Hitting Target! Our Cup Runneth Over!

Yesterday we hit our target on our Indiegogo fundraising campaign. And then we exceeded it. And I'd managed somehow, after an epic week of tweeting, to fall asleep and miss the exact moment! But I was soon greeted with the news via texts and phone calls, emails and tweets that we had succeeded. It all happened so quickly I'm still not quite sure I've taken it in. For once I have struggled to find words. Except thank you. Just thank you. I've been saying that a lot today and rightly so.

The support we have had has been incredible, the tension both thrilling and a little bit scary. Crowd funding, is not totally free money, it takes work and energy that has been given by our awesome cast and crew, our team of backers and producers who've worked hard to support and spread word, and promote the campaign. And most of all our leader, Damien, who's vision for this story, and commitment to excellence, has inspired each and every one of us.

We made a commitment to our backers to deliver the film and the film experience we have promised them. Reaching goal means that we can. Exceeding our target means that we have that little bit extra to work with in terms of providing our team with the tools they need and making sure they are safe and comfortable and as anyone who makes films knows, every penny always counts and so does every person who supports us. We don't want anyone who still wants to join the experience after we reached target to feel that their contribution is in any way less important than the people who got us to goal. It all matters so much and it all helps us enormously to achieve the quality and production value we want to achieve.

And so instead of patting ourselves on the back completely (though we did grin and whoop a lot and are mightily happy!) we are continuing until the end of our funding drive to spread word of the campaign, to keep people informed, and to keep doing interesting things for anyone who still wants to get involved! More about some of those interesting things very soon.

For right now I can say I'm elated and so are the team. I haven't had much time to blog this past week or two and it's quite nice to find space for a few minutes to put in writing the fact that we have done what we set out to do. Maybe now that I've written it down it will begin to feel real.

<*:O)

Week Two Begins and the Butterflies Never End, but Crowd Funding Rocks!

We’ve seen an incredible amount of support for the project in the past week since we launched our Indigogo campaign for Clowning Around and have been busy on the social networks interacting with people, getting word out and just answering lots of questions and interest there has been in the project as well as sharing a lot of the behind the scenes goodies we’ve gathered in our process so far. I’m now wishing I had recorded a lot more to show people but my video skills are not the strongpoint (or even any kind of point) of my skillset.

We’d prepared well to begin with a strong start, we had been spreading news of the project for a while and keeping people up to date and had already gained some interest and I wasn't entirely surprised people wanted to be part of this project. After all, I certainly do, I didn’t even wait to fully hear what Damien said to me before I agreed. The overwhelming flood of support has been something else. A really special thing and we can’t thank people enough.

What I wasn’t prepared for were the butterflies of excitement and anticipation in my stomach from the outset and the way the fluttering grew when we had a quiet spell on Indiegogo somewhere in the middle when we didn’t receive any incoming funds for about two days. My word did that time stretch into infinity. I became aware that although we’d begun ahead of targets, we could very soon slip behind if we became complacent. After all, one of the aims of all this sharing and crowd funding is to create a budget for our amazing cast and crew so that we can give them the tools they need to do their best work, so that we can keep them safe and insure them against incident, and so that we can feed them and make their working days comfortable and pleasant so that they can get on with the business of being brilliant under pressure. They're very good at that when the rest is in place. As a Producer, I take this as a serious responsibility and not raising the full funding for this project is not an option for me.

This team, this project and our leader, Damien, deserve every penny we can throw at them. We have a responsibility to our backers too to ensure the project they back is the project they get. And that along the way they get to really be a part of something, not just by giving us money but by being able to fully interact with us every stage of the way. And I want it all to be fun and marvellous for all of us. As marvellous as it's been when I backed other people's projects and gained so much out of the great experiences they gave (and keep giving) to me. I've truly learned a lot from those folks and am eternally grateful that I got to give them a few quid. It's repaid me tenfold.

I therefore have given my word to our backers that every dollar that is put into indiegogo.com/clowningaroundfilm will be one of the very best dollars our backers ever spend and that is why our perks start from just $1 so that no matter how tight money is, everyone can afford to interact and get involved with this film and why the perks go up and up so that people can take on more of a role and/or get different things out of being part of the work. I pledge to make it as brilliant as I can for you, That is a talent that's in my skillset. That’s the other reason why we’re crowd funding. Because the whole Clowning Around team just like to collaborate and we want you to get involved and be happy. Consider yourself invited!

Week two began today and has finished off incredibly with donations from more awesome people all of whom are listed on our website and invited into our online community. I think that kind of makes up for the butterflies in my tummy that are, I am now sure, likely to stick around until the funding drive reaches it’s goal. It’s totally worth every bit of giddyness in the pit of the stomach though because, if you haven’t heard me say it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn yet. You all ROCK for being here with us and sharing in this adventure! I can't wait to stand next to Damien in BAFTA as we did in the above photo from the Transference screening (where I directed & he produced) and share Clowning Around with an audience of supporters & backers! You can bet I'll be smiling like a clown! *:o)

The support of strangers...an online community

I thought I would share my thoughts after our first week of funding via our IndieGoGo campaign. I think it is important to say first off that I have never really understood the concept of an ‘online community’.

Sure, I am on Facebook, but only really talk to friends who I know and meet up with and let people who know me what’s going on in my everyday life so people know I still exist and never use it for professional purposes really and rarely make friends with people I haven’t met. However, even just this small time we have been campaigning for “Clowning Around” I am starting to see what Leilani was referring to when she spoke of the strength and support of it.

When we first discussed promoting “Clowning Around” via IndieGoGo I knew this would be a big challenge as it is dependent on getting yourself and your project out there for all sundry to see and networking has never been my forte, in fact at most networking events I usually shrink into the corner and wait for people to come and talk to me (hardly the best tactic...).

But as I am so keen to make this film in the right way and the idea of collaborating with more likeminded people really appealed to me, thought this was the best thing to do and over the past 2 months have been making video and writing blogs for people to see as much as they can about the ongoing process of making a low budget short. I am learning as I go and (I hope) as you see more videos they will be a lot more polished and engaging.

I have been watching the campaign like a hawk since it started on the 19^th July, doing my best to thank our backers, post about our campaign, add video as well as see what works and doesn’t. On our first day we got a great start of $346 and the following day another $300, with the last two days of the week heralding $200 and $646 respectively to take us into the weekend on a fantastic total of $1292. As I go back to full-time work (I am started a new job at FA TV for Endemol Sport yesterday and had some time off before) my time will not be as free, but I am determined whenever I can to continue to engage and interact with people to keep the campaign running to this high standard.

I have been genuinely overhelmed not just with the support of our backers, but also people on Twitter who have been talking about the project and encouraging others to support, which has resulted in filmmakers Chris Jones, Joe James Barrett, Daniel Florencio, Stephen Hanks, Greg Wakeman, Andy Carslaw, Graham Inman, Jason Fairley, Alan Campbell, Meddy Ford,, Ben Jacobsen, , Peter Spencer, Susan Williamson, Elsa O’Toole, screenwriters Jared Kelly, Alistair Canlin and Guy McDouall, actors Robin Forbes and Andrew Elias contributing to our campaign. I feel the need to say particular thanks to @CharmedLifeFilm @robertshutter @ThreeTuxedos @JellyMash Films @RumbleGum @remiepurtil and @pitchandroll who have been retweeting and promoting the campaign all week as well.

The three most significant contributions were from Spencer Hickson, a musician from Manchester and friend of actor Matthew Jure, Sharon Guest, who is the Head of Production at North One Television and contributed everyone’s leaving present as I departed there this week and filmmaker Mike Baxter who had been following the project since our script redrafts on www.ottfilmsco.uk. Both Spencer and Sharon are now Associate Producers on the project, with Mike as producer and getting the email showing me their contributions gave me such a lift about how much we can get and reward the hard work everyone involved is putting into it.

As I embark further on my career as a filmmaker, one thing that occurs to me is how consistently surprised I am by the support you get from strangers. You kind of expect the instant support of your friends and family. I know you shouldn’t and should try hard to convince them to part with their cash as you should do any other, but you do. But this unexpected support from the community around the world left me truly overwhelmed.

Sometimes its the tiniest things that make my day and make it all worth while and forgetting the amount of money backers have put in and emotional ties I have to people have supported us, my highlight of the week came from a complete stranger in 18 year old Filmmaker Joe James Barrett (@joejamesbarrett) who runs the Screen Stockport festival who after I replied to thank him for his initial Tweet in publiciizing the film, responded “Don’t you worry, I will make sure we get this film made”.

Thankyou mate, you really made my day.

Indiegogo Go!

It's been just over a week since I last blogged and it seems like an age. We had a lot to do in order to be ready to kick off the Indiegogo.com fundraising campaign last Tuesday, including getting a website up as the one being built for us wasn't quite ready and in addition to that, creating the online community site for our backers and putting content on there ready for them to enjoy when they logged in. This is something we wanted all our backers to have, a space to engage with the project and network with us and each other. It's a hub where people can also ask us questions about what we're doing so if they want to see something specific

We also needed to finalise the Indiegogo.com pitch video and so Luqman, Damien and myself were looking over clips and footage to get the right tone and pace and make sure it would be appealing, informative and also show a bit about Damien and his personality. I was really pleased with the result which I think shows the true atmosphere on Damien's sets of seriousness of filmmaking craft from exceptional crew members mixed with relaxed fun and efficiency.

We launched the campaign on time and it felt like a rollercoaster week as we went through the process of putting word out there and waiting to see if we'd made the project appealing enough for people to want to become a backer of the work and which would prove to be the popular perks.

In the first three days we raised $1,412. It's been an amazing start thanks to some really stellar support from our backers who have gotten behind the project with gusto! We can't thank people enough as every dollar will make a difference to the film and our cast & crew who are working so hard on this project to give everyone the very best quality of film we can. We've got a long way to go, and nothing quite prepares you for the highs of seeing the figure rise and the anticipation of quiet days like today when nothing happens at all. However it's been spectacular so far and I have confidence we've got a project happening that people will be hugely proud they got behind. In fact it's my job to make sure of that and I intend to do so. *:O)

As well as the funding support we've also had some great support in getting word out about the project. Filmmaker and author of the Guerilla Film Maker's Handbook, Chris Jones is a backer and invited me to do a guest blog on his site to talk about crowd funding the project and the things we've been doing around the project to make it special and make the experience a good one for everyone involved. Also Mubi.com have invited us to add some video about our work in thier production journals and they've been speaking to me about documenting more of our behind the scenes work on their site in the near future. More about that when it's up and going.

Today, as I mentioned, has been quiet so far on the funding front but lots is going on still with more behind the scenes footage being edited by Luqman which I've been providing notes for and plans getting underway for the next production meeting as our thoughts turn towards the pre-production of the actual film. We want to begin early to allow for holidays etc. and gather our Clowning Around HoD's to plan ahead and begin thinking more solidly about locations etc. Since the photo shoot I think the whole team has been energised by how well we worked together and how great it's been to create something from nothing, before we'd done any fundraising at all. The funds Indiegogo.com provides will help us to expand that into the greater amounts of costumes, make-up, logistics, transport, equipment, travel, feeding people etc. we need for the film production proper and we're a good step in the right direction to getting the funds to get that happening but there's still a long way to go. I feel rather like a salmon swimming upstream at the moment but when we get to the top we get to create something amazing and that is worth the work. And you know what.. the water feels great! Jump in with us!

Foot on the road..

When you are alone making films you have to be very brave, but together with other people you get stronger and when someone has faith in you a determination takes hold that is truly enriching! Clowning Around is that kind of project. *:o)

Our first Investor/Sponsor

We have just received great news that we have had our first cash injection for the film! I have always found getting money for shorts incredibly difficult, as at the end of the day very few make money so how do you walk up to someone and say "Hey, give me some money to make a film...you won't get it back!". Because of this all the films I have worked on have been self-funded and whilst this does show a determination, desire and confidence in the project from the director, it can into "their" film rather than "our" film as they act as both Exec Producer and director and can get sticky during disagreements.

Which is why with this film I am really trying to make this as collaborative as possible. This will not be my film, this will be our film. Of course, having written the script and worked on it on and off for four years I am still the person who the info and ideas will filter through but the idea of working with a network of people with a common goal really excites me as well as being able to interact with people throughout the project.

We have been discussing getting a KickStarter campaign going and making it live in July and I am still working my brain around as to how to sell the film so people will want to be a part of it, but this first experience of getting someone involved is really encouraging. I have enjoyed liasing with our first sponsor Perry Norton (I have been informed Sponsor is the best description, rather than investor due to the lack of financial return) and hearing the opinions of someone who is totally new to the project and I think/hope his reasons for getting involved are that he sees the calibre of the people and the project and I have tried to be as genuine and 'non-selly' as possible, just tell him about the film.

There is a long way to go, but today has really made me feel we can hit our budget and beyond.