New Bonzo!

We have decided to cast David Schaal as Bonzo the clown, after meeting a number of different actors about the role.

David was recommended to me by Kiki Kendrick who also appears in the film.

David is mostly known for his roles in BAFTA winning comedies "The Office" and "The Inbetweeners" and I think you will agree if you see his show-reel, will be able to pull off the very subtle and conflicting emotions of the character. Check out www.davidschaal.com to have a look for yourself!

I look forward to working with David over the next few weeks as we head to our shoot dates of the 14th to 18th October and bring Bonzo to life!

Judges Votes and Feedback on the Poster Competition!

First of all a big thank you to our amazing judges, for giving their expertise and their valuable time to our poster competition and helping us to find the right poster for "Clowning Around" while also sharing some of their insight and feedback about the particular posters they chose, both for the competition entrants and for us all to benefit from their collective knowledge.


MATTHEW LEYLAND from 'Total Film' Magazine

OK.... thought they were all quality but these 3 really made my bow-tie whirl!

1) MYISH ENDONILA - The caption "Will work for booze" made me laugh straight away but what I really love is how so much is packed into the picture without seeming cluttered: the rivalry, the haplessness, the alcoholism, the violence... the flying pies add a great dynamic element. I would definitely, definitely want to see this film!

2) JENNY LAW - Another instantly witty image - love the use of red that guides you to the noses but also the bottles, which hint more subtly than some of the other posters at the alcoholism theme. A simple, strong, chic, cool composition.

3) ANDREW SMITH - Harks back to classic film posters by Saul Bass; nice use of metaphor - you immediately 'get' what this film's about - but it retains an air of mystery that makes you want to know more.


CHRIS JONES, Filmmaker and Author of The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook

1st: Ramon Bonilla
I liked the fact that it worked from a distance, was bold and iconic. The more I looked, so more detail revealed itself. Great work.

2nd: Myish Endonila
Again strong, simple and clear message that worked the irony of the concept in very well. Felt very much like a film poster too. It's also a gut choice.

3rd: Jenny Law
Simple and effective. I like the boldness of a graphic design and composition and colour worked very well. Lovely artwork that any film maker would have been delighted with.


BEN AND CHRIS BLAINE, UK Filmmaking Brothers from Charlie Productions

1st: Stuart Johnston
This suggests loads. Feels like if you had him looking up out of the bottle that would give this poster all it needs - that sense of hope. Him staring straight out of the bottle feels like there's not much hope. But the idea of him being stuck in the bottle is nice. The colours work well. The park bench and the balloon floating off give it something extra, a feeling that the film is going to give you those pertinent little details that will make it a deep and affecting film. However... the bottle doesn't quite sell alcohol to us. feels more like a bottle of premium water than booze - don't know what the tipple of choice in the film is but if it's wine he's quite a refined alcoholic. And if you went for a different, broader bottle such as one for whisky, that might give the chance to use more space - there's lots of blanks here. Love the rival staring in via the balloons, feels nice. Also like the font used for the title

2nd: Andrew Smith
Like this one a lot. Don't quite like the colour choice though - it might just be the compression but the red nose and the red splurge on his chest clash horribly with the blue. And that splurge doesn't need to be there. If it were just the nose it'd feel much stronger - you're telling me he's a clown, all I need to see is the nose. And perhaps you could have made him have clown shoes. Having him stuck inside the bottle but looking up gives me the story that he's an alcoholic clown who's looking to sort himself out. It's hopeful, and the simple but artful design makes me think of French New Wave films and makes me feel like I'll see something a bit different. Maybe that's not the film though...

3rd: Myish Endonila
This in many ways feels like the most polished of the posters. Certainly the one that sells it most as a comedy. However it feels like the main chap could do with being closer - there's a lot of wasted space below the sign round his neck which could have been lost in order to make him larger on the poster - there's a certain distance thanks to the pies being thrown at him which makes it feel a little like we're being asked to laugh at the loser, rather than necessarily empathising with him... The curtains feel a little sharp on the edges. The bad guy hovering in the background letting our main chap take the pratfall is nice, though is the story that he's aloof and better than him, or is it that he's actively trying to do the main chap in? In which case a different image of him might have worked better. However, not sure if that is the tale - if it is that he's aloof to it all, then it works ok.


CHRIS PATMORE Editor of Film & Festivals Magazine


1st: Andrew Smith
Simple graphical approach that captures the eye, while explaining the film's concept.

2nd: Miguel Ibarra
Striking use of illustration (not enough illustration used in film posters any more)

3rd: Ramon Bonilla
Powerful use of the photography and interesting use of typography, just a bit concerned that it is a little hard to read and much to close to the trim.


DEAN HARMER Creative Director at Aitch Creative

Myish Endonila
Just has all the ingredients for a good movie poster ... has focus and clarity, tells a little of the story - certainly enough to be intriguing (though i think a little TOO much blurring on the pie-dishes ... and some twinkly lights which don't seem to add anything, for me!) think that this submissions' designer is a designer - with a good sense of balance and impact and order of information.

Miguel Ibarra
I really like the simplicity and clarity of this ... though I can't help thinking that it's not quite finished - in that I think that the addition of a bottle in the hand, the cast along the top and a good strapline which adds a sense of context - would pull it right up!!

Jenny Law/Andrew Smith
i really cannot decide between the two illustrative designs. The blue bottle is a gorgeous, arty-house styled image - with good, strong type .. again - i still think it needs a little more to give you a better indicator of context - a good strong look. The orange one has a much more 'appropriate' feel - with the pair of clowns, the sense of fun with the balloon and the bottles - with an irregular border - makes it more 'rough and ready' but the whole is dampened by a muddy colour scheme ... resulting in the character images being indistinct if i were walking past...



JOHN CONDON Founder of OTT Films and Professional Creative Director

1st Place
Myish Endonila - In here is a good film poster, trying to get out. The story is all there - The drunk clown. The Antagonist literally 'waiting in the wings' for him to meet his seemingly inevitable doom (represented by the custard pies). Bonzo's expression, clearly that of a broken man and one resigned to his fate. So, all present and correct. However, the poster is very busy as a result. The curtains distract the eye. The blue background is unnecessarily lacking contrast from Bonzo, which it should have to ensure he stands out and remains the focus of my attention. So, a darker background, the curtains more realistic and partially hidden in the shadow, Bonzo caught in the spotlight and the removal of the tomato (an idea too far, albeit a good one) and you would have a solid film poster here. As it stands, it lacks the level of polish that the rest of the project has benefited from. If you can get a second round of tweaks from Myish, without it breaking the competition rules, this could be a very tidy and descriptive poster. At the moment it's my begrudging choice for your WINNER.

2ND PLACE
Miguel Ibarra - Very nicely sketched with a simple colour palette and one 'captivating' image. In graphic terms it's an engaging image too. However, much like many of the other 'style over content' posters it misses the 'story' and focuses on only one of its themes...that of depression...there is an unhappy clown! So? There are loads of films, stories and paintings of 'Unhappy clowns'. What makes this one so special? This poster fails to answer that question adequately enough for me. It tells me nothing of any consequence about the film and whilst it would catch my eye (job number one) it would fail to engage my curiosity enough to part with my money (job number two). But it excites me. So I'd want it to be developed and pushed further. How would I suggest Miguel do that? Perhaps Bonzo holding a balloon in his right hand (left as we see it) with Fernelli's shit eating expression doodled across it, looking down on our hero. A bow tie ribbon tied to the base of the balloon. A great visual representation of Fernelli's over inflated ego and his lofty position of popularity above Bonzo. Perhaps a bottle in Bonzo's hanging right hand? That may end up being too much but I'd have liked to have seen it. And of course I'd add an effective tagline. My pint being that if this poster had a second idea in here; something more relevant to the story (what I described is just an example) then this would probably be my WINNER. As it stands though, it would be my runner up.


3RD PLACE
Ramon Bonilla - This is a seriously bold image. Were I to walk in to the foyer of a cinema to be confronted by a 1 sheet with this on it, I'd certainly investigate it further. Unfortunately, there is nothing else to be found. Once again, I am confronted by an image of an unhappy clown but little else. It's left to the title to do all of the work and a title alone can not do the work required of the poster. The typography should have been painted (or appear to be painted) on to Bonzo's face and nose to at least maximise the effect. Yet again, no tagline.

There could only be one overall winner of course so a points system of 15 points for a first choice, 10 points for a second choice and 5 points for a third choice were employed with Matthew Leyland to make the guiding decision if there should have been a tie but in the end the clear overall winner was, as we've announced Myish Endonilla, followed by Andrew Smith and Miguel Ibarra as runners up. Well done to them and we're delighted with the Judges picks and our winning poster design!

And the Poster Competition Winner Is...!

Myish Endonila's smashing poster design was popular with the public, the production team and the judges and wins through as the poster design that will be used for the "Clowning Around" film marketing.

Matthew Leyland of "Total Film" Magazine summed it up when he said, "The caption 'Will work for booze' made me laugh straight away but what I really love is how so much is packed into the picture without seeming cluttered: the rivalry, the haplessness, the alcoholism, the violence... the flying pies add a great dynamic element. I would definitely, definitely want to see this film!

1st Runner up was Andrew Smith.

Chris Patmore Editor of Film & Festivals Magazine summed this poster up as a "Simple graphical approach that capture's the eye, while explaining the film's concept."

2nd Runner up was Miguel Ibarra

Professional Creative Director and founder of OTTfilms John Condon summed up this poster as "Very nicely sketched with a simple colour palette and one 'captivating image. In graphic terms it's an engaging image too..."

The judge's full feedback, all their top three picks, and commendations for other posters created for the competition will be posted shortly, but for now, congratulations to the winners and runners up! We're thrilled with the Judges choice and look forward to seeing Myish's fantastic design recreated on our movie poster and marketing when the film is finished!

The poster competition (And my pick)

Tomorrow sees the results of our poster competition, which received over 100 entires from all corners of the globe, including Maurituis, the USA and Russia. It was a far greater response than I expected and the array of different designs and what people did with the images was fantastic and I look forward to seeing the winner!

The idea to do a poster competition came after we did the stills shoot in July. After creating some amazing images, I started thinking about the poster but found myself too close to it. In the film industry itself, posters are created by an entirely separate company (like Aitch Creative, one of our judges) so they can truly be objective and are talented in selling the ideas of the film to the public. As we couldn’t afford a marketing agency, I thought it would be quite cool to put the images out there for people to send us and rather than have us judge, people to vote on the winner.

As we found out during the competition, this did pose a problem in those that have more Facebook friends have more chance of going forward and some people felt they were mislead (although the rules were on our website J) that their design would not be there on merit. Whilst I understand this point of view (and been on the receving end of the more ‘popular’ films being put forward rather than my own in competitions) and agree to an extent, an important part of any industry and particularly this one, is the effort you put into and the faith you put into your project. Our own IndieGoGo campaign was successful not just because of the skill we exhibited, but because of the hard work we put into our campaign, as Thomas Edison once said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration J

But like I say, we also saw the point that peoples work perhaps wasn’t being ‘judged’ in the way they wanted, and whilst I feel that enough of the people voting were interested and being fair, there is always going to be people who just look at the one design and we didn’t want anyone to feel their design wasn’t appreciated or viewed. We have also been collaborative and listened throughout the process, so I decided that as well as the 5 most ‘liked’, we would have 5 of the crew, who know the story and how we want to pitch the film. I myself did not want to choose, as I felt my opinion may be taken too much into account, but when it came to it, I couldn’t help myself and had to give it a go!

John Fairley was my pick.

So our 11 designs went to our 6 industry judges, who have picked their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice and through a points basis (15 points for 1st, 10 for 2nd and 5 for 3rd) we have our top 3 plus a load of feedback on various designs. Fingers crossed for you all!

Looking for Bonzo...

We have a little bit of a bad news in that Bill Thomas, who was to play Bonzo in our film “Clowning Around” can no longer commit to the role due to other projects and after a week of myself, Bill, Leilani and Katherine trying to find a way around it, we are going to have to recast.

This is a shame as Bill has been fantastic to work with and brought lot to the role, but these things can happen when working in low budget films when no one is being paid (and therefore contracted) so we are moving onwards and upwards in looking for a replacement. We will keep the poster competition as it is for the moment, but once we have re-cast, we will speak to the winning designer about adding the new actor, whoever that may be.

The production crew had a meeting yesterday to discuss ideas for castings as well as locations and other things relating to the shooting of “Clowning Around” and everyone has specific things to be cracking on with over the next few days so we can make a firm decision on our shooting dates next Monday, and it is great to see that despite the casting setback, everyone has very much rallied and kept up the momentum and enthusiasm for the project.

If you think of anyone suiting for the role of BONZO, please feel free to send to us as well or send a message to us on Twitter or Facebook!

Juliet's Poster Pick ~ Andrew Smith

Assistant Producer, Juliet Parker chose this design by Andrew Smith as her favourite.

Blair's Poster Pick ~ Ramón Bonilla

3rd AD Blair Powell chose the above poster by Ramón Bonilla as his favourite:

"I really like the image Ramon has used, it sums up the desperation and dejection of Bonzo's character and the close up makes it a really striking image. I think the way that the text has been formed to fit into bonzos face paint doesnt detract from the image but at the same time really pulls the focus in to the design. I think the whole design would look great when in poster size."

Graham's Poster Pick! James Davis

Selected as his favourite design, by "Clowning Around" Producer, Graham Inman.

Greer's poster pick

There was something about Jenny Law's entry that really stood out to me. It has this real movie-poster feel, while channelling the underlying serious tone of our bittersweet comedy. Also loved the fact that she took our starter images and really made them her own. If I saw this on a wall, I would stop and want to read more.

Two other entries that caught my eye were by Fiona Nash and Andrew Smith. Fiona's was clean and dramatic, with a wonderful depth of colour. A little more text - a tagline maybe - to fill the space would have pushed this into the winning zone for me. As for Andrew's poster, well I thought putting Bonzo in a bottle really captured the very essence of the film. Loved it was so clean and tapped those wonderful Hitchcock posters by Saul Bass. Again I think - considering the graphic concept - that it just needed one more element that told me a bit more about the film.

Leilani's Pick! ~ Miguel Ibarra

Miguel Ibarra ~ This poster is simple and yet has feeling. The colour use is beautifully balanced and it’s pleasing. I love the fun way that the film title is across Bonzo’s tummy giving him shape. I felt it really captured the essence of not just Bonzo’s character but the film, itself. One clown’s battle with his inner demons.

I liked lots of the posters, ones by Jurgen Koffel, Erik Deerly, Pierre Chavaz and Kira Kemble were also fantastic and deserve mention but once first I saw Miguel Ibarra's work I was caught by it and it and from all the posters I didn't have to think twice about selecting it as my favourite.

The 'Likes' of our Poster Designs. Top Five Time!

To make our poster design competition as fair and as interesting as we could we decided that as well as picking some finalists ourselves, from the production team, we'd choose some of them by 'likes' on our facebook page and hopefully this helped to get everyone's work fully looked at and appreciated by everybody as much as it was by us.

We had such a huge range of ideas and designs submitted (well over 100!) and each has it's own particular take on the 'Clowning Around' story. We deactivated our facebook page at the appointed time and counted up.. it was close.. the 'likes' came in right up to the hour and the placements changed rapidly and these were the top five most popular designs. What was truly inspirational were designers who came and 'liked' the work of their fellow entrants. And people came from all over the place to flock to the page and select their favourites. We'll be leaving all the entries up for everyone to continue to appreciate. The competition has enriched the project and we love all our posters!

These though, were the top five shortlisted for the finals! Congratulations to the designers for their popular work!

Myish Endonila ~ 110 'likes'

Diana Taki ~ 116 'likes'

Olivier Bontemps ~ 116 'likes'

Stuart Johnstone ~ 127 'likes'

Janaka Poblete ~ 162 'likes'

Sunday Screenings

Last week I spoke about our experiences during the IndieGoGo campaign. Since we hit our target on August 26th, there has been a lot of interest from other filmmakers who want to know if they too can us crowd sourcing to get budgets for their projects.

I have been working with Sunday Screenings, its founders Phil Deguara and Andy Bate, as well as filmmaker Carlo Ortu for the past 18 months, in which time they have put on nearly twenty screenings of short and feature films and made a short film of their own "The Man Who Stopped", which was screened at the Exhibit in Balham before "The Kings Speech". They screen films on the first Sunday of each month, have a great and relaxed atmosphere and networking evening and usually feature someone from the industry to discuss something different about Indie Filmmaking as part of the night. They have been keeping tabs on our campaign and when it ended, asked if I would discuss aspects of it with their regular audience.

I was somewhat apprehensive as I am not the worlds best public speaker, but like I say, the atmosphere at Sunday Screenings is always welcoming and I felt confident in speaking about our campaign. After the 3rd film I was asked up and Andy conducted a Q + A, asking how we went about the project. I can talk for hours about all the intricacies about it, but tried to keep it brief and I did sense genuine interest from a lot of the audience and a low "WOW" as we revealed how much we had raised. We showed the initial IndieGoGo pitch video to show how we tried to come across and all the things we had done to engage our funders and at the end asked anyone who wanted to talk about it, to come and see us. Please see how it went here: http://www.vimeo.com/29256058

I have presented to an audience a few times before, but this was the first time the "come and see me after" had an effect, as I spoke to a social networker who wants to make a case study from the project, four filmmakers who wanted to know "how we did it" and over a dozen cast and crew who want to work with us in the future.

The next Sunday Screenings is in October, feel free to make friends with them on Facebook and pop along and see the next preview of short films from around the globe!

Poster Design Delights! ~ Help Us Decide the Finalists!

We're in the final few days of our poster design competition for "Clowning Around" and at the time of writing this, there are sixty submitted designs on our facebook page ready to be viewed and 'liked' by the public to help us decide a shortlist to send to our judges. I've sent jpegs out to something like 285 enquirers so far so I'm expecting more completed submissions will appear in the next few days and every one brings it's own excitement as we see how people have interpreted the story and put together their designs, how they've used lettering and imagery and colour and added their own touches to the tools we gave them. There's a truly stunning variety, from all sorts of ages, countries around the entire globe, and differing levels of experience.

We've had an amazing response all round from people about the competition, the judges we have helping us, and everyone is enthusiastic and enjoying looking at the entrants posters and wondering which will win through to be the poster for 'Clowning Around' as it travels around the seven continents.

For myself, I totally love film posters. They are such a special part of filmmaking and film marketing and are often such beautiful art in their own right, that to see posters made in such abundance and variety for a film I'm helping produce is just a delight. I've really enjoyed seeing each and every one of them. And as a special perk to our production team Damien is allowing five of us, including myself, Assitant Producer Juliet Parker, 1st AD Greer, McNally, 3rd AD Blair Powell and Production Manager Katherine Evans, to choose our own favourite poster to send along to the judges as part of the shortlist. It's going to be very hard to decide and I'm not picking any favourites until after the last poster has been submitted.

YOU TOO can help us decide which posters to send to the judges by first 'liking' our Summit from Nuthin Productions facebook page and then going to the "Clowning Around" Poster Design Competition Entries gallery in our photographs section and you will see the 'like' options where you can click to 'like' your favourite designs so we can see which posters are most popular and select a further five popular and representative posters to go along to the Judges. We'd love to have your input and insights into what you think best suits our film.

Here's to a bumper amount of submissions between now and midnight on 12th. We hope that everyone's stellar work will be widely viewed and appreciated. It's certainly all very much appreciated by us. *:o)

Knuckling Down!

It feels a bit like everythings gone quiet after the fundraising drive finished, I'm sure. My twitter stream has gone back to it's mostly regular banter about filmic things in general rather than the complete clowntown stream of conciousness it had been for weeks, and similarly my facebook, Google+, Linkedin and other social networking sites have become much less clown related.

However things have been bubbling away as the team knuckles down to the process of pre-production. Everyone has their tasks to get along with and we're all working together to share our particular skills. Camera hunting has been on the agenda, as has more location hunting, scouting and negotiating, most of which has been being done by our awesome team, while I handle sending jpegs to people for the poster competition (240 people have asked for them so far and we have a growing number of submissions on our facebook page) and otherwise, I'm generally helping out with various bits of stuff needed by different departments and looking to ensure the future awareness for the project still stays a active now that the fundraising is over. None of the day to day bits and bobs makes for exactly thrilling blogging (hence things being a bit quiet) but it's all essential to actually knuckling down and making sure that the film gets made to the quality and calibre that we've promised people and so that people get to share that process with us.

Our last meeting was on the 30th August and our priority since then has been to finish off getting quotes for the camera kit and try to get the interior locations locked down. There was a film event by Sunday Screenings that Damien was doing a Q&A about Clowning Around at as well as screening another Summit from Nuthin film "The Longest Pint". I was 5o/50 if I could go to the event and in the end didn't get back to go across London on time, but I wanted to spend some time promoting it in the days before and make sure people had the opportunity to come down and speak to Damien and the other team members in a casual setting & get the behind the scenes guys down to take some footage too.

The rest of the week I was getting the various forms ready for production. Going over the perks we need to fulfil for our backers and beginning to collate information from departments so we can think about the additional crew & resources we need, locking down the ones we have decided upon and begin estimating areas of the budget so that myself and Katherine can have a sit down and I can give her enough information for her awesome budget stretching skills. Checking in with the behind the scenes team and comic book artist Phoenix Ryte on the videos that are coming up from our comics live drawing night. Getting some articles ready for online publishing. It's all quite interesting to do and not always gripping to write about. I have to say though that I'm learning a lot from our brilliant people who do this for a living and make it seem so easy. Damien most of all who is just inspiring and almost tireless as he moves forward with things.

All in all it's ticking along and I am keen now to begin ticking more things off our lists and getting things concreted as I'm sure the team are keen for that too. That job-done-moving-on feeling is a good feeling to have. Our shoot dates don't seem that far away and although we're doing well, I know from prior productions how things can change rapidly as that production date approaches and I want to be prepared. This is a fun time though. If there were a recipe for filmmaking then this would be the bit where you start unpacking and checking all the ingredients and there are nice smells in the air from preparing the stock and you have the anticipation of how the tasty things you have gathered will meld into something substantial and satisfying that you can share with everyone.

We're not having a meeting this week, we're all going to knuckle down and get chopping away at those ingredients instead. *:o)

Onto Production...

Hello All! I feel like I haven't blogged for ages (possibly because I haven't...) so will make up for it now by attempting to sum up the past week and a bit.

Our IndieGoGo campaign came to an end last week, in which we reached a fantastic $8900 ($7500 was our target). The whole thing is a bit of a blur and I learnt so much about what it is really about to have a community of people supporting you, how much it is your responsibility to engage your backers, how much support you need from the crew and how much to trust the people you are working with.

Last Tuesday, we had our first read through of the film. This idea was recommended to me by fellow filmmaker Carlo Ortu, who has done this for a number of features he is developing. I was sceptical as to what this would give us as this is a) a short film and b) a short film with little dialogue but if there is one thing I have learnt from this process, it is to take ideas on and listen to the advice of people who care about your project so decided to give it a go. We arranged with the four actors Bill Thomas, Matthew Jure, Kiki Kendrick and Alex Walker to meet in "The Antelope" pub in Tooting so we could read it all through and despite an early hiccup of the door being locked so needing to be kicked down (!) it was a thoroughly productive and interesting evening.

As the script is very visual and with a lot of description, I came up with the idea that 'Bonzo' (Bill Thomas) would read all the directions so he could follow his journey. I wasn't sure whether this would work or not, but thought it would be a different way of doing a read through and was interesting to see Bill rephrase all to be in the first person. The script didn't feel 'flabby' or show any scenes to be surplus, but highlighted the amount of 'setup' we do to show Bonzo before he actually encounters any other characters. What I was most pleased about was that getting the four actors together (for the first time) and how engaged they were exchanging ideas and discussing the issues relating the film. We don't have any pics, but check out the video our making of crew did here: http://www.vimeo.com/28197179

After the read though, I went downstairs into the bar where Greer, Katherine, Blair and Markus were having a production meeting and was given an overview with where we are at with locations, release forms, schedules and everything else production-wise. At that stage of the IndieGoGo campaign, we had just hit $6000 with 48 hours left and I noticed there was a sense of apprehension amongst all that we may not hit it and how we would have to budget around if not.

Various ideas were brought up and for the first time I started to sense how much the campaign meant to everyone and the importance of hitting it, not just for the budget but also to build momentum into production and reward what everyone had put into it.

The next day I spoke to Graham Inman, who is one of the producers of the film and out of all of us, the most experienced and knowledgeable about crowd sourcing. His calmness and assurance surprised me, and yet (as a cynical and I think realistic person) I still doubted we would hit our target, indeed I think I said to him at around 5pm on Wednesday afternoon "I can see us hitting $7K but no more"...

Our conversation was cut short as I had to get back to work, and I said I would call him later that night to continue, or even the following morning. But I didn't. Not because I am rude, but by the time I thought about calling him we were near $7K with 40 hours to go. I awoke the following morning to see we had then got to $7300 and by early morning on Thursday we had hit our target.

It was a strangle and almost anti-climactic end to a campaign we have tried so hard to engage people with, I envisaged us with 10 minutes to go needing the last $50 but as Graham had advised on many occasions, the work we had put in and the genuine way we had done it would show in the end.

As I was being taxi'ed to an interview (with QPR manager Neil Warnock) my phone buzzed with not only congratulation emails and texts from those who had been following...but more contributions. We hit $8000 in the next few hours and then started to concentrate not on getting more funding in, but thanking those who had.

I will find time at some point to characterize our entire campaign, what we learnt and would pass on to other who want to do the same, but fully need to digest it first. We are doing a Q + A at "The Antelope" for the Sunday Screenings event on Sunday 4th from 7pm so please come and say hello if you can, where I will try and put something of use into words (we are also filming it so we can show those online).

For now, I'll just say thankyou to all that have backed us. From the cast and crew, to our backers ranging from complete strangers, to old Uni buddies, family, budding filmmakers and anyone else I don't know how to say anything else other than it wouldn't have been possible without you. I have added a new IndieGoGo video on our site www.indiegogo.com/clowningaroundfilm to sum it up but doesn't quite do it justice.

As a filmmaker who came up with an idea in 2004 and has kept going with it till now, it is incredible to feel the support and backing of so many people who want to see it made. A lot of people have asked me "how did you do it?" when they see our IndieGoGo campaign and the truth is I didn't. I surrounded myself with great people and a solid belief in what I was doing and that I don't like to disappoint people. I see my role as inspiring all these people to know they are part of something different and unique and their time and effort has been put on something that will further them.

So one last thing I will say is that I will ensure we are as engaging and interactive as we were during the campaign and if you feel we aren't...tell us.

We are now onto looking at locations, sorting equipment for the shoot, continuing our poster campaign and getting ready for the shoot dates we have set in October between 14th and 18th, where I hope you all feel we have done you justice in creating a fantastic short film.