you swapped psychedelics for the steroids. !I wrote a wild cover story about this self-proclaimed #MACHOMAN. And he’s featured in this NBC Sports segment. The Sheriff—as he calls himself—is a riot. We’re psyched to have him in the film.

OCR’S UNBEATABLE EGO

AMELIA BOONE“QUEEN OF PAIN”!

Amelia Boone doesn’t just win; she CRUSHES. At the 2012 World’s Toughest Mudder, for instance, she traversed 90 miles and 300 obstacles in 24 hours to place 2nd... overall. 8 minutes behind the winner, 10 miles ahead of the dude in third. She was so good Topps made a card. !

Here’s the kicker... the 30-year-old Alpha somehow finds time to train—and dominate— while working 60+ hours a week as a corporate bankruptcy attorney for Skadden, Arps in Chicago. !I wrote a ‘Rising Star’ profile for Outside last fall. And this summer she was the only female on the magazine’s ‘Fittest Real Athletes’ list.

“TALKING HEADS”While the film mostly features the crazy SOBs who eat barbed wire for breakfast, I’ve also recruited a bunch of TED Talkers, authors, sociologists, culture critics, comedians, psychologists and such. Each will help me make a little more sense of this sufferfest stuff. A few examples: !• Malcolm Gladwell (David & Goliath)

discusses the London Blitz and its unexpected effects on the psyche of the city’s survivors. !

• Michael Norton, a Harvard behavioral scientist and author of Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, suggests experiences are the new luxury good. !

• Christopher McDougall of Born to Run fame jokes that OCR is “everything that’s wrong with modern fitness.” !

• AJ Jacobs, one of the funniest men to ever hold a pen, will share tales from the #QuantifiedSelf movement and his NYT bestseller, Drop Dead Healthy.

THE BACKSTORYWhen I signed up for my first Tough Mudder in 2011, I did so with a simple plan: suffer and write a funny story about the suffering. I figured the event’s unique horrors would make for a good read. That piece made the cover of my local alt-weekly, but more importantly, while researching the company, I stumbled upon a Social Network-style scandal surrounding its origins. A year later, my investigative feature landed on the cover of Outside. The exposé received widespread media attention, opening doors to a consulting gig with 60 Minutes Sports, a speaking engagement at Stanford Business School, and other assignments.

All this has helped me earn the respect and support of key influencers within this industry, and established me as a leading voice in this space. It also sparked a deeper curiosity about the sociocultural factors underlying the Rise of the Sufferfests. !Which brings me to…

Rising Star Amelia Boone

Cover Profile Hunter McIntyre

Segment Races from Hell

Humor Essay Did Not Finish

Humor Essay Stud in the Mud

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WHERE WE’RE ATWith the help of an initial round of $40K in seed capital, and a $27K Indiegogo campaign, I’ve been able to work nearly full time on this project for the past year. In addition to finishing some of the necessary pre-production to hit the ground running once our strategic partners are in place, we’ve been able to shoot kick-ass race footage and several key interviews across the US, UK and in the Netherlands.

And thanks to slavish dedication to marketing and promotion, and some help from our allies, we’ve managed to make a little noise…

CROWDFUNDING TEASER w/ culture critic Mark Morford The Original Tough Guy

(SOME) PROMO VIDEOS

Ad for ‘The Suffer Club’ Lo-Fi Proof of Concept My wife is pretty cute

OUR FACESPACESince launching a fan page last August, Rise of the Sufferfests has garnered a highly active and engaged following. Thanks to a steady stream of sticky and sharable content, the average post will reach 77% of its almost 15,000 fans… organically. !Considering the fact Facebook has been famously “throttling” the organic reach of most fan pages to 1-2%, it's an outlier. And it speaks to both the community’s passion for this film, and this demographic’s social media savvy.

As one of the leading industry experts, I’ve managed to weave a pretty extensive network of contacts. And since the film celebrates the subculture, I’ve found strong support among athletes and executives alike. I’ve been able to leverage this for key social media shares and shout-outs, which, in lieu of a real marketing budget, has helped grow our fan page. I’ll continue to strengthen these relationships to raise awareness for the film. !Here are the FB followings of some of the brands that have lent support.

OUR ALLIES

Spartan Race - 4.1M Warrior Dash - 1.4M Electric Run - 1.2M

The Color Run - 3.3M Zombie Run - 1M

Tough Mudder - 4M

IN THE NEWSYou still alive? Prove it !

2x National Online Columnist of the Year, Mark Morford, explores the WHY behind the Rise of the Sufferfests.

The Pain Games !“An obstacle-racing obsessed filmmaker aims to find out why suffering has become America’s favorite new sports pastime.”

The First OCR Doc !Industry print magazine, Mud & Obstacle, gives us some love in their inaugural issue. They too have an active following.

Sufferfests: You May Die !While we were in the UK filming Tough Guy this year, the country’s most-read sports weekly wrote a feature about the doc.

And now for…

!THE OPPORTUNITY

“THE SUFFER CLUB” — as we’re branding this global community of mud runners — is our film’s target audience, and your dream demographic. While we come in all stripes, most of us are young and adventurous, active and healthy. We aren’t spectators. We are the spectacle. We are tech-savvy social animals. We love CrossFit and group fitness. We crave camaraderie. We are trendsetters. We are braggers. And perhaps most importantly, we’re affluent enough to drop two hundred bucks for an afternoon of suck.

IS YOUR DREAM DEMO

A FEW NUMBERS… 40K Participants in 2009 4.3M Participants in 2014

Gross Revenue in 2014: $362M 68% Male

Average Age: 29 88% College Degree (or enrolled)

Oh, and we’re brand loyal. Fiercely so. On social media, the rivalry among fans of certain brands is as spirited and lively as Fenway Park when the Yanks are in town. Lucky for you, though, The Suffer Club is inclusive. It consists of anyone and everyone who has paid to play in mud. We are Tough Guys, Warriors, Savages and such. And with the new multi-year partnership between NBC Sports and Reebok Spartan Race, our club will continue its hyperbolic growth. !Rise of the Sufferfests is a film that speaks directly to this massive demographic. So by sponsoring this doc, you will have an incredibly unique platform to amplify your brand’s messaging and ultimately, drive sales.

”As more and more people willingly slither beneath barbed wire, brands like Reebok and Dos Equis are following them onto the courses. Competitions like Tough Mudder, Spartan Race… are clearly no passing fad.”

Brands Stake Out A Place On Courses Of Jaw-Dropping Endurance Competitions

Read More

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What Is ‘Mudvertising’ And Why Are Marketers

Diving In? Read More

“Participants generally fall into the 18-40 sweet spot, with an average household income in the $70,000 range.”

A FEW NUMBERS 4.3M Participants 2014 Gross Revenue: $361.8M

65% Male Average Age: 29 88% College Degree

(or enrolled)

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HELP US HELP YOU

Our brand partners recognize the unique value in aligning with the world’s fastest growing sport and engaging its coveted demographic of young, social media savvy, fiercely loyal, fitness-loving lunatics. !Here are some of the sponsorship benefits:

• Meaningful engagement with the OCR crowd (aka. The Suffer Club)

• Creative consultation on the film

• Organic brand/product integration

• Innovative activations during Film Tour

• Branded content for your web/social

VALUE PROPOSITION

These are just some initial thoughts. We intend to collaborate with your creative team to ensure Rise of the Sufferfests is a high-value, can’t-miss marketing opportunity.

BRAND/PRODUCT INTEGRATIONAudiences are savvy these days. The second something feels like a sales pitch, we all shut down. Nobody wants that. The cardinal rule of successful branded content is that it feels like an independently produced piece of editorial. And we believe there’s a way to strike this balance without compromising the film’s vision. Here are some ideas for organic integration… !• Hunter McIntyre is dominating the sport. How does he get his edge? During his master

interview, our b-roll could feature him interacting with a sponsor’s product. !• We could partner with an up-and-coming race

series to create a cool, branded obstacle, and feature hero shots of it in the film. (If we align with an endemic brand with an existing signature obstacle we’ll feature that in the film.) !

• A.J. Jacob’s writes about the quantified self movement in his NYT Bestseller, Drop Dead Healthy. As he discusses the role of fitness trackers in the modern fitness revolution, we could feature a star interacting with a gadget and sharing a workout on social media. !

• We could spotlight a drone maker with an epic tracking shot of Amelia dashing to a finish line (device flying just ahead.) Cutting between Camera A and drone, we’ll celebrate the intensity of the action and smoothness of the footage. Again, it’s all about featuring our partners in a way that just feels like an organic and natural part of the story. !

BRAND/PRODUCT INTEGRATION

In addition to brand/product integration, we’ll also create exclusive digital content for our key sponsors to use for their own promo. For instance, say we were to partner with GoPro, we could work with their creative team to develop a web series of 4-5 minute shorts that specifically champion GoPro’s role in this modern fitness revolution. It could unfold like a mini-documentary that’s in the same voice, tone and style of our film - featuring interviews with OCR athletes, insiders, our talking heads, and of course, members of the GoPro team. This bonus series could be filmed entirely with GoPros. We could also feature our title sponsor in a much slicker version of this time-lapse painting of beloved OCR athlete, The Painted Warrior.

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DIGITAL CONTENT

!MARKETING + DISTRIBUTION

DIRECT-TO-FAN Advancements in digital technologies and the growing popularity of Video On Demand (VOD) platforms have ushered in a new era of distribution. And niche content is king. Specialty films that cater to specific passion points and leverage built-in communities consistently rank among the top selling documentaries on iTunes. And given the size of our core target—and their proven passion for this subculture—Rise of the Sufferfests is perfectly positioned to take advantage of this shifting paradigm.

!As tourism bureaus everywhere will attest: mud is Big Business. When a popular event series like Tough Mudder or Spartan Race sets up shop in your sleepy resort town, and ten thousand people suddenly show up for the weekend—eating, drinking, sleeping, fueling—it’s cause to celebrate. It’s a headline. It’s on the six o’clock news. Hell, the “racecation” phenomenon is even national news. And this extremely captive crowd of provides an unbeatable marketing opportunity for our film and brand partners. !Next summer we’ll take the film directly to our audience with an innovative advanced screening tour/road show. We’ll map out a cross-country route that takes us to a new event/city each weekend, and host a Friday + Saturday night screening for 350-500 people. (We will work with our brand partners to develop unique activations.) And in keeping with the community’s countercultural spirit, we’ll forsake climate-controlled cinemas in favor of events in unusual places: fields, barns, amphitheaters, drive-ins, and of course, race venues. (Wireless headphones will give us lots of venue flexibility… and a fresh media hook.) !Once we’ve established the route, we’ll leverage our Facebook fan base and industry contacts to assemble a Suffer Club Street Team in each market, and we’ll incentivize them to aid with logistics and promotion. We’ll also begin a PR campaign to secure local/regional/national media. We’ve also received soft commitments from several race leading organizers to promote the road show and film to their millions of social media followers and mailing lists. Ultimately, our goal is to build a strong community surrounding this film, and generate hype, awareness and tens of millions of impressions ahead of our worldwide VOD release. !Speaking of which… !

THE FILM TOUR

Though the Film Tour is sure to generate a ton of buzz, in reality, only 10-15K people will be lucky enough to attend one of these limited engagements. This leaves the vast majority of our core target on the outside wanting in, creating demand and, of course, preorders. Lucky for them, we’re treating the final tour event as our “world premier,” during which we’ll release the film on a leading Transactional VOD platform like iTunes and/or Amazon Instant… and on our website via VHX, a groundbreaking new DIY-distribution tool. !Our plan is to offer the documentary on as many platforms as possible, in a strategic/timed fashion. After our iTunes release window, for instance, we’ll make it available on popular Cable and Subscription VODs like Netflix, HBO, Comcast, etc, before eventually offering it for free on an Ad-Sponsored platform like YouTube or Hulu. The goal, of course, is to ensure as many people as possible get a chance to experience the film.

ON DEMAND

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We’re obviously taking an alternative approach to marketing and distribution, but we also see a ton of value in touring the festival circuit. Film fests are a great avenue for press and exposure, and will help us reach new audiences who may be unfamiliar with obstacle racing. This is key, for while this film certainly caters to this passionate community, we believe it has universal appeal. It’s not just a movie about mud… it’s about life in our sedentary, smartphone-saturated society. And that’s a theme that everyone can relate to. !We have a shortlist of top festivals we hope to play at, and as we get closer to final edit this spring, we’ll begin the submission process.

FESTIVALS

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WE CAN DO IT!!

! LET’S DO IT!Thanks so much for reading. I appreciate you taking the time to consider this. If you see the potential here - and I hope you do! - I’d love to jump on a call to discuss. To be clear, we’re not making a neat little documentary for a few thousand people to hold dear. We’re in pursuit of what Morgan Spurlock would call a “doc-buster.” Our target viewership is in the seven figures, our goal for impressions exceeds nine, and in my ideal scenario, I’m on the Today Show next summer talking about how effing cool it is that YOUR BRAND is underwriting art as a way to reach new audiences. !I look forward to discussing ways to authentically integrate your brand in this film. !Let’s talk soon! Scott Keneally !writer/director/dreamer scottkeneally@me.com 415.902.1875

THANK YOU