Donations

Sorry I haven't posted much in the last week. I've been busy with my 'day job', which is also producing, but feature films as opposed to shorts.

After getting some general feedback from a lot of good people, it seems that overall, Paypal will be the best way to receive donations. The key is its simplicity really - so many people use it, it's known, trusted and easy to set up. My fears were that a Paypal account wouldn't seem 'official' enough, and those fears are still there to some extent, but after weighing the options it seems like the best way to go.

At the moment I'm pretty poor. Being a producer sounds glamorous and financially rewarding, and at some stage it is, but right now I'm sacrificing a lot to get the slate of films I have off the ground. We're in that terrible period where there are ideas, plans, interest, hope - but no substance. It's weeks away, on the feature film front. We have meetings with investors and financiers and yadda yadda, but until then, I'm living off financial scraps!

Is this a sob story? Nope! I'm actually saying this for a practical reason. I was thinking about a website to advertise the film and its production, which I will definitely get aroung to at some point in the near future. At the moment, however, I simply can't afford one. Not even the cheapest most basic website hosting I can find is really within my price range, as my funds are, as mentioned, very tight.

The reason I'm mentioning all this is simple. I need somewhere to host my paypal donation button, and don't have anywhere. Do you think putting it on this blog would be alright? After all, all the information about the project and the film will be on here, at least in the short term, and then as soon as a bit of money is raised I can use that to get a website underway (incidentally, part of the film's budget contains the money to host a website - it's all been planned!).

That's basically my thoughts. I'm saying this because, if you guys feel it is worth getting the button on this page, and that in the short term that would work, then I'll do it, and we can start getting this project underway. I look forward to your thoughts on it.

PRODUCTION UPDATES

A new draft of the script has been written. We're literally nipping and tucking dialogue now, so the word 'draft' isn't really the correct term. The script has been finalised for a while structurally, but every now and then you get little ideas - from a line change to a slightly altered action. The script will be enhanced continually as production develops and the logistics of the shoot become clear. Scripts have a tendency to be 'living' documents - they're never finished and they're never closed. I've been changing scripts in the editing room, and once at a final mix! Scripts are really blueprints to prevent you losing your way. I won't be telling you everytime we change the script, otherwise there will be far too many bland and useless 'updates' - I just thought I'd tell you all this time!

The focus now is naturally getting this side of things underway. With a pretty much finished script, quite literally the next thing to do is start bringing the money in. Everybody costs, from the concept artist through to the production designer, so we're about at the end of what we can do as a partnership. Therefore, the raising of the finance becomes the drive of the project now, and that's really up to you guys as much as us.

Another question I've been asked recently is - "How much are you expecting me to donate?". That's quite an interesting one, as I'm a bit self conscious of asking people to donate a set amount. I have been thinking in terms of a dollar. $1. If we could get 300,000 to put one of them in, we're done. If some of you put $2 in, then we could potentially halve that number. That having been said, the truth is, whatever you have is all we could ask for. There isn't a minimum or maximum amount, as all of it is useful and helpful. A dollar seems like a nice, round figure to me though, and not too much.

So, let me know your thoughts, and we can start getting this project off the ground!