Barnard's project, "A Father and Son," is a feature film about a a father who discovers his son may have been a victim of a serial killer killing the boys of the streets of Hollywood. The intriguing and socially important hook to this story is that the boy is on the streets because the father did "what any self-respecting good ol' boy would do" when the boy came out as gay: he threw him out. The father suddenly faces the consequences of his terrible decision when the serial killer begins striking.

"We would like to think this is not true anymore in America," says Barnard, who wrote the original script in 1998, "But the facts are there."

LGBT organizations today warn youth that if they must be honest with their parents, then they must be ready to be thrown out when they come out. It's a unique civil rights issue; black kids don't have to worry about revealing to their parents that they're black, and girls don't have to worry about revealing to their parents that they're female. But each of those groups, among others, have had to fight for civil rights in society. It's just much closer to home for gay civil rights.

As happens to everyone throughout life, the mistakes we make come back to haunt us, and we try desperately to correct them. That's the position the father finds himself in.

Barnard's "A Father and Son" is a thriller, besides having a social commentary. The father must find his son, entering the abyss of street life in Hollywood of the 1990s, not even knowing if the boy is dead or alive.

"This ain't Tinseltown," says Barnard.

The story is based on facts, and its scope and accuracy require a minimum one million dollar production budget. It's a squeeze to make the movie for that little, since it has many characters, many street scenes, crowd scenes, and city scenes, all considered the 'kiss of death' to low-budget filmmaking.

Only three one million dollar movies have been funded on Kickstarter, and guess whose movies those were? Celebrities.

"There's no room in the production budget for me as the filmmaker," says Barnard, who will not be paid for producing, writing, or directing...an experience that helps explain why he is not rich and famous.

For Barnard, this is a passion project, one that has overwhelmed him. He wrote the script in 1998 and it immediately attracted attention from studio producers, back when that was a common process. They loved the screenplay, but after stints and long evaluations by executives at Warner Bros., Paramount, and Sony, the script was deemed "not big enough." Taking it into his own hands, he started production of the movie in late 2007 with star John Schneider (Dukes of Hazzard, Smallville), just as the Great Recession rolled in, destroying the production and causing it to shut down after shooting only one scene.

Now, with the help of crowdfunding on Kickstarter, Barnard is reviving the project, believing that Kickstarter is not just for the rich and famous.

"It's an important movie with a story that must be told, and the people who make up the Kickstarter community are the ones to get this movie funded," says Barnard.

The crowdfunding campaign is running on Kickstarter at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michael-r-barnard/the-thriller-indie-motion-picture-a-father-and-son until October 3.

MICHAEL R BARNARD PRODUCTIONS, since 1984, driven to create important stories through high-quality independent films and television.