Fraser Grut is filming people's dream, and now wants to start making some come true. File photo / Nick Reed
Fraser Grut is filming people's dream, and now wants to start making some come true. File photo / Nick Reed
The man behind the ambitious 10,000 Dreams project is now offering an everyday Kiwi the chance for their dream to come true.
For the past two years 25-year-old filmmaker Fraser Grut has been listening to people share their dreams - along the way recruiting celebrities including Beauden Barrett, Lydia Ko,Jane Goodall and Ronan Keating. Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman is among other high profile people lined up in the near future.
He first went public with his plan in the Herald on Sunday in December 2017 when he was 3.5 per cent, or 357 dreams, through his project.
Now he is nearing the 1000 mark.
And to celebrate, Grut will this week launch a competition where a lucky winner will have the chance to make their own dream become a reality.
Ronan Keating is among several high profile people involved in the 10,000 Dreams project. File photo / Warren Buckland
"I'm getting very close to 1000 [dreams], which is September 4th. As a celebration of this milestone and for dreams in general, my team and I are running a campaign to help make one person's dream come true."
The campaign, which will be on Grut's Instagram page, begins on Wednesday and runs for two weeks. Entries are made by posting comments, outlining each person's dream, to a short video Grut planned to upload.
Grut and his team, who are also looking for big or small brand partner to help with the campaign, would choose the dream they felt they could best bring to life, with a mini-documentary of the person's dream to be released on the day the 1000th dream was uploaded.
Grut started the project with a goal of capturing 365 dreams before, feeling unchallenged, increasing his goal to 10,000.
Now he wants to reach a billion dreams.
"When I told my wife that she said, 'that's impossible', and it is for one person. So when I get to the end of my 27-year journey, I want 10,000 filmmakers to be doing 10,000 dreams ... so 52 years from now is 1 billion."
Dame Jane Goodall, the world's foremost chimpanzee expert, shared her dream with Fraser Grut. Photo / Supplied
Grut runs on a mix of relentless positivity and chutzpah, but there have been hard times chasing his own dream of "changing the world through film", and there would be again, he said.
The recent loss of a relative to suicide, and a bad experience filming the dream of someone he admired had knocked him back.
But hundreds of grateful messages from participants he had helped - simply by asking them to share their dream - had helped pick him up again.
Wiggles have dreams too - blue wiggle Anthony Field is among those who have taken part in the 10,000 Dreams project. Photo / Supplied
The Christchurch terror attacks had also prompted him to push himself to make the project as diverse as possible, and to reflect on why it mattered, he said.
"In the dark times the world needs dreams more than ever."
