Lend us production resources

Our budget is small, but our determination and resourcefulness isn’t. We have big ambitions and we want to create something amazing that will inspire people and make them want to do the same. There’s no doubt about it, we are going to have to beg, borrow and very possibly steal (apologies in advance for that). Help us pull off a miracle and achieve the impossible. With your help, we can. We can do it if you get us there. If you believe in us, and believe in what we’re doing, please get involved and do us favours we didn’t know we needed. Who knows? You might just be able to give a competitor The Finger in the process. Why not surprise everyone and do something totally out there that we never thought we’d be able to include? Have you got a helicopter per chance we could take aerial shots with? You can help us by:

  • Giving us a heavy discount, even if you’ve heard it all before;
  • Better still, giving it to us for free of charge as a favour;
  • Lending us things we wouldn’t normally have access to;
  • Advising us on the best choices, not necessarily the ones that will make you the most money;
  • Pointing us in the right direction.

Read this if you’re based outside of the UK: You don’t need to be based in the UK to help on “Michael’s Resignation”. The Internet makes it possible for us to work together regardless of where you are, even if you can’t do the physical work like camera operation or coffee runs. All our systems are set up to work online so we can collaborate without needing to be in the same room. As long as you have a computer and broadband connection you can get involved. We need help in many different ways, so don’t write anything off. Geography is irrelevant – if you have a dream, come and get it regardless.

We don’t have many resources so keeping the budget strictly under control is paramount – almost all the money is going on paying crew and hiring specialist filming equipment. If you can help us by cutting our costs and supplying what we need at minimal cost, we can do something amazing and unique. Some of those things are below, but imagination and creative suggestions are warmly welcomed:

Filming Locations
Can we clear out your office and film a lot of people being brutally shot at close range in it? If you have a space that would fit the scenes in the script, invite us to have a look and use them for filming. We need lots of places you probably don’t even realise – an office, a London pub, receptions, shops, greenery, flats, bedrooms and more.  If we could use a proper studio, wow. (NB: This doesn’t have to be in London, it can be anywhere in the UK.)

Rehearsal Space
Our luvvie daahlings can only do so much in Starbucks and over the phone, so having somewhere to not only audition them but to get everyone to play out the lines and sequences going on screen is essential. Ideally rehearsal space needs to be private, secure, theatrical in nature (e.g. hall, theatre, cinema), so if you have an empty space, please let us fill it for a few weeks.

Camera Equipment
Our biggest budget expenses are the hiring of HD cameras (x10-20) and camera equipment (steadying, cranes, dollies, rigging, automation etc) for around 2 weeks, so if you can help us get this down, please get in touch with our DoP. Yes, you’ve heard it all before, but your generosity would make a real difference.  The cost is massive and it could change everything.

Lighting Equipment
Just behind camera gear on the spreadsheet is lighting equipment hire, which is always exorbitantly expensive and highly specialist. If you can help us by providing lights, cabling, scaffolding and infrastructure, it would change everything we’re doing and free us up to make the film as professional as what comes out of Hollywood.

Sound Equipment
Professional sound is absolutely crucial to everything we want to do, so we need to use the best audio kit we can. Mixers, soundcards, boom mics, wiring, stabilising hardware and sequencing gear are just the start of a long list you could make a lot smaller just by taking the time to help us reach our goal. If you’re a supplier or an expert, please get in touch.

SFX Equipment & Materials
Obviously we can only get this from very expensive specialist suppliers (< 50 in the UK) and as such can only fall on their generosity and faith in us for what we’re aiming to accomplish. We need *dramatic* pyrotechnic and mechanical effects – replica guns, blood squibs, minor explosives, smoke, sheet glass etc. Help us beat Hollywood and BBC1 at their own game.

Props
It’s the small things that make a difference and add up on the bill you never really think about in comparison to the bigger things like camera hire. We will be making a list of the objects and accessories we need, but possibly the biggest issue is old computers and office equipment (Michael is going to destroy an office), as well as small touches like flowers.

Costume, Wardrobe & Make-Up
All the cast could wear their own clothes, but if you could deck out our characters for us you’d be changing the whole aesthetic of the film. Maybe you work at a store and/or theatrical supplier and can lend them out to us on return, or can sell us what we need at trade price as a special exception. Maybe you have access to goods that are ex-display or slightly damaged we could use.

Computers & Software Licensing
A lot of our team simply have immovable desktop PCs, so laptops would be invaluable on set to co-ordinate our online collaboration and help those without access to them in the first place – not just for looking at Facebook, but possibly for blowing them up later on too. We’d prefer to use legitimate software when editing (rather than downloading it from BitTorrent) and the more CPU/RAM/HD workstations we have, the better it will look in the end. If you could lend us the machinery for 2 weeks on set and a few weeks after, a lot of geeks would love you for a very long time.

Professional Printing
Promotion and distribution are both huge costs that mainly occur after the majority of the budget has been spent on destroying everything and paying as many people as we can, so if you can help print DVDs, posters, invites, flyers and materials we’d normally have to fork out a lot of money for, it would take a lot of long-term worry off our minds.

Transport
We’re not paying for expensive taxi-cabs but we do need Transit hire and people who can get us all from one place to another. Maybe you can drive us there, or lend us the vans. We need to put crew in cars and somehow keep everyone happy along the way. If you have space, time, wheels and want to see this happen, drop us a line and be that unsung guy we can count on.

Event Venues
The glory and glamour of movies is all in the screening and theatrical display after filming, and we’re no different. We’d love to have a big dramatic affair to showcase what we’ve achieved afterwards and you might be able to help us do that. We need a place to do the screening (would love the Royal Festival Hall for this), somewhere to hold an after-party, a place to do the Battle-Of-The-Soundtrack-Bands and a bar or two we could get the crew and cast into to let off steam.

Telephone Accounts
It may be taken for granted but it’s essential. Ideally we want to do everything through Voice-Over-IP to keep the cost down as we’re going to be making a lot of calls to many different countries or people.  Maybe you work at a telecoms company or mobile carrier that could give us a hand with handsets and cheaper accounts for a few weeks to keep us all connected.

Food/Catering
An army marches on its stomach, and we will have 50-60 hungry, bloodstained, crazy, hypoglaecaemic obsessives working around the clock to do more than they possibly should in less time than they can do it in. Bring food, and lots of it. Keep us awake and full of energy so we can get to our goal with our health and sanity intact.

Booze
If we can’t pay everyone, we can at least get them blind drunk to say a huge thanks for every second of effort and energy they’ve put into helping us achieve what we set out to do. Work hard, play hard. If you can keep us stocked with all manner of poisons so we can celebrate the good and the bad, it may just stop a lot of people doing what Michael does.

Tranquilisers, Massage & Psychotherapy
It just be a stretch, naturally, but if you’re asking for all this you might as well go the whole hog.

What we can offer you is a full credit on the movie and a huge thanks in “The Making Of…” that you can use to promote your warez in your own sales/portfolio literature, as well free copies of the film and tickets to the screening itself. Associating yourself with a project of this nature where young talent is promoted and you support resourcefulness and initiative is one very smooth PR coux if you play it right.

If you have something we really need, the best people to speak to are: