The First Week | Stats and Shout-outs

Wow. It's been quite the eventful week!  Besides getting accepted into the L.A. Women's International Film Festival and being informed that we'd be in our Alma Mater's paper, you who have taken the time to see our little senior-project of a short film, you've blown us away!  

I'm not gonna lie, especially that first day, I was only expecting a handful of fifties or hundreds...family, friends and people who knew we'd shot it.  Let's be honest, generally people don't flock to a 13-minute film online, especially about something as sad and ugly as cancer...

When we got over 100 in the first hour, I knew something had to be wrong.  Even when it happened again and again every hour that first 12 hours, and we collectively topped out above 1,300 I thought "There has to be some mistake."

When it happened again the next day, it finally settled in and we realized how many people we knew that have been hurt by cancer...we've been so blessed with knowing you, and we wanted to take the time to give some shout-outs, because it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't passed it along.


YOU ROCK! Thanks so much for posting/reposting/blogging/reblogging/Tweeting/e-mailing/sharing, etc. Cancer sucks and we're wanting to let the people affected know it's gonna be okay.  With your help, we're off to a great start =)

Stats


Vimeo views - 5,962
YouTube views - 176


Total first-week views - 6,137

Countries - 98

# of Embeds - 65

Facebook shares (that we were tagged in) - 67

Tweets/Retweets - 49

And with that, we'd like to give a shout-out to as many as we could track (haha, in the most non-creepy way of course).


Shout-outs


Though we know it's not everyone, we wanted to at least try to thank as many people personally as we could!  If you're not on here, WE LOVE YOU TOO!


Facebook:  Jeff Meyers, Katie Freeland, Casey Depangher, Daniel Wahlen, Ryan Gordon, Matt Stevens, Lindsey Gaspard, Matt Hadley, Renee Cerovski, Garrison Hayes, Lisa Klimesch, Teresa Hennen, Melissa Wortman, Flor Just, Beth Anne White, Zach Gray, David George, Kevin Ekvall, Adrienne Suarez, Addie Dorough, Jade Meyer, Rebekah Doying, Asia Hamilton, Cassie Sommerville, Tammy Vaughn, Allissa Wright, Bob Vaughn, Abner Sanchez, Emily Taylor, Beth Grissom, Angela Hopkins, Daphne Martin, Leslie Foster, Penny Brink, Lacie Hamm, Adam Buck, Brittany Baisley, Kasper Haughton, Samantha Salyers, Debbie Patrick, Ian Pagdilao Elissa Gohl, Devin Anavitarte, Stephen Carlile, Amanda Fulghan, Nathan Page, Suzanne Ocsai, Lynn Downey Braswell, Robert Barr, Christy Rutledge, Steven Satterberg, Derek Pitman, Megan Rentz, Erin Burke, Brenda Wells, Lauren King, Shearin Joyce, Michael Dappolonia, Daniel Gomez, Brian Bautista, Kathy Cruz, Ceves Adventist Church, Tiffany Melo, Marissa Ferrell, Betsy Wirkkala, Anthony Velasquez, Mona Endehipa, Leroy Abrahams


Twitter: Marshall Snider, Katie Freeland, FaceCancer2gthr, Davidjgc, Ashley Chism, Daniel Wahlen, Nick Loyd, Niki Penola, The Adventist Church, Amy Sells, Nick Smith, CancerForward, Mary Kate Stone, Kenny Kane, Caitlyn Mayers, Joan Standish, Abolish Cancer, Breast Fest Films, Light the Night Ontario, Suzanne Ocsai, SciF1Sara, Michael Castello, Zamer


Tumblr/Websites/Forums:

And we'd also like to thank the people from these cancer organizations who have taken the time to watch and pass along to their coworkers or social media pool =)

Thank you to everyone who helped pass on our message of hope and comfort!  Keep sharing =)

To Daphne, with love...

February 2, 2012

I've been sitting at my computer for about 10 hours today, getting things ready here and there for our online release tomorrow...the sun is setting juuust on the edge of the mountains outside my window, enough for a ray to pierce into my vision.

Sometimes sunsets are like that...so beautiful and majestic that you can't help but look at it, no matter how bright it is, or how much it hurts.  It always seems brightest right before it dips behind the horizon, doesn't it?

I met Daphne Knecht about 5 years ago; we went to the same university. The first time I saw her, it was her roommate that pointed her out and said, "THAT'S my really cool roommate." On the sidewalk in the distance is where I saw a brightly smiling girl who waved back at us.

I'll be perfectly honest, I never really got to know her. I always saw her in the gymnastics shows (In.credible gymnast), or around campus and she was always really sweet.

But about 6 months ago, I started seeing mutual friends on Facebook say they were praying for her.  Stories from festival-goers had made us hypersensitive to cancer stories so I wrote her, curious about hers, offering our support and prayers.

(She also happened to know Julenne, our actress, and had gotten to talk with her about their situations)

Come to find out, I'd caught her shortly after she took the plunge and had shaved her head. And yet her message was still dotted with smiley faces and a cheerful outlook:

"Hey, yes I remember you, dear. Thank you so much for you support and prayers. . .  I gotta have optimism, it's tougher without it. 

My boyfriend and I were in a car accident in July 2008. The airbag hit me in the face, and scratched my right eye. The doctors did a CTscan to check for trauma inside my head due to the blow which showed the tumor on the left.. Totally random, but I strongly believe it was God letting me know my life was about to change. I had never had any type of symptoms from this tumor before, and still did not until January 2010. I began having headaches which felt like major migranes, but turned out to be siezures. I had surgery that January and started the chemo treatment I did in February through December 2010. The tumor shrunk about 75% of its original size. Had a great and uneventful school year, but then this May I started to have siezures again, which are now worse than just headaches, but I have never lost conciousness in one. I came home for another surgery because they found a spot on the tumor, and now getting ready to start another bit of the chemo, and radiation treatment at the same time. =/ I'm kinda nervous, but I'm sure I'll be alright.  I was expecting to lose most to all of the hair on the left side of my head. So I went ahead and donated what I had. 

My hair wasn't long enough to make a hair piece, but I read online that they still accept it and can use it for somethings, so I figured "what the heck?" lol.

Thank you for your interest.   Again, I really appreciate the prayers, and your film story sounds so great. I wish we could know each other a little better. 

God bless you and your thoughtfulless! 

-Daph

A short bit ago, things took a turn for the worse, and I started to see just how many lives this girl had touched. An unbelievable amount of people from all over the country were praying for her and even raising money for her brother's airfare to get to her bedside. Donors raised the $1500 within a day and then blew a good $6,000 past that to go towards her medical costs.

A Facebook group called Daphne's Warriors kept everyone in the loop from small triumphs to laughable Daphne-isms... to when she fell asleep Saturday night, January 28.

Scroll through her comments, peoples' pictures, her friends' stories...it's no question that she was a bright ray of a setting sun. For those last couple weeks, her positive influence shined so brightly that people like me who didn't even know her that well just couldn't help but watch, even though it hurt.

Her funeral is in a few days and the pain is so fresh for her family, friends and teammates. My heart and prayers go out to you all and I can't wait for the day to see the smiles of those who loved her so much, reunited with hers...and getting to know her better =)

Daphne, this one's for you; as petty as it may seem (or is), we'd like to dedicate our online premier to her, and to those who could use the comfort and hope.  Blessings and strength in the coming months...

-T