“Every Curse Has A Price”
Why we need your support
Who am I?
Meet the filmmaker behind Scratch
My name is Paul Amstone. I am a writer and director based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. My goal as a filmmaker is simple: to tell good stories for everyday people.
When I was a kid, my dad took me to see Peter Jackson’s King Kong. In that moment I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to make movies.
Not the next “big” thing. Not pretentious art that gets clapped for at wine tastings. Just good movies. The kind you rewatch. The kind you share with your friends and family.
I may never win an Oscar, but if someone can sit down with someone they love and lose themselves in a story I made, that is all the award I will ever need.
From childhood dreams to making films against all odds
My Journey
The Beginning
My obsession with movies started young. Lord of the Rings blew my mind. It was the first time I realized that movies were not just things that existed. Someone had to make them. A whole army of people.
While other kids played pretend to be the stars, I pretended I was the director. I filled notebooks with fake movie credits, logos, and stories. When I finally got my hands on a camera, I started filming everything I could and editing in Windows Movie Maker like it was a Hollywood setup.
Learning & Serving the US Navy
In high school, things got serious. I leveled up my camera work and taught myself how to master Adobe Premiere. Every free moment I had was spent learning, failing, and improving.
While serving in US Navy, I made two documentary films. One called Trent Arnold: No Regrets, about a retiring Lieutenant Commander, and another called Home, a deeply personal film about life aboard an aircraft carrier for nearly a year. Filmmaking followed me everywhere, even in the most structured, high-pressure environments imaginable.
Independent Filmmaker
When I exited the US Navy out in 2019, I hit the ground running. I have made several short films since then: Infirm, Travelers, The Salesman, Quietus, Infirm Part 2, Icarian, Taste, and Scratch. All the while working as an industry professional in the Utah Film Industry on large TV Shows, Commercials and Movies.
Scratch, of course, is the short that this feature is based on. The full-length version is a spiritual continuation. Beefier, meaner, and more emotionally charged. It builds on what worked in the short and raises the stakes at every level.
What We've Done With Nothing
Creating award-winning films with minimal resources
We have made films with no money, no time, no safety net, and have made them work. Take Infirm. We made that with 700 dollars. Just enough to rent the camera. Every other piece came from favors, volunteering, and stubbornness.
The location we were promised was an empty high school. But when we arrived, we were told the lights could not be turned off. So we spent hours covering every single light just to get enough darkness to shape our horror scenes. That film is a fake oner, cut to look like one continuous take too, which made post-production its own separate battle.
Then there is Icarian, our biggest short up to that point. Myself and Jonah Garlick funded it with 6,000 dollars of our own money. Jonah handcrafted every piece of wardrobe. We shot for three days in Zion National Park, picked up footage months later when fire season ended, and spent 14 months cutting it together. Icarian went on to win awards for cinematography, wardrobe, and sound.
Making the Impossible, Possible
Infirm- 2019
Travelers - 2020
Taste - 2024
Icarian - 2023
The Scratch Short Film
We made the Scratch short with just 3,000 dollars and a crew of 37 volunteers. Blood effects, stunt actors with Marvel credits, a full camera team. Everyone showed up because they believed in the vision. Not one person was paid, but they gave it everything.
That is why this feature version of Scratch means so much to us. Not just because it is a powerful story. But because my team has stood by me through every single project. They deserve to be paid. And paid fairly.
We are asking for 250,000 dollars. Not to make anyone rich. But to make sure every person on set is paid equally. 200 dollars per day for 10 hours. 20 dollars an hour. No hierarchy. No ego. And I will not be taking a cent of it.
If that money is going anywhere, it is going on the screen.
Why We’re Asking For Your Support
A personal mission that means more now than ever
Scratch is the film I have been building toward my entire life.
It is a dark fantasy about a grieving father who sells his soul to a necromancer in a desperate attempt to save his daughter from a deadly cult. And right now, that story means more to me than ever. Because I am about to become a father myself.
I just had open-heart surgery. I have spent the last few months staring down mortality while preparing to bring a child into the world. It is terrifying. Beautiful. Overwhelming. Scratch came from that storm of emotion. Questions like: What kind of person will my child become? Will I be strong enough to protect them? What would I give to keep them safe?
After years in the industry as a Camera Operator and Director of Photography working on dozens of other people's sets while making my own films on the side. I am ready. We are ready.
This is the moment.
We are not just asking for money. We’re asking for trust. We’re asking you to believe that there is still room in the world for bold, emotional storytelling. For grit. For honesty. For something worth remembering.
What You Get By Supporting
Clear rewards and complete transparency
Immediate Access
Let me be clear. I am not here to disappear for three years, resurface with vague updates, and hand you a T-shirt while the film quietly gets sold off to some nameless distributor.
Scratch is being independently produced and self-distributed. That means the moment the film is finished, you will get to watch it. On digital. On Blu-ray. However you backed it, you will get it quickly.
Part of Something Real
Every single dollar this film earns will go directly into the next one. That is our model. No middlemen. No investors hiding behind NDAs. Just a group of filmmakers making movies the way we think they should be made.
When you support Scratch, you are not helping someone chase a dream. You are helping fund the kind of stories that used to mean something.
Complete Transparency
No greed. No silence. No mystery. Just great storytelling. And a team who will never take your support for granted.
I am not a studio. I am not backed by money or fame. I am just a guy from Utah who has spent his life learning how to tell stories that matter, with nothing but grit, heart, and people who believed in the vision.