UK Film uses Kickstarter

News of a UK example of film producers seeking finding via Kickstarter rather than through the traditional channels. Warp's Mark Herbert also raised this as something they would be exploring in future too.

UK video games industry movie turns to crowdfunding for a second time

by Ben Parfitt Thursday, February 28th 2013 at 4:05PM GMT

A film that hopes to tell the story of the UK video games industry has arrived on Kickstarter – the second time it has sought funding from crowdsourcing.
From Bedrooms to Billions has already been successfully funded on Indiegogo, but filmmakers Anthony Caulfield & Nicola Caulfield have now turned to Kickstarter for additional funding. £18,000, to be precise.
“In 2012 we successfully ran our first crowdfunding campaign which allowed us to begin the principle photography, so we've been filming almost continuously throughout 2012 and are very close to completing all filming in 2013,” the pitch reads.
“However as is common with many films financed via crowdfunding, money is now needed to complete post-production, to secure archive footage, stills, music usage and clearances. Without these crucial elements the film would simply be two hours of talking heads and not the true and lasting documentary movie experience that the subject matter deserves.”
Quite how the team can describe its Indiegogo campaign as “successful” when it has now turned to Kickstarter for more money is open to question, although they argue that they “always wanted to run separate campaigns for the production and the post-production budget”.
Nonetheless, the aim remains to finish the two-hour film which tells the story of UK gaming from 1979 to the present. It has been in production for ten years and has amassed footage from interviews with the likes of Matthew Smith, David Braben, Gary Penn, Rob Hubbard, Julian Rignall, Martin Galway and Jeff Minter.
“From Bedrooms to Billions has been a very personal project for us since June 2008,” producer Anthony Caulfield stated. “Having completed many documentaries we have always wanted to document the rise of the British video games industry and the incredible story that went with it.”
Fellow producer Nicola Caulfield added: “This film will be a great piece of nostalgic entertainment that documents an important part of UK history. This era is so often overlooked and not known by young British talent looking to enter the games industry, as the vast majority of UK children, school leavers and even students believe that gaming originated mainly from the US and Japan and have little to no knowledge that a British games industry even once existed.”