INDIE INTERVIEWS : WRITER/FILMMAKER PAT HIGGINS

Pat Higgins is somewhat of a legend in the UK's low budget indie scene. Since the release of Trash House in 2005 the Essex based filmmaker has gone on to produce a slew of internationally released horror titles such as Killer Killer, Hellbride, The Devils Music, as well as being one third of the creative force behind the 'Death Tales Anthology' series. As if he wasn't busy enough Pat also takes his time to run filmmaking and screenwriting masterclasses for the next generation of filmmakers.

We recently caught up with Pat to discuss his filmmaking career, his inspirations, the state of the UK indie market and his current and constantly evolving film project 'House on the WitchPit'.

Every journey starts with an origin story, How did you know you wanted to make films?

There were a couple of films that had a huge influence on me as a kid. I saw Star Wars on opening night as a three year-old, which was probably a considerable factor, but the other ones that left me thinking "this is what I want to do" were a rerelease of Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, (which I sat through fidgeting waiting for the squid fight, but when the squid fight turned up it basically rewired my brain) and Flash Gordon. 

So the seeds of cinema were sewn early. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place with Gremlins turned up in 1984. I was too young to see it thanks to the 15 certificate, so I spent almost a year obsessing over every piece of merchandise and counting down the days until the rental release. That year kind of shifted my outlook to comedy-horror, before The Shining and a grainy tenth-generation pirate copy of The Exorcist shifted my brain and my outlook yet again a few years later.

What made you take the DIY approach to making your own movies?

Once I got out of Uni, I spent a while trying to shift a spec script that I'd written with a friend of mine. As a gradually realised that selling that script was very, VERY unlikely to happen, I began to focus on the idea of shooting something myself just to kick my career off. I set up my limited company in 2003 for a completely different reason; Jinx was originally intended to sell individual stand-up comedy clips to mobile phones (at a point when video on phones was somewhere between bleeding-edge technology and outright science fiction). Remember, this was before things like YouTube even existed. The window for that business opportunity lasted about a second a half. One minute, it was impossible, the next minute it was commonplace. So I was left with a media company with no real purpose, and a burning desire to make a film. So we took some money that we were intending to buy a car with, and make TrashHouse instead.

As we all now filmmaking can be tough, what were some of the downside of going out on your own?

I'm pretty sure I only ended up getting attention because we did what we did at a point when it was stupidly tough to make a movie. According to MJ Simpson, there were about 14 British horrors made in the year we made TrashHouse, whereas last year there were around 250. There were no options in terms of VOD, of course, so we were reliant on old-school distributors and getting our flicks out into bricks and mortar shops like Blockbuster. We managed to overcome so many hurdles to get the early films out there. The hurdle we never overcame was how to get the money to trickle back down to us once it had gone through the hands of multiple distributors. As a result, our first three films lost a considerable chunk (or, indeed, all) of their investment, despite coming out on DVD or limited cinema releases all over the world. Keeping going in the face of those kinds of issues is very, very tough. 

Here's an example. Just last week we re-released our awesome horror romantic comedy Hellbride on VOD (which your wonderful readers can pick up extremely cheaply from http://www.jinxmedia.co.uk - go and do it. It's funny and it's scary and people like it). Now, that movie's been out for the best part of a decade. Out on DVD in the UK, in the US. Various streaming platforms worldwide. Our best estimate is that just over a third of a million people have seen that movie. 

The money from the fine people who purchased the High Definition VOD version last week will be the very first payments that Jinx has ever seen for that film. We shot it in 2006. 

On the flip side, what were the upsides of doing it by yourself?

Well, let's stick with Hellbride as an example. It's a genuinely sweet romantic comedy that just happens to have some fairly horrific bits of business (mouths getting stitched shut, brides hacking at one another with axes) and the odd genuinely filthy joke. If that movie had been made within the system, there would have been two options. You could have lost the gore and the dick jokes and made the thing a PG-13 date movie, or you could have lost the sweet, genuine romantic comedy and made it a full-tilt horror for the Saw crowd. Odd little movies that do their own thing aren't welcome within the system. The majors are massively risk averse in terms of the 'products' they make, and as cinema prices rocket the audience have become extremely risk-averse too, and I really don't blame them. if it's going to cost you north of £50 to go to the cinema once you've thrown in parking and popcorn, you want to make goddamn sure that the movie you watch is going to fulfil your expectations for your evening out. So the wonderful freedom allowed by doing things as a tiny indie is something you just won't find anywhere else.

You recently shot House on The Witch Pit, a completely different approach to filmmaking, what was the idea behind creating the never 'finished' film.

I wrote the first draft of something that was then just called 'Witchpit' in about 2002, and over the years the script has been through countless reimaginings with only the title remaining the same. Eventually, I came to embrace this. I loved the idea of a movie becoming almost an urban legend in itself. Where people who both thought they'd 'seen' it would come to discover that the versions they'd seen were so fundamentally different that they were effectively different movies. This approach also sidestepped the whole piracy thing that dogged the early stages of my career. I'm extremely excited about some of the versions that will be appearing towards the end of the year. It's not going to carry on forever, though. The experiment, for better or worse, ends on January 23rd 2020, four years after the premiere. I talked about some of these ideas over at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/pat-higgins/why-you-cant-watch-my-new-horror-movie_b_8707724.html for those that are interested.

 

If there was one piece of advice you could give to filmmakers, apart from 'just make movies' what would it be?

Be genuinely lovely to everyone you work with. Treat them like family members. If they let you down, try to understand why and continue to treat them nicely (although you may, of course, wish to avoid placing yourself in that position again). Feed people. Be honest with people. Never force them into a corner or mislead them.

Not everyone you meet will follow these same ideals. The industry has a few unpleasant sharks in the water, and you may well run into some of them. Don't become one of them, no matter what happens. Make sure that every night, when your head hits the pillow, you can sleep the sleep of the righteous and the just. That's more important than anything else. The things you put out there are the things that will come back to you.

Make sure your conscience is clear. If it's not, do something about it.

And finally, what is next for Pat Higgins?

The Witchpit experiment continues for another three and a half years, obviously. I've also got an absolutely KILLER script called Your Lying Eyes (which is probably the best thing I've ever written) which we'll hopefully be selling to a third party rather than making ourselves. There might very possibly be a sequel on the horizon that we aren't allowed to talk about yet. We keep busy, keep trying new stuff, keep breaking new ground. At the end of the day, there will be loads and loads of time to sleep when they shovel dirt over your head. Nobody's death bed wish was ever that they spent their life making less cool stuff.

You can find Pats work and more at  http://jinxmedia.co.uk

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THE ULTIMATE FILMMAKER TOOL : THE IPAD - THE FILMMAKERS BEST FRIEND

**PLEASE NOTE : I am not sponsored by Apple in any way to write this post , if I was, I would hope they'd send me something better than an outdated, refurbished iPad 2.
You should also note that I'm a Mac user so it made sense for me to go with the iPad, but I'm sure that a cheaper Android (or other) tablet can do just as good a job as this thing.

A decade or so ago, back when I was making short films on a camera the size of a small car (joking of course, but not by much) I remember the feeling of dread as I would stare at the boxes and boxes of equipment and paperwork that needed to be lugged along with me for even the smallest shoot.

Hell, even just doing a reccee (Location scout) would involve me having to load up a large rucksack or sometimes a car with a stills camera, video camera, pile of paper work, scripts, notepads, sketchpads and various other 'useful' items and that was just to look over  a suitable location.

When I started pre production on Legacy of Thorn (My 3rd feature) in 2013 I was looking for a solution for something completely different. For years I had used an old chalk slate to sync sound, but that always seemed a little cheap and we were trying to take a step up.

Looking into a new slate, I started to notice how expensive they were, for a piece of plastic that you write some stuff on they were fairly over priced and electronic ones were 100's of pounds out of our budget. Looking into low budget solutions I discovered that you could actually load one of these things onto an iPad via an app. The only problem was that an iPad cost about 4-8 times more than your standard chalk slate.

After some research I discovered that I could pick up a refurbished iPad 2 for £200 * (which was just over double what I would have paid for the plastic white board slate) and that would come with a decent 16gb memory, that seemed like a good deal if it could do what I needed it to do, but that wasn't quite enough for me to pull the trigger on it. I did some more research.

*You can get a much more up to date iPad for much less than paid for this one today.

To make the investment worth while it needed to be able to take over more than just just marking
duties, it would have to be able to do a whole lot more. It became obvious to me very quickly that not only would I be able to do a great deal of other things on using this little device that could slip in my shoulder bag, in fact, I could almost cover my entire creative process from start to finish.

So here is a list of of the apps I use throughout production from start to finish, some are free, some are cheap, But i've made a point to never spend more than a few pounds/bucks on anything to go with it. So lets get started.

PRE PRODUCTION :

CELTX (£7/$10)
Celtx is a paid app, it costs about £7($10) and although there are free apps out there that do a similar job, I use Celtx on my main laptop and desktop for writing when I'm at home so it made sense to have an app that would be compatible with the scripts I had already written.

The app itself is fairly similar to the desktop edition, with a few things tweaked to make it work with touch screen tech, but nothing major. Since I got the app I've actually written two features on it from start to finish, the small screen size makes navigation a bit more difficult, but its certainly possible to use the app to write your next film.

I paired it with an iMac keyboard to make typing more comfortable, but in a pinch its fine to use the touch screen keys if your out on the road. It doesn't feature then Prose setting that the desktop version has, but that seems tone all thats missing.


PAPER (Free)
Paper is probably the best app on the iPad in terms of sheer value and power, in the last 2 years I've watched it go from a fairly capable, if somewhat limited, tool to a powerhouse for tablet artists. The original version came with one pen tool and a limited colour set. I bought the extra art tools for about £5 and it really opened the app up for me.

The app now comes with all these tools as standard and its still free on IOS. I've used this app for everything from costume design, to storyboarding, to expressing ideas to cast and crew and plotting out movies. Its an extremely powerful tool and probably my favourite to use.

There is an official 'pencil' you can buy for about £50, but i've found that a basic Stylus from poundland (Comes in a pack of 2) works just as good :)


CAMERA (Free)
Your iPad comes with a camera app as standard and its improving all the time with updates and added features. Now instead of taking a whole bunch of gear to a location for reccee's I simply take the iPad and run off some pictures through there.

The biggest advantage of this is that I can send them to other crew members instantly via dropbox, or the cloud and of course I can skim back through them with ease to show team members what we found there.

Its exposure and focus is automatic so it not really any good for judging light levels or anything like that, for that I would take a smaller camera rig if needed, but for grabbing reference pictures its perfect and it means I have my notepad at the ready on the same device should I need to take notes.



VIDEO (Free)
Another app that comes as standard and another app that is extremely useful. Its really just a  functional extension of the camera app and comes with same exposure and focus draw backs, but it has a fair few uses.

There is an app called FilmicPro that costs about £3($5) but it does give you control over exposure/focus.

First of all, Videos of location can be more helpful than stills at times and if I can't make a scout, its amazing to be able to have a video sent over to me from the location. We never set foot in the location from Slasher House before shooting as it was essentially in another country on a small island. Our contact there sent us a video of the place and we could judge its suitability from that.

One of its more interesting uses is the ability to video storyboard. I'll quite often shoot a video storyboard of a scene during a scout to make sure that the location has all my desired angles and if it doesn't what do they have to be changed to. The best part about doing it on your tablet is that you can be cutting the video storyboard (I'll talk about that later) in the car on the way home, If you're not driving that is.

PRODUCTION :

MARKER SLATE (Free)
The main reason I invested in the tablet in the first place was that I was aware that I could use it as a Clapper board and it would look a little bit more professional than using the old skool chalk board that I'd use for the last few years. It was only researching all these other things that it could do that really sealed the deal for me.

If you're shooting sync audio, which we usually do, then you'll usually need to be marking each shot with a slate. The View Finder Marker Slate is free, its a pretty basic clapper, but its everything I need when it comes down to finding and syncing shots in the edit.

There are probably much better slate apps out there, in fact, I know there are, but they cost a fair chunk for an app and the free one I use works just fine.


SIDE BOOKS (Free/£1.50 unlimited docs) 
The days of having dozens of paper copies of the script littering the set are over. We can now take our script in the same slimline package as everything else and share it out with the rest of the cast and crew to read on their phone or tablet.

Side Books is another free app, I just transfer the script onto it before we go to the shoot and then I have instant access to it when we need to check anything or run dialogue. It really cuts down on having a lot of extra paper to carry around etc. Now we can even use it to have people sign releases etc.

I believe there is an extra charge to store more documents of about £1.50, but it stores half a dozen documents as standard as far as I remember.

Note : we usually do have one hard copy just in case. 


LENS+ (Free)

As I've said before, you could easily shoot a decent looking movie on a phone or an iPad now (especially with the quality of the camera in the newer iPhones which now shoot in 4k), whilst the camera app built in to the iPad is pretty basic, Lens+ allows you to emulate some cool, old skool film stocks in the camera itself and it leads to some fun results.

It is by no means professional looking, but its fairly useful for specific tasks. I used it to shoot some old style movie footage on the go a while ago for a prospective project that came out great and I tend to use it for shooting some pretentious behind the scenes on music videos which is pretty awesome if you're a hipster.


PLAY MEMORIES & PANASONIC IMAGE APP (Free)
This a quite app specific, but as I currently use Panasonic Lumix and Sony Action cams these two apps respectively let me use the iPad as a monitor for those awkward shots, such as crane shots, high shots where I can't get a good look at the LCD.

Sometimes I will just use it as general monitor, although being self shooter that doesn't come into play too much, but it is incredibly useful for the action cam that does have an onboard monitor and the Panasonic app even allows you to control the camera remotely.

INSTAGRAM (Free)
Instagram is one of those apps that everyone uses these days. The main reason I find it so useful is that I can take, edit and share pictures directly to our Facebook/Twitter etc from it in seconds and thats very helpful when you're out on set.

Usually we're shooting in some abandoned school, factory, prison, wasteland etc and so wifi access on our sets is usually impossible. If we're shooting for 14 days, that could mean 14 days blackout on social media pages, which as a growing company is not good.

Instagram gives me the ability to send picture updates from set quickly and efficiently using my data plan. It also means that I can snap a picture, upload and then be back to shooting in seconds. You can do it with other social media apps these days, but this my favourite.

POST PRODUCTION :

IMOVIE (£3/$5)

IMovie for IOS is a touch screen, stripped down version of the app that comes pre loaded on Apple machines. This is by no means a pro grade editor, but for cutting quick pre vis stuff on set, its an absolute godsend.

Its does cost about £3/$5 or something like that. but its well worth the money if your looking for something that can do basic edits on the run. That said, with enough storage space on an modern iPad, i'm convinced you could cut at least a short film on one of these things.

I don't use this one as often as I should, but its nice to know its available to me should I need to do editing on the move. Like the desktop version its a very powerful tool, even if its missing one or two of the apps features.



GARAGE BAND (£3/$5)
This is probably my favourite app. Its a touch screen version of the program that comes free with any Apple System although this version will only set you back around £3/$5, it lacks some of the desktops editions functionality, but it more than makes up from it with touch screen keyboards, drums and things like Smart Guitar and Bass and even a full Orchestra at the end of your fingers.

This is one of those programs that I couldn't do without. I've written entire scores and albums using this thing, as well as it being useful for creating general ambience for projects, trailers etc. For about £10 you can also pick up an 'Irig' that will let you plug in mics, guitars and even a full mixing desk should you want to.

I use it as is and its full array of instruments is really incredible and the best part is that you can export your projects to the larger desktop version if needed to take advantage of the mastering tools, a larger array of sounds and of course in my case, auto tune ;)


PHOTOSHOP TOUCH (£7/$10)

This is about £7 and the most expensive app I own I think. Its another stripped down touch screen version of a desktop program, this time its Adobe Photoshop, but it has a lot of the functionality that the full program has, albeit a lite version. It is a bit of fuss to get your head around but its extremely useful for doing any graphic design work on the go.

I use it mainly for colouring as that seems to be its strong point, I can use the Paper app to sketch something out, do some quick, decent quality colouring in the Photoshop app and then message it straight over to cast and crew so they have an idea of whatever it I'm talking about in terms of colour for sets, costumes in my designs. It also has some cool features and filters that are similar to the ones found in the full version.


BLOGGER (Free)
If, like me, you keep online production diaries and write for blogs such as this one, then the FREE Blogger app is perfect. Almost 90% of the posts on this blog were at least drafted via the app. Its almost as fully functional as the full browser version, which of course you can still use via the tablets web app if needs be.

I use it all the time and its super handy to have on set or at home. I'm working on this blog write now using it and I figured it was good app to end on.

______________________________________


I've been using this outdated, refurb now for over 2 years and I've never felt the need to replace it. I use it day in day out across the entire creative process and beyond it. Its not just a tool I take on set, its a tool that I use all day every day to help me keep on top of all my film related tasks.

It really is the most impressive tool in my whole kit and even though my screen is cracked and its grubby from its time spent in warehouses and abandoned buildings it comes with me everywhere and beyond its filmmaking uses, it serves as a great way to watch movies if I find myself at a loose end and that to me is what makes it a filmmakers best friend.


MJ

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RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL CROWD FUNDING CAMPAIGN

 READ THIS : Please bare in mind that this is just how I have approached filmmaking. These are things that have worked for me, they may or may not work for you. I'm not saying there is a right way or a wrong way to do these things I can only speak from my own experience and point of view. There is also no substitute for hard work. With that in mind Read on. 

So you've written your killer script (pun intended), Now what? What do you do with your 90+ pages of awesomeness. You could try and sell it sure, that is pretty tough (although not impossible) but if you're a first time screenwriter it going to be difficult. You could produce it yourself, but how would you raise the money to do so? Well, as with everything, The internet has the answer.  ;)

If you haven't heard about crowdfunding by now, well I'm not sure why you're reading this. Crowdfunding through IndieGoGo and Kickstarter is now a very viable tool in funding your project, be it a movie, an album, a video game or even a sex dungeon that specialises in Dwarf bondage. It has become a very useful tool for audiences to decide what they want to see, play, listen to and gives them a chance put thier money where thier mouth is and make projects happen. 

In 2010 crowdfunding was still in its relative infancy, but we used a combination of early IndieGoGo (when it was still only available in $) and our own similar paypal based system where people could essentially donate small amounts of money for thanks credits, DVD's and Posters, to help raise money toward our budget for Slasher House. We raised a small amount of money this way (about 10%), as we were realativly unknown beyond a few shorts and Creepsville (our first no budget feature affair) that at the time one of Warner Bro's Independent subs were interested in, Due  to the success of Paranormal Activity. 

We raised the rest of the money for Slasher House through private investment amongst ourselves and close friends and family members and manged to raise enough to push us to production and kind of wrote off crowdfunding as a viable option for us as we felt it had been largely unsuccessful for us. However, a couple of years later, as Slasher House picked up a bit of speed and press, we started to get a lot of messages asking if we would be be doing another 'kickstarter' for our next movie, Legacy Of Thorn, which we had announced earlier in the year. 

It was something I wasn't keen on, I didn't really enjoy the stress of it the last time we'd tried it, There was a lot of maintenance needed doing to keep interest up and it became a 24/7 job. Yet this time, I felt, we had enough interest before even started to justify it. We were already pouring all of our own money into it, as well as into post production costs to get Slasher House ready to be distributed, so we decided to give it a shot to raise some of our budget.

1. WHICH PLATFORM TO CHOOSE?

Although there are a variety of options these days in terms of where you set up your crowd funding, There are two main platforms that most people take on. IndieGoGo and Kickstarter. They both work in a very similar way. You set a target and then offer incentives of various values that contributors receive in return for their contribution. 

There are subtle differences, 

KICKSTARTER

 Kickstarter offers a target based service, In which, if the target is not met then no funding is received and no contributors are charged. This is a great idea as it forces you to work around the clock to make sure you get those donations in. Its not like you're Veronica Mars, so chances are you gonna have to work your butt of earn those contributions. Upside is, that you won't be left in a tough position should you only hit some of your target. 

http://kickstarter.com

INDIEGOGO

IndieGoGo offers the same service, as well as another which allows you to keep any contribution you get for a higher fee to IndieGoGo themselves, however the fee is reduced if the target is met.  So even if you don't meet your target you keep all contributions given. 


It sounds like the better option, however it became obvious very quickly that it was riddled with pit falls. I'll talk about that later. 

http://indiegogo.com

Oh, yeah. We went with IndieGoGo, based on raising as much as we could there and then making up the difference ourselves if needs be. 

2. WHAT TO INCLUDE

IndieGoGo have a template built in that is very helpful in covering what you should include in your information to make your project more appealing, which I found very helpful as this was the first time I had attempted this on any serious level. What you need to do is ensure that you spend this time really selling your project, discussing why you want to make it,why people should want to watch it, why people should want to get behind it.

You should go into specific depth about what each one of incentives is (Including their terms and conditions), Explain what each one actually entails. If one of the incentives is a ticket to the premiere, for instance, are you covering travel, hotels? If so mention that, if not, make it clear. You need to make sure that contibutors understandfully what they are getting into. 

It's important to let people know how the money will 'Help' your production. In our case we had some very specific costumes needed making and very specific props that needed building. On top of that there were some big effects shots that we wanted to achieve that needed some specialised equipment that we just didn't have a work around for, so we explained where we would be spending the money, how it would help us and how it would improve the production. This is an area I wish we had gone into more detail in, simply for our own sake. But it really does help to let people know exactly where thier contributions are going. 

I see crowd funding campaigns everyday that are literally 1 or 2 lines, that read like 

"Its a zombie film, about zombies eating people and people trying to survive being eaten by zombies" 

and they offer stuff like 'Special Thanks' for £1000 and then wonder why their own £1 pledge from their mum is the only contribution. Be thorough here, it'll be worth it. 

You can check the page for our it here
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/thorn-a-new-age-slasher-epic

Although please note the videos have since gone. 

3. WHAT TO PREPARE

The real key to a sucessful crowdfunding campaign is here, you need to be prepared. For Legacy Of Thorn I had some stuff ready, in the form of artwork, the Thorn short film that we had made back in 2009 on £0 (it had won some awards too which helped) and of course we had Slasher House about to hit major stores in the UK, which features the title character. This was all stuff we already had in place from early pre production. You can view the no budget short film below. 

After that we prepared a pitch video, In which. I sat in front of the camera and just pitched our movie in as short a time as I could. It was a simple talking head video that just went through the information in the campaign, but people tend to find video more engaging than just reading and it plays a huge part in making others want to contribute.

Over the course of the campaign we added more incentives based on what was popular or by request.  We did social media shout outs to contibutors, which in turn helped us find more contibutors. We did interviews, sent out press releases, did video up dates and cast announcements, all in the name of getting people interested and keeping them interested.

We prepared a strategy well in advance and every step of the campaign was planned out mine before we implemented it. We let the campaign built up a bit of a buzz and that got us into the local paper and even onto BBC radio with Ted Robbins from League Of Gentlemen (That's a big comedy show in the UK, I don't know how big it was in the rest of the world), All of which we had planned to do from the outset (Although the Ted Robbin's thing was a bonus). 

As preparation goes, we made one huge mistake. We didn't pre announce the campaign, we didn't get people ready invest, we launched it and then realised that the flood gates were open and no flood was coming in. All the guys who had asked us to do a campaign for the movie went silent. By the end not one single person who had emailed me asking me to do so had contributed anything. However, a lot of other people did, which we are eternally grateful for and these are the people that helped us really make a difference when it came to making the movie. 

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4. WHAT TO OFFER

That really comes down to what kind of project your making, in regards to making a film. We offered Thanks Credits, Signed Posters, Digital Downloads, DVDs, Walk On roles, Screenused Props, Producer Credits amongst other things. All of them obviously related to the film and all them exclusive to the campaign.

We used the incentives to get people not only interested in investing, but also to drum up excitment about the project itself. We did competitions in conjunction with the release of Slasher House and entered everyone who donated anything into a raffle to encourage smaller donations. 

However we only offered things that we knew we could deliver, people were warned that there maybe delays on somethings, especially set appearances and such, but we were very careful not to offer incentives that we couldn't make good on. 

5. WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR

The biggest problem we came across straight away, were the fees that IndieGoGo began to apply to every payment. Instead of holding the money till the end of campaign, every payment was placed in our company account, with IndieGoGo's fees already taken off and then on top of that paypal took a fee too, so we lost a decent percentage of each investment before it even got to us. That might not sound like an issue, but as we hit just under a £1000 we realised that if the campaign wasn't sucessful we were going to be left with 3 choices. 

Make the movie on a portion of the budget, borrow the remaining money from the bank or pay the money back, but this time the fees had already been taken and so they would have had to go back out of our own pocket. The pressure to hit target became emmense and it certainly wasnt good for us creatively as suddenly all our effort went into trying to raise money rather than focusing on fine tuning the film.

The biggest issue we had was that we raised 125% of our target, due to round the clock hard work and a very kind contributions for our biggest incentives that helped reach our target a couple of weeks before the campaign ended. However after fees we ended up landing only just over our original actual target. Had we simply hit our target, We would have ended up way further off still. 

I understand that companies need to make their living, so please know that I'm not complaining about these fees, they certainly need to be there to maintain these sites, but if I was going to do it again I would certainly be more wary at the very least. We could have very easily ended up in worse position than when we started and that shouldn't be the case here. 

One more thing. IndieGoGo waited till our campaign had finished before telling us that we couldn't offer stakes in the movie (Our highest incentive offer), but by then it was over, We went through their policy about this, which was clearly labelled on the Kickstarter site, but here on IndieGoGo (at least at the time) was worded in such vague language that we had deemed it safe to offer said incentive at the time. This nearly caused a problem, but we sorted it out privately with those contributors.

6. WHAT TO REMEMBER

I'm not saying that crowdfunding is bad, Quite the opposite, I think its a great tool in regards to giving audiences a voice and creatives a choice in now they fund thier projects. It has its pitfalls, the same way that private investment does or making a movie on no budget does. It is worth bearing in mind that you have to hit way over target to actually hit your budget on the nose. 

That being said, running the campaign saw us find much more support for the project, it built more interest, We ended up on the radio and in the papers, in national magazines, all of which was great for the movie and Slasher House which was just hitting major stores in the UK during the campaign. 

I think that next time (if there is one) we would most likely aim for the Kickstarter option, but I really think that whatever approach you take needs to suit your project. Thorn was happening with or without the campaign so every little toward that helped. If you want your crowdfunding to decide weather your project lives or dies then the Kickstarter option maybe for you. After all it is certainly a lot less pressure. 

7. WHAT TO DO AFTERWARD

Campaign Exclusive Posters for Legacy Of Thorn

A quick side note, Once you've hit your goal (or even if you haven't) it's important to keep your contributors updated on the films progress and the incentives they will be receiving. If, like us, you are small independent studio in North England, keeping to schedule can be tricky, but we do our best to deliver the incentives as soon as they are ready. I hear a lot of stories about people running crowdfunding campaigns and then never receiving thier incentives and you want to avoid being branded one of those people. 

As with anything, do your best to stay on time and if you can't, just let people know. they are usually every understanding. Within reason.

Above all just try to have fun with it, making movies, and even raise money to make movie is stressful. Luckily it's the good kind of stressful, the kind that doesn't see you trapped in a sex dungeon that specialises in Dwarf bondage.

Oh yeah... Heres the Trailer For LEGACY OF THORN. 

MJ

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THE 4 ELEMENTS OF GIVING CHARACTERS CHARACTER

READ THIS : Before we get started, Let me just say, once again, that this is my approach to writing and developing film projects. I'm not saying it the best way, just one way of doing it. In the end, you should really find your own way of doing anything, shit that works for some people doesn't work for everyone. It's all just a matter of what works for you as a filmmaker/writer/artist/juggler, whatever. However you should be able to apply any approach back to your own work to try and better the final product and with that said lets go.

I jumped over creating Characters briefly in my first writing blog HERE. 

Concept Sketch of Jody from Creepsville.
Jody was based on an old college friend.

In my first blog I briefly talked about how I sometimes begin by designing a character and then work from there. Which is fine when you're creating killer clowns, Giant brutish psychopaths and Demons from other dimensions. Here I draw from comic books, films, real life horror stories and many other sources and then can retrospectively create backstories for them based on the story needs or what suits that character, But when crafting real, rounded characters I have to draw from a different source all together. 

Over my 30+ years on this earth, I have lived a very strange and interesting life and as a result I have met all kinds of different people, talked with them, seen the good in them, the bad in them and shared moments of joy, sadness and boredom with them. This is the pool into which I dive when I need real people, when I need characters. 

When I started writing what would become my 1st feature Creepsville in 2008 I was a fresh graduate from University with a degree in Screenwriting that had taught me how to craft a story, but had been somewhat lacking in helping me find my own voice. Being a little nervous about it, I asked a more experienced writer friend of mine, to help me break the script. We agreed that I would write the first draft and he would tighten it up before shooting began in mid 2009.

As we broke the story I began to develop the lead character in the first draft, he suggested that I base the character on someone I knew well. I, of course, chose myself. Taking it back to him, he felt that the character was lacking something, he wasn't rounded enough. This was simply because, when it comes to ourselves, we simply can't be objective enough, We project our ideal decisons into characters rather than real ones and although it worked ok, I was lacking an objective approach to myself. 

Fisrt quick sketch of Red. Complete with outlines for her backstory.
Blurred to avoid Spoilers. 

He suggested that I chose someone else to base that character on, So I looked at the story and looked at the people I knew who would realistically fit into that scenario. I chose,  a guy who I had gone to university with, a decent guy, but a guy who was somewhat flawed at the same time. Then an amazing thing happened, The flaws of that character actually started to give the story greater grounding. My lead went from a character who finds himself in a bad situation, into a lead character who, through his own selfish actions, puts himself and the woman he loves in a bad situation. The stakes were raised and the film now had a much better character arc.

From here I realised I had a whole world of inspiration to draw from when it came to developing the people who inhabited my fictional world. It helped me find a voice specific to me, as I was drawing from my own experiences of others.

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We've all heard the idea of 'Write what you know", well my approach since then has been much more about writing "Who you know".

For every Character I add to a script I look at four elements.

1.THE GOAL

What is it that this particular character wants? What do they hope to achieve both short term (in terms of the story) and Long term (in the bigger real world). How far are they willing to go to achieve these goals? Does their want and desire define them or is it an unlying part of their personality?

2.THE SECRET

For me humans are more complex than just one setting or emotion. Real people are not just what you see on the surface for the most part and so they usually have a deeper agenda. Thats important to how and why a character does what they do. So I always ask myself what deeper agenda does each character have.

3.THE WEAKNESS

Everyone and everything has a weakness, that's what makes people 'people'. It is our vulnerability that makes us seem the most human. Good characters have a weaknesses whether they are good or bad, there has to be a chink in their armour somewhere. Weakness is usually the key to me fully understanding any character that I create. 

4.THE FLIPSIDE

No one is the same all the time, we all have aspects of our personality that sit on the outside most of the time, but even the kindest, calmest person can be angry and cruel at times in the right situation. Most rounded characters are capable of all emotions and its interesting to watch those characters whilst putting them in different situations. People change dependent on what they experience and characters in a story are the same. Looking at your characters from every perspective is important to get a full picture of them. 

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These elements are important in getting an understanidng of each character you put down on paper, even if you're not putting this information into your story, it's important that you know it, as it will help you get a feeling for each and every character you add to your script. 

As a low budget filmmaker, I constantly try and reduce the amount of characters in my script to as few as possible, this way not only do I get more time to focus in on their 'character' and backstory, but It saves time and money in production. 

There are only 5 main characters in Slasher House, but every single one of them has a large fleshed out backstory, much of which we don't see in the final film. Yet there is enough history for each character that they could each carry their own movie. In fact one of them already has in Legacy Of Thorn, you can check it out HERE. 

MJ

IF YOU FIND THIS BLOG USEFUL. PLEASE SHARE. You can keep up to date with our filming goings on at our FACEBOOK PAGE :)

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