Fund My Short

What a Mug

Apparently hot beverages have never tasted better!

Thanks Shelley for the plug.

Can you Help?

We sure hope you can.

At Fund My Short we love the internet, it is a place where like-minded individuals can meet up, no matter where they are in the world, and make things happen.  Like making the first internet funded animated short for instance!  We have a great script, and a stellar crew,  now we just need you!

This site is all about participation.  How can you help?

Well you can help right now, right this minute, by emailing, texting, or instant messaging two of your friends and telling them all about us. Here is our URL http://fundmyshort.com

There you go you have helped already.  Welcome to the team.  Now sign up for our newsletter Let us know who you are, and we will add your name to our growing list of supporters.

Want to help further?  How about donating some money,  or maybe you know of a company or small business that would like to become a Sponsor!

You get the Message.

My new T Shirt arrived today from cafepress.   You like?

Fifty Thousand is a whole heap of dosh!

Well, it is, and it isn't.  There is no denying that we are aiming to raise quite a bit of money to make this film.  Henry & Martha is an ambitious project, and as such will take money to be realised properly.  If it was the sort of project that could be made cheaply there would be no need for all the time and effort that has already been poured into this website.

Ask anyone who knows about the true cost of filmmaking and they will tell you that our budgets is a very modest one.  Just to put things into perspective, an average small budget animated commercial (30 seconds) can cost £100,000 plus to produce, and I have worked on million pound commercials! 
FundMyShort is not a profit making exercise, all the money we receive will be plowed into making the film be the very best it can. 

As we gear up to launching this site,  £50,000 seems like a mountain to climb.  But I keep thinking of the end film.  I close my eyes and I can see it.  If only you could see it too, I really think you'd enjoy it.

A Question of Time.

I have consulted with a few people now, including my lovely producer Liz, and everyone really wants to see this project work, but they all queried the time frame I had set of five months.  Now considering that I've never done this before, who am I to tell them they are wrong!  So a little change is planned. I am still keen to put a time limit on the fund-raising, for a number of reasons.  One is that it will focus our efforts on making this site a success and finding sponsors.  There is nothing like a deadline to keep you on your toes. Secondly, it will encourage sponsors to come on board before it is to late.  There are also other reasons relating to the availability of crew as well.

Anyway, the tag line will now be: Fifty Grand - 5,000 Hours to Raise it!

Seem like less time?  Well the mathematicians among you will be able to work out how long that gives us.  But if your like me, you might need a calculator.

Pick a Card

Gearing up to spread the word!

Grafter or Crafter - Which are you?

In the UK, a grafter is a word for someone who works hard, but doesn't enjoy what they do! They work out of necessity, need, and obligation.

Were as a crafter on the other hand is someone who in my opinion, takes pride in their work and enjoys their job.  They don't necessarily need to be good at it, or even need to make tangible objects to be called a crafts person. They just need to enjoy doing their job.

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of people, their jobs are a chore that must be endured.  They graft away, day after day because they need to.   They might be talented and gifted people, but they are stuck in a place they don't want to be.  This was the inspiration or rather the starting point for the story of Henry & Martha

Henry is a creative man forced to graft in a soulless job. It is a job that seems to suck the life out of him. But, rather than let it destroy him, Henry crafts a plan to escape the bonds of boredom, and pursue his dream.  It is a story that will resonate with many people.

Are you a grafter?  Let fundmyshort be your escape from the daily grind.   Together we can  make this film a reality!

Schmoozing

Attended the British Animation Awards last week where Corpse Bride received the Best Animated Feature award.  I had the great privilege of picking up the award on behalf of Mike Johnson and Tim Burton the films directors.  You can't help but feel a little bit of a fraud in such a situation, receiving someone else's applause.  Very strange...but an enjoyable night none the less. 
However I was able to get Adobe interested in becoming a sponsor of the FundMyShort project which is great news! 

Promising beginnings

So, as we gear up for the launch of the Fund My Short site, we are trying to assemble some sponsors to come on board early to help get the whole enterprise rolling.   Liz Chan, the projects producer has already had some success with a big Soho post house.  In fact, everyone we speak to seems to think it is a fantastic idea.  Things are looking very positive at the moment, and I hope it will continue that way.

The Long and the Short of it.

The problem I have with a lot of film funding bodies is they appear to assume that, if you are interested in making short films, you must be a novice.  So increasingly, funding is offered on the proviso that the filmmakers are trained.  Don't get me wrong, this is a great thing if... you are a novice or new filmmaker.   Now that makes me sound arrogant, but I'm not. As far as I'm concerned, life = learning.  The day I stop learning something, will be the day I die.  My point however, is this. If you are not a new/novice filmmaker, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of funding opportunities out there.

The reason for that is down to another assumption that funding bodies seem to have - although I guess this is not intentional - is that short films are just a testing ground on the way to bigger things, that they are some sort of limbo land filmmakers endure while they wait to be given their chance at a feature.  For me, film-making is film-making regardless of length.  They are made using the same set of ingredients, just in different portions.

Short films are a valuable cultural asset unto themselves.  They should not be looked down on as a lesser art because they are short.   That's length-ism!