PRE-PRODUCTION: Costume

As producer of this project, I am in charge of costume and sourcing the costumes. I've read through Script Draft 1 and the character profiles for each person and I am confident on what Alex wants his characters to look like, in relation to their clothing. I created moodboards on each character and what I can imagine they wearing in the sitcom.

Tim Stewart

Tim is the main character in VET-MAN, the story follows him as he attempts to start up his own veterinary business. At the beginning of the story, Tim is introduced as a scruffy looking man, wearing a hoodie over blue scrubs. Usually a vet may wear shirts and trousers, in order to look smart for his clients, and then would wear the scrubs during surgery. By saving these for surgery, the scrubs will be able to stay clean. Cleanliness would be essential in a surgical environment, especially while they operate on animals. Seeing Tim in his scrubs while he is visiting his sisters house could mean that he does not understand the correct attire for a professional vet, and does not care about the hygiene of the scrubs.

He wears the scrubs and hoodie throughout the beginning of the film and manages to get them covered in blood about 7 minutes in. As we will be getting fake blood on the hoodie that Tim wears, we will buy one because we wouldn’t want to stain the actor chosen for Tim’s personal clothes. We have scrubs left over from our previous project but the hoodie will need to be bought. As we will be getting it dirty intentionally, we will look for a cheaper one in Primark.

During the scene in the car park to the Owl Academy, we see Tim in a different outfit. He has changed his blood stained clothes for a shirt. This is so he can look professional in front of Mollie when he asks if she needs his help. He may think that if he looks the part, he’ll have more of a shot. To source the shirt, I will ask the actor for Tim if he has one he could wear. If not we will source one from a high street shop such as Primark, Topman or Burton. During this scene, Tim can be wearing his everyday jeans as these shouldn’t get dirty throughout the rest of the film.

Luke Lucas

Luke is younger than Tim and is very naive and innocent. He thinks creating the vet's practice is a good idea, this may be because he looks up to Tim and sees him as a mentor. As Luke is only young, he likes to wear t-shirts and jeans, like any other young man. By wearing t-shirts compared to Tim's shirts and scrubs, it'll bring out the innocence of Luke as he'll look younger. This is because we don't usually see younger people in shirts, older people typically wear them for their careers. T-shirts are the right type of clothing for Luke’s age range, but because we are filming during the colder months, he will need more than just a t-shirt. This will still work well because there are specific coats nowadays that young men would wear but older men wouldn’t. A coat like a bomber jacket is a younger persons coat, because this is the general view of these types of coats, you don’t tend to see elderly men in them. As a result of this, a bomber jacket will suit Luke’s age range well and we will still be able to see his youth and innocence even with a coat on. In most of the scenes Luke is seen outside so he will be wearing his coat a lot. In the script it states that at The Kent Owl Academy car part he puts a hoodie over his t-shirt, so he’ll be in warmer clothes in this scene because of the hoodie. Depending on how cold it is he may have his coat on as well.

To source these clothes, I could ask if the actor chosen for Luke has any everyday t-shirts and shirts that he can wear. I will also ask if he has a bomber jacket as these can be expensive and will bump up the budget. If he does then we can wear that and he can wear his normal jeans.

Tess Connelly 
Tess is a successful estate agent, who is married to Aidan Connelly. She likes to wear smart clothing because of her job. Working in a sales-based career, Tess would have a smart dress code to look presentable for her customers who are looking round the houses. We first see Tess in the beginning scene while she's wearing her work clothes and holding a briefcase. Straight away the audience will be able to see Tess's personality and the type of career she has. Her tidy house will add to this, and we will know she is an organised person and likes her possessions to be tidy and well kept. Usually an estate agent may wear blouses and pencil skirts, but as we are filming in the colder months, I will ensure her outfit consists of trousers or thick tights and a jacket. She will also be able to wear her coat. We first see here when she gets back home. When she enters the room and throws her briefcase down, she could take off her coat and then underneath we’ll see her smart jacket and blouse.

To source these clothes, I can ask the actress chosen for Tess if she has any smart clothing of her own, if not I can look in high street store such as Primark, New Look and Debenhams. We want to keep the budget low with clothing but we also want Tess to look wealthy because of her successful job, so we will only pick clothes which suit this, not just the cheapest ones we can find.

Sheila Hodges 

We meet Sheila shortly after Tim leaves Tess’s house with their fathers tools. Tim and Luke believe that they have run over her dog, Sooty. Shelia is a sweet elderly lady who wouldn’t hurt anyone. She is just like any other elderly lady, and dresses for the colder weather in cardigans and trousers. She likes the colour pink and she brings this out in her clothing. She takes pride in her gold jewellery that she’s had since she was young, and she takes her pick of what necklace to wear each time she leaves the house. As we are filming during the colder months I will ensure that Sheila is either wearing a thick coat or we will buy one to go with the outfit.

To source these clothes, we will ask the actress chosen for Sheila if she has anything similar to the clothes on the mood board. If not, shops such as Bon Marché, Debenhams and Marks and Spencer should stock the clothes we need for Sheila’s age range. I think the main thing with Sheila’s clothes are that they are in a shade of pink, as this seems to be a common colour with elderly women.

Mollie

Mollie is a newest role Alex created throughout the script drafts. She is the owner and managing director of The Kent Owl Academy. The character for Mollie is based on the real owner of the academy. Initially, Mollie was a small part with no dialogue so we were going to ask the real owner wanted to step in as her. As there was no dialogue, the person being Mollie didn't have to be an experienced actor. However, during the pre-production process, Alex decided that he wanted to expand the character for Mollie and give her a talking role. As a result of this, we cast one of the candidates who originally auditioned for Tess with the new character of Mollie. 

As Mollie is the owner and managing director of The Kent Owl Academy, she needs to look like someone who works there. Therefore, her costume will consist of dark, earthy colours, such as greens, blues and browns. These colours worn by the staff are in most animal parks, this is because working with animals and in their surroundings can be dirty, so it makes sense to wear darker similar colours to the ground so the dirt doesn't stand out so much. This is why our character will be wearing the same colours. It would be unusual for her to wear light colours in a muddy area. Another reason as to why our character will be wearing earthy colours is because the owls will be used to the staff in these colours, therefore, hopefully they will be comfortable around our actress if she is in the same clothing. The last thing we would want is for the owl to be distressed around Mollie, because in the film she is their owner and protector and it wouldn’t be right if it was clear that they didn’t like her.

The people who work at animal parks also usually wear jumpers with the organisations name and logo on it. This is so the visitors know who works there and who doesn't. While we've been at the academy I have noticed that they have their own printed fleeces. I will ask to borrow one of these for the character of Mollie. This would save money instead of printing one ourselves. Additionally, a fleece would be better than a printed t-shirt because of the cold weather we will be filming in. 

Again, because of the dirty surroundings, on the bottom half animal keepers would tend to wear old jeans, cargo trousers, or leggings. This old clothing would be suitable to get muddy with while working around the animals. At The Kent Owl Academy, I noticed the employees wearing leggings mostly with wellies or old trainers.  

To source these clothes, I will ask if the candidate for Mollie has any old leggings. In the film we won't be seeing her getting muddy but if she has mud on them then the audience will believe she has been working with the animals that day. As a result of this, I feel it is a good idea to get them dirty with mud before she gets changed. Understandably, if she doesn't want to get any of her old leggings dirty, then we will buy some. As we are purposely getting them muddy, I will only get a cheap pair. It would be silly to buy an expensive pair and get them for one day. However, I will ensure these are thick leggings because of the cold weather we will be filming in. For the shoes, I will ask if the actress for Mollie has any wellies as they are easy to clean, if not we can buy some cheap shoes. Again, we can make these dirty on purpose to add to the fact that Mollie has been working with the animals. 

Images:

- All pictures from Google Images

PRE-PRODUCTION: Chosen Cast

As Alex is the director for this project, it is his final decision as to who we cast. I will then contact all of the candidates and tell them if they were successful or not. After reviewing the audition recordings, Alex has decided that the candidates below will be our final cast:

Tim Stewart - Ed Allenby


We met with Ed on the first audition day. We wanted Tim to be of a tall size but medium build and we found this in Ed. We want Tim to be arrogant but charismatic and after meeting Ed, we feel that he will be able to pull this off well.

During the audition Alex and I felt that Ed portrayed the character of Tim really well. He used the audition space well and was good in the scene when they hit the dog. He acted very frantic in trying to help the dog and then changed emotion very quickly when he met Sheila. According to his character profile, he appears cocky and dismissive of other people. Ed showed this arrogance well throughout the audition, especially during Scene 1 when Tim doesn't listen to Tess telling him that the vet business was a bad idea. We believe that Ed is the best person to play our Tim.


Luke Lucas - Daniel Hemsley

We met Daniel on the first audition day. He's smaller than Ed which fits well with the idea of Luke's character looking up to Tim. Alex and I really liked Daniel, he was young and seemed innocent which is what we want Luke to be like. 

He portrayed Luke really well and had a good sense of space. Daniel thought on his feet as he grabbed his rucksack as a prop for the bag with the dead dog inside. His character profile describes him as always wanting to try his best and trying to impress Tim. This is used in Scene 2 when he shows Tim the van and desperately wants him to like his work on the slogan. Daniel played this character in this scene very well.

Seeing Daniel portray Luke in different tones of voice helped Alex decide on how he wanted him played. 


Pete Lucas - no longer a role

While Alex was completing script drafts he decided that Pete's role wasn't really needed. He only had a couple of lines and we are still able to mention him without him needing to be there. Instead he decided to expand the character of Mollie, the owl expert.  



Tess Connolly - Skevy Stylia

We meet with Skevy on the second audition day. She was really friendly and we had good conversation with her from the start. 

Skevy was very good at portraying Tess in different tones of voice, in a caring tone and a demanding tone. These tones are important for the role of a big sister because even though Tim and Tess are now grown up, it shows that she still treats him as little when he says silly things, such as trying to build a vet's business with a fake University diploma. However, she only wants the best for Tim and this came across well in Skevy's more gentle tone of voice. Due to this, we feel that she was best suited for the role of Tess.



Sheila Hodges - Susan Baskerville


We met Susan on the second audition day. She has been in a few films from our course so we already had high hopes for her. She was exactly who we were looking for to play Sheila.

During the audition, we could tell that she felt that the cat was the most important thing in her life. She showed a good amount of emotion about her dead cat. We really believed she was upset about Sooty. The Susan portrayed Sheila really well. 

In her character profile, Sheila is described as a bit senile and can sometimes say things without realising what she's said. Susan portrayed this well when she made the comment about the slogan on the side of the van. She was just what we expected, a sweet elderly lady who we felt would fit the role perfectly. 

Mollie Jackson - Becky Black


The character for Mollie was expanded half way through the project. Alex decided that because Pete didn't have much of a speaking role, he wasn't really needed. However, he wanted to make Mollie's role bigger. This was decided after the auditions days took place and therefore, we didn't really want to advertise another set of auditions with the deadline in a few weeks time. At the same time, we were struggling to cast Tess because we saw two candidates suitable for the character. As a result of this, we decided to ask if Becky, who originally came in for Tess, wanted the role of Mollie. Luckily for us, she was more than happy to change roles. After this, I sent her through the information for this new character.

We met Becky on the first audition day, she was very friendly and portrayed the character for Tess well, so we believe she will play the character of Mollie well. 


Mark - Jim Hargood

Alex's dad, Jim, will be standing in as Mark. This isn't a speaking role and because of this we felt that we didn't need to cast a professional actor for this part. We simply wanted a big and strong character involved so Tim could feel intimidated when he approached him after seeing Sheila again. Jim is happy to play the part of Mark and is confirmed for the single filming day in February.

PRE-PRODUCTION: Audition Days

We held two main audition days, the 12th and 14th of November, and we held an extra audition day on Friday 16th November to give the applicants another day to choose from.

First audition day (Monday 12th November)

After rescheduling some people and agreeing to accept self-tapes for others, we ended up having 3 people in for 3 different characters, after initially suggesting to have all the Tim's and Luke's in, with one Sheila. 

We kept to the same structure with each person. We started by having a general chat with them, in order to get them comfortable around us and to act themselves. We could also get an idea of their personalities by doing this. While we spoke to them they filled out the audition form, keeping it casual. The next part of the audition was to read through their specific parts of the script. Improv wasn't really essential for the audition because the script had enough drama in it for the people to explore anyway, but we were open for them to add their own spin on it. We also asked them to be honest and see what they thought of the script, as we were open to fresh ideas from people who hadn't been working on the project for the past couple of months. 

The first person we had was a candidate for Luke. We asked him to read through Scene 2 to start with, alongside Alex who read the other roles and directions. He read this really well and used the audition space that we had given him, rather than sitting still reading the lines. After this, we asked him to read Scene 5. Again, he portrayed Luke really well and had a good sense of space. The candidate also thought on his feet as he grabbed his rucksack as a prop for the bag with the dead dog inside. I was impressed with this as I wouldn't have even thought about it. We asked him to read the scene again in a different tone to see how versatile he was as Alex explained that he wasn't sure on how he wanted Luke portrayed in terms of his emotion, just yet. However, seeing how the candidate depicted Luke, this has given us an idea of how we want him to be played if this candidate is successful. 

Next was a candidate for Tim. We asked him to read through Scene 1 alongside Alex reading the other roles. He portrayed this really well and used the audition space that was available to him. This was good to see from all our candidates as it was interesting to get a feel of how they would use their body language. This was ideal for Tim in when they hit the dead dog, as Tim is very quick and frantic in trying to help the dog, and then needs to jump up quick when Sheila appears. This candidate for Tim was really good at this and stayed in character while moving around.

Tess was after. The candidate read through Scene 1 with Alex, when Tim breaks into her house. Similarly to the previous candidates, she had a good sense of space and she was good at sarcasm which is needed for a few lines when talking to Tim. After this we asked her to read through it again but with a more caring tone to her voice, as she did the first read with a demanding tone. We liked the first demanding tone, as Tess's character is very authoritative over her little brother, and it's normal to talk to a younger sibling in this tone. However, we wanted to hear a more caring side so Alex could decide what route to take, regarding Tess's portrayal and personality. Lastly, we asked her to read through Scene 10. She portrayed the character of Tess really well throughout both scenes.

As most people had opted for a self-tape due to work and personal commitments, for the first audition day we had gone from 10 people auditioning, to only seeing 3 people on the day. The majority took up the option for the self-tape, 2 people withdrew and 2 people rescheduled to the other audition days. 


Second audition day (Wednesday 14th November)

Like I said before, we kept the same structure for each candidate. We had a friendly chat with them, in order to get them comfortable around us. They filled out the audition form and we were ready to start the audition. 

To start with we had a candidate for Pete. He is the first and person we had auditioning for Pete as the other two opted for self-tapes, therefore, we were very grateful that he came in to meet us personally. To start with we asked him to read through Scene 2 as it's the only one Pete is in, and he only has three lines throughout the whole script. Because of this, the purpose of the audition was more to see how he reacted to it rather than how well he knew the lines. Again, the candidate stood up and used the space around him. Pete's character is very dim, the candidate knew this and portrayed it well, even though he only had three lines. We tried it again but with the candidate giving more of an intimidating tone towards Tim, as he tries to say the work Pete carried out on the van wasn't very good. The candidate used the tone very well and I was very impressed. We knew it was going to be a short audition because of the lack of lines for this character. However, it was very beneficial for us to meet the candidate to see how easy he is to get on with, and to see if we would be able to work with him during the production stage.

Next, was the candidate for Tim. We kept the same scenes for the candidate to read out as we had in the first audition day, in order to keep the auditions fair. This way we were able to see two different people read through the same scenes to see how different their performances were, and then which one was better. This would have been harder if they read out different scenes. Therefore, we also read through Scene 1 and 4 with this candidate. Similarly, to the other Tim, he used the space around himself well. He showed good authority over Luke, which is what the character for Tim does as he is older and Luke follows and looks up to him. When he was being demanding, he got closer to Alex's face and pointed to him a lot. I thought this was good because getting closer to someones face is what you do when you're being demanding and you do point when telling someone what to do. He also made good eye contact when he got closer to Alex which I liked. We asked him to repeat Scene 4 and use a more sympathetic tone towards the dog, Luke and Sheila. Then we asked him to do it once more and use a more arrogant tone, as if he knew what he was doing to the dog. He portrayed both of these personalities really well also.

Sheila was the next character on our list. We asked her to read through Scene 4 and 5. The first run through went well. She showed emotion about her dead cat. However, we wanted a bit more emotion, so we tried it again. The second time was a lot better and we really believed she was upset about Sooty. The candidate for Sheila portrayed the character really well.

Lastly, we saw the candidate auditioning for Tess. We asked her to read through Scene 1 and 10. She did these both really well. Scene 1 was fine the first time she did it. We asked her to do Scene 10 how she felt best represented the character. After this Alex asked her to be more antagonistic. This was because Scene 10 is at the very end of the film, and by this point Tess is very fed up with Tim after his disastrous day. The candidate portrayed Tess really well this second time and Alex and I were very impressed. 

We were expecting 10 people to attend the second audition day but in the end we only saw 4 of these. Another 4 people weren't able to attend but they accepted the self-tape option, and one person asked to reschedule for Friday 16th November. 


Extra audition day (Friday 16th November)

I set up the third audition day purely as an option for the people who could not make the other two days. We had one candidate for Tess scheduled for today, and I was in contact with a candidate for Sheila who was getting back to me if she could attend or not. The candidate for Sheila was happy with her time slot on the Monday until her circumstances changed. I was happy to reschedule her for the Friday because it would make the day more worthwhile by having two people in rather than just one. 

However, Alex and I were set up and ready to meet the two candidates auditioning for Sheila and Tess but unfortunately neither of them attended the auditions. We also had no warning from either of them. Alex and I both had to leave at 5pm due to work commitments, so as we were leaving I sent them both a message explaining that they had missed the time slot and that we would accept a self-tape if they were still interested in VET-MAN. Then before we left the building, we left a message with reception in case they happened to get to the Studios late. We were very certain that they were not attending the audition though as we had no messages from them. One of the candidates was running late on Monday due to traffic and she messaged me to let me know that she was going to be late. As a result of not hearing from the two candidates due on the Friday, after sending them confirmation emails, we were sure they were not going to attend. 

I was impressed with everyone as I just assumed they would sit in the chair and read the lines. However, they all made a really good effort with their facial and body expressions, they all had a good sense of space, and they were all really friendly. I am looking forward to working with the selected cast. 

Below is the final audition schedule and the names of the people who attended the auditions. These candidates and the ones sending in self-tapes are the people we will be choosing from when deciding on the cast. 

Final audition schedule

Self-tapes

Final self-tape schedule

In total, we had 7 people ask to give in a self-tape. Ideally, we wanted to meet them in person but I wasn't able re-schedule everyone for a day they could make due to their work and personal commitments. 

We had one self-tape sent in from a candidate for Tess. She had recorded herself saying the other characters lines and then we watched her read through her lines. This was very clever and wasn't something I had thought of doing. She portrayed the character of Tess really well. Obviously, we couldn't ask her to do it again in another tone of voice, but we were happy with the way she did it in the video. 

A self-tape for the role of Pete was the next one that was submitted to us. The candidate played Pete really well. He is a big built guy, and the way he used his tone of voice was really good, he sound innocent and really pleased with his work on the side of the van. We were very pleased with this candidate, but Alex wasn't sure if he wanted to keep Pete as a role anymore. I will hear Alex's final decision before emailing the candidates for Pete. 

Lastly, a self-tape for the role of Luke was sent over. He portrayed the character of Luke well but not quite in the same tone as we wanted. But because it was over a self-tape we weren't able to ask him to try it again.

Out of 7 self-tapes I was meant to receive, I was sent 3. However, we were very pleased with everyone we met and the self-tapes we received so I don't think we needed to see all of them.   

PRE-PRODUCTION: Fundraising

As I am producer of the project, I am in charge of raising donations to add to our budget total. To start with I was unsure on how to approach this so I did some research. I looked into simple ways to fundraise for an individual filmmaker. It was important that I made sure the website was about single / low budget / student filmmakers so they gave appropriate advice. Some websites I looked at were suggesting putting out television adverts, this would be aimed at bigger production companies. 

Tip #1 - Fundraisers
There are so many different types of events you can hold that may or may not be effective. Some filmmakers rent out a bar, get a DJ and set up a Beer Pong tournament. Others will do a horror movie marathon with local indie shorts. Some also do live events with performers.

Tip #2 - Crowdfunding 
Crowdfunding is when you put a link out on social media to a donation page. The most popular sites are Kickstarter, GoFundMe and Indiegogo. Kickstarter is an all or nothing campaign, where if you don't meet the goal, you don't get anything from it. GoFundMe lets you keep whatever you get and Indiegogo gives you the choice between the two. However, these sites do charge a fee out of the money you make. It's important in telling people what they are investing in so promo pictures are needed. Posters, on set photos and banners. The public need a glimpse of what you're making and need the money for. Don't forget to share the link everyday. 

Tip #3 - Merchandise 
Merchandise is very much overlooked. You don't have to break the bank on hats and t-shirts to sell merchandise. There are lots of options that can make you some money. You can get 8x10 posters made, and maybe autograph them. You can even get a custom-made action figure and raffle it off. There's also shops online that let you design merchandise without charging you. You just get a percentage of the profits. The only problem is that the merchandise is priced very high since the online shop is taking a cut. 

Tip #4 - Appearances
There are other ways to fundraising without selling and raffling things. Another way is just making appearances. Go on podcasts and radio shows. Make appearances on people's YouTube channels. The more you spread the word the better. 

Tip #5 - Flyers
Flyers are an old-fashioned way of promoting fundraising because everything is done online now. However, these still work. You can make flyers for your fundraisers or crowdfunding campaigns and post them at libraries and colleges. You can put them anywhere that has a bulletin board.

Tip #6 - Networking
Many of the other methods can fall into this one. When it comes to fundraisers you want to make sure you talk to the people who come to support you. Be sure to go to networking events. It's also a great way to find people with podcasts and radio shows and press connections. You want to go to other people's fundraisers and events too. You can spread the word and support other filmmakers. Because if you support them, they may support you. Also, it is very important to have business cards made. They are very cheap and easy to design on Vistaprint. Keep in mind too, if you can meet people who are popular or talented at these evens, they can give your film more value if they join your cast and crew. 

Tip #7 - Social media
This is the most important method of them all, all the other methods fall into this one. Social media is one of the ways you'll promote your fundraisers. You can create an event page on Facebook, and share it with as many people as possible. You can post the event page and the crowdfunding link to tons of local networking groups for filmmakers. Social media is also a way to tell everyone to tune in to the radio show or podcast you're appearing on. You can take screenshots of the article and put them on Instagram. You can make a Facebook and Twitter page for the film. Then on the flyers, you can put a link or "Find us on Facebook!". Most marketing is done through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram and all the others. You can also use SnapChat to post updates and behind the scenes footage of shoots and events. Most social media outlets all have live streaming now too. Make sure you post regularly! You can't be successful anymore without Facebook.

What I have done to fundraise:

I started by making a crowdfunding page as this would be the page I will be sharing throughout all my methods of fundraising, so this needed to be completed first. I researched into the different types of crowdfunding websites I could use and their pros and cons to using them. This way I will be able to find the best one to fundraise on and the one that will hopefully bring in some donations. 

The first one I looked into was GoFundMe because I have heard of this one before. I found that it is still relatively new as it was founded in 2010. However, I thought that it must be popular as it's the only one I've heard of, and I associate it with Facebook particularly. GoFundMe started in America, and since it started in 2010 it has raised over $5 billion, making it the biggest crowdfunding platform. It allows users to create their own website with which they raise money. To do this, members can describe their fundraising cause and the amount they hope to raise. Photos and videos can also be uploaded to help further the description of the donation. Once the website is created, GoFundMe allows users to share their project with people through social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram etc. People can then donate through the GoFundMe and track the progress of their funding. Those who donate can also leave comments on the website in support of the project. If the member receives no donations then no charge is made, and Payment processors collect 2.9% from each transaction.

Kickstarter is another crowdfunding page similar to GoFundMe. It was created a year prior in 2009. One of the only differences is that in order to get the donations from the site, the whole amount must have been raised, whereas using GoFundMe allowed you to take out any amount that was raised. Kickstarter applies a 5% fee on the total amount of funds raised, and their payments processor applies an additional 3-5% fee. The web pages of project launched on the site are permanently archived and accessible to the public. After funding is completed, projects and uploaded media cannot be edited or removed from the site.

Another crowdfunding site is RocketHub. This site does the same as GoFundMe and Kickstarter do, by people being able to publicise campaigns through Facebook, Twitter and other similar platforms. When creating a campaign, users choose a deadline, target funding-goal and offer perks in exchange for contributions. RocketHub is most similar to Kickstarter, the only difference being able to take the money from the site if the total amount isn't raised. RocketHub charges 4% of funds collected, plus 4% payment processing fees, if the project is fully funded, and 8% plus 4% payment processing fees if the project does not reach its goal. 

As GoFundMe is the most popular crowdfunding website I think this is the one to go for. This is because people are more likely pay a website money if they know it's real. One way to do this is to hear from people who have used it before, and to get their opinion on it. 

From my point of view as a donator, I can draw back to the As Live production because we used GoFundMe as our method of fundraising and we got a small amount of our initial donation suggestion. Therefore, I personally know that is it a safe website and easy to use. I have also donated myself on a GoFundMe page in the past for a charity walk and I had a good experience with it, in terms of the money being safe and going straight to the person I intended it to go to. 

From a fundraiser point of view, the site doesn't charge if you don't receive any donations. This is reassuring because I would feel the pressure for people to donate and then that may put pressure on the donators. I am also allowed to take out any money that we raise instead of having to raise all the money 

Below is the GoFundMe page:

Our GoFundMe page

I gave a brief synopsis of VET-MAN, letting people know what they would be donating towards. I also stated that we are in the pre-production stage now, and we will be filming around February 2019. This information just gives people a brief description as to where we are at, at the moment. I advertised why we needed the donations - for food, travel, props and costumes. Finally, for a perk for them, I said that any donators will be featured in the credits, and I explained how grateful we would be for any help. I started advertising the total amount as £750, thinking that the bigger the goal the more people will help get to it. However, I shortly realised that it might work better the other way around. If people see it and notice that there is only a small amount needed to be raised, then they would be more likely to donate as it would be seen as a more achievable amount to get to. Because of this, I changed the amount to £400. Any donations we get will be gratefully received so it doesn't matter if we made the £750 or not, anything will help us out.

The next thing was to research into the best social media accounts to share our fundraiser. I don't want to waste time in sharing the page to a site where the people on it aren't very engaged by donations.

Facebook

Facebook has the largest audience of any social media site worldwide. According to their own statistics, the site has more than 2.27 billion monthly active users, with active being defined as logging in onto the site in the last 30 days. Each day there are between 11 and 12 million active ads on Facebook, from roughly 1.5 million advertisers running campaigns.

According to the GoFundMe website, sharing the donation page on Facebook can increase donations by 350%. As well as asking your network for a donation, you can also ask people in your life to spread the word by sharing the GoFundMe with their networks too. As GoFundMe links well with Facebook it is a lot easier to use it on this particular social media site. On the other sites I can only post a link with no preview for the donation page. When people are on Facebook they just need to click on the post and then click donate now. Whereas on the other sites they'll need to copy and paste the link into their address bar and then go through the donation part. This could mean that people are more likely to donate on Facebook over any other social media site. 

Scheduling posts on Facebook will make fundraising easier. With pre-prepared posts and uploads, you can schedule the social media account to keep your audience engaged and aware of your campaign throughout its duration. Around these posts you can then throw in timely shares at relevant times. Facebook should see around a post every day, whereas Twitter is better suited to multiple posts per day. Try to focus on a maximum of three platforms and use them well. More than that then you may unintentionally start to neglect some. The next platform I will be looking at is Instagram.

As Facebook is one of the most popular social media site around the world, I feel that I would be missing out on possible donations if I didn't share my fundraiser on there. From my experience, Facebook is the one account that I have connected with the majority of people I know, so it is worthwhile fundraising on this social media site. Each time I shared the GoFundMe page I wrote a message explaining how grateful we are for any donations.

Instagram

Instagram's popularity has been growing steadily since in first debuted back in 2010. It has more than 500 million active users, meaning that it's currently the second most popular social media network behind Facebook. The number of advertisers on Instagram has doubled over the past six months or so, to more than one million. This means that Instagram is now considered the best social media platform for customer engagement. 

Things such as post visibility, tendency to comment and share ability are a way to measure engagement on the site. I found a website called Forbes who were talking about why Instagram is so popular, and according to them, in a survey of more than 2,500 micro-influences (bloggers with a large following), "60% thought Instagram was the best overall platform for engagement, with Facebook only getting 18%" (DeMers, 2017). 

Below are the reasons why Instagram is engaging with audiences:

Mobile functionality

- Instagram is able to be downloaded onto phones and looked at while people are out. It can be argued that Facebook and Twitter do the same thing. However, on Instagram you are able to immediately edit images that have been taken on the move to post on the platform. You can't edit images directly on the Facebook and Twitter apps. This feature makes it "an in-the-moment experience" (DeMers, 2017), which naturally attracts more people.

Visual nature

- Visual marketing has become so popular recently because people prefer to interpret information through sight. Instagram appeals to that visual nature, the majority of the newsfeed is occupied by the horizontal span of images, and since they're all reduced to the same square format, it gives a certain level of formality to the experience. 

Novelty 

- Instagram can be seen as a departure from other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, mostly because of its simplicity. It can attract the younger generation, with the majority of its users being under the age of 30. Instagram has an energy that older social media brands have lost over the years. Older people tend to have Facebook because they've had it since they were younger, but now they are older, they don't want to try the newer phenomenon that is Instagram. 

Function

- Instagram caters to a wide range of audience. It offers publicity posts like Twitter, but also has greater control over spam and reasonably tight personal networks. It's not just limited to one function, like sites such as LinkedIn. LinkedIn is purely for professional networking, whereas Instagram you can use for businesses, by changing from the normal account to a business account, or you can use it for personal use and to simply upload nice photos. 

The graph below from statistia.com shows how Instagram has grown from 2013, 3 years after it had launched, until 2018. It has stayed gradual but gained more users recently rather than when it first started out. This is why now is a good time to fundraise on Instagram as it engages well with the public. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/253577/number-of-monthly-active-instagram-users/

I have already made an Instagram account in order to advertise VET-MAN but I needed a way to gain donations on it as well. To do this, I added a 'bio' where I described who we were and what we were doing. After this there is a part for an web address, this is the sort of thing I don't have on my personal Instagram but it would be perfect for the VET-MAN account. People would usually put their YouTube links on there or their Facebook profiles, but to help the donations I inserted our GoFundMe web address instead. 

In order to advertise both the Instagram and GoFundMe page at the same time. I shared the Instagram page on my Facebook and urged people to follow it to keep updated with the film and to see our behind the scenes photos. While I shared this I reminded our followers that if they wanted to help out, to click the link and donate.

Twitter

Twitter is one of the ten most-visited websites, with around 232 million active users worldwide. This is the smallest about of users I seen from each social media site so far but it's still a lot of people. These users are sending over 400 million tweets per day. By carrying out my research I also found that the largest population of Twitter users are made up of 18-29 year olds who have had at least some college education. This is good as their age demographic aligns with our target audience, so if I was to fundraise on the site, I know I will be getting views from the correct age range.

I also found that tweets that include links are 86% more likely to get retweeted, a link will not only increase retweets but can drive focused, relevant traffic back to your website. We don't have a website but we have the link for the GoFundMe page that I could put out on the tweets. 

As Twitter limits you on your messages, you need to craft your 140 character tweet so it influences people to give. It can be difficult to get the message of the campaign across in this amount of characters so make sure you factor in enough time to work on these. The first few words of a tweet are important as people skim read so it's worth doing some testing to see whether your followers respond to the words donate / help / give etc, at the start of the message.

As I have said previously, I feel that people engage better with photos rather than words, this is why I was very interested in advertising on Instagram from the start. Facebook is another site in which I can use predominantly photos over words, however, Twitter is mainly about writing sentences as people use it to write about their thoughts and feelings. As we have a lot of interesting photos from the test shoots such as using the owls, I feel that we wouldn't engage our audience on Twitter as well as the other social media sites. 

Out of all the people I know, the majority of them don't have Twitter, they feel more attracted to and engaged with Facebook and Instagram. As a result of this, I feel like fundraising specifically wouldn't be worthwhile on Twitter. However, I have already set up an advertisement page as Tim Stewart to get people interested. As Twitter is more of a personal site where people write about themselves on it, I felt that a page from Tim himself would fit better on Twitter over the other social media sites. You are also limited on the size of the message you put up on Twitter, I feel like this could limit the message I would want to put up explaining about the project and why we're doing it and would like the donations. As a result of this, I feel that fundraising on Twitter isn't the best option for our project. 


Youtube
According to wyzowl.com, more video is consumed on YouTube than any other social network. Youtube statistics say that over 1 billion hours of video are watched daily on YouTube in 88 countries in 76 languages. Youtube is the world's second-largest search engine after Google, and the site has a massive reach. Marketers find "overwhelming success" (wyzowl, n/d) on YouTube. Out of the 87% of marketers who have published video content on YouTube, a massive 90% found it to be an effective strategy.

YouTube is also aimed at a younger audience, 18-34 year olds to be exact. Our target audience for VET-MAN is 16-30 years old, therefore fundraising on YouTube is a perfect fit for our age demographic. With the hope that it has been successful for 90% of marketing teams and fits with the age of our target audience, we may gain some donations from putting a video on the site. 

https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/press/

According to mediakix.com Vlogs (video blogs) in particular on YouTube have become very popular. Not everyone is a writer and not every idea is expressed well through writing. Vlogs are for those interested in sharing their thoughts, advice, expertise, comedy, day-to-day life through talking into a camera. Just like a blog is defined by its frequency of new and updated posts, vlogging needs regularity and the creator of the channel needs to publish videos daily, weekly or on some sort of schedule to keep up with the consistency of other vlogs. 

Similarly to blogging, vlogging has undergone an evolution over the last decade that has taken it from a wild frontier to a widely accepted and high popular form of content, it can even be said that it has replaced traditional TV programming. Vlogging is impacting the future of media in many ways.

Vlogging caught on for the same reasons blogging did, it gave people an outlet for their passions and expertise etc. The video blog format fostered deeper and more personal connections between creators and audiences. People feel as though they can relate to bloggers because they talk about their day-to-day life and troubles they've faced. If people watching have faced the same thing then they will connect with the vlogger more - this is then how the vlogger builds a fan base called subscribers.

Luckily for us Katie has her own YouTube channel. She has 40,683 subscribers which is really impressive. The more subscribers she has, the more people will see her videos. Vlogging has really grown over the years, to prove this I can relate it to Katie's channel because 3 years ago she had 6,000 subscribers and this has increased by 34,000 to make the 40+ amount now.

In order to see whether her channel is a good place to fundraise for VET-MAN or not, I had a look at her videos and looked to see how she bonded with her subscribers, and how regularly she uploaded videos onto it. Katie posts many simple chat videos where she just talks to the camera about personal issues, what she gets up to during the day and she often uploads fashion videos. She always asked her audience what sort of video they would rather see, and whichever they ask for she will make. This shows that she bonds with her subscribers really well and the fact that they can be struggling with something and ask her to do a video on it means that she's on that personal level with them as well. She regularly posts videos, they've slowed down slightly since we've been back at uni but she is still consistent and each week is still gaining more subscribers. 

As a result of this, I believe that fundraising on Katie's YouTube channel will be a good idea. She will be on the same level as our target audience, 16-30 year olds and with 40,638 subscribers, we can guarantee a lot of views, and hopefully some donations. I asked her if she could talk about our project and what we are doing with it. I also asked her to share the link for the donation page and to follow our Facebook and Instagram accounts to keep updated on the project. I've asked her to talk about the project when she can in new videos so her subscribers are reminded of the project and the donation link.


By creating a GoFundMe page, it allowed me to share our idea over social media and gives a link for people to donate if they wanted to help us out. I shared this over my Facebook and Instagram account, and Alex and Katie did too. I also had a few extra shares from friends and family so now the post has got further afield to people I am not connected with on my social media. The further it goes online, the better as more people will see it, meaning that there is a bigger possibility of someone wanting to donate. 

I have set myself a target to share this on my social media accounts most times during the week, reminding people to donate.

Leaflets (flyers)

I considered leaflets before researching into different fundraising methods, just to get different types of people rather than people who only go on social media. The majority of people have a social media account of some sort, whether it be Facebook or YouTube but this doesn't mean that everyone aged between 16-30 has a social media account. I personally know a couple of people who don't have Facebook, the biggest social network in the world. So my fundraising attempts wouldn't even get to those people if I only tried through the online platforms. This is why I wanted to create a fundraising leaflet so I had something in paper that I could print out.

I researched into advice when making a fundraising leaflet to make sure I was including the correct information on the leaflet. I need to be careful and not confuse it with an advertisement. Through this research, I learnt to remember the purpose of the leaflet is to inspire people to fundraise for our project. It's important to have the information about the film on the leaflet but don't put too much on it. Aim the focus of the leaflet on what people can do - donate towards our budget. 

I need to make sure I put the Facebook page and Instagram account on the leaflet because then if people want more information in what they are donating towards then they can look at the online platforms to find out. This way I am not overloading people with information on the leaflet, if this was the case then they may not even read it if it had too much writing on it. As I've found out through my research on Instagram, people engage better to photos rather than writing. As a result of this, I will ensure my poster has photos of our test shoots. This means the public can look at the photos and then read on if they are interested. As we are working with birds of prey, the test shoot photos should really interest people as they aren't the standard animals you'd expect someone to feature in a film. 

The main approach to take when creating a fundraising leaflet is to keep it fun and positive. People want to feel like they will be making a difference by donating towards our project.

Keeping this advice in mind, I created a fundraising leaflet. I made mine similar to how a poster looks where it's all written on one A4 piece of paper rather than folding it like the traditional leaflet. I feel like by having the information and photos on one side will be easier for people to look at and they would be more likely to read it, rather than if they had to pick it up and look at the different sides. I tried my best to keep it simple with little writing but I had to include the essential information such as the synopsis, and donation information otherwise the leaflet wouldn't make any sense.

My fundraising leaflet

I thought carefully about where to post the leaflet. Even though it's not aimed at an online audience, I still had to think about our target audience. As we are creating a film aimed at young people. I immediately thought of the UCA campus in Rochester as a very large amount of the students who attend are within our target age range, therefore I can post one in the canteen. I also work in a supermarket where they've employed a lot of young people as Christmas temps at the moment, but I work with a lot of young people anyway so I can post one in our staff room as well. Somewhere like an elderly care home wouldn't have the same effect because the people who live there aren't within our target audience. If someone donates towards something then they are going to want to see what their money is going to. As a result of this, it would be unfair to put one of the leaflets in an environment like this because the sitcom isn't aimed towards their average age range. I have easy access to a care home as I know the manager of one, but I thought it isn't about how easy it is to get a leaflet out, it's more important as to who it's aimed at and I should base my leaflet location on that.

From my earlier research about different ways to fundraise, there were a couple methods I didn't carry out. I didn't do the merchandise, networking or fundraisers because of our low budget. Keeping this in mind, we couldn't have created a fundraiser or hired a bar, or got t-shirts printed because of the price of them. However, it was good to see the really diverse ways that people can fundraise, with some of them I hadn't even thought of. As we have a young audience of 16-30 year olds, I also tried to stay on their level and mainly promoted our fundraising through crowdfunding websites like GoFundMe and on social media. I felt that it was important to put up leaflets because like the advice said previously, they still work. In order to keep with our age demographic I specifically put them up in places that would have our target audience, such as the main University campus and my place of work. 

References:

- Kaplan, B. (2017). 7 Simple Ways To Raise Money For Your Next Film Production. Available: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/how-to-raise-money-for-your-movie. Last accessed 10th Nov 2018.

- wyzowl. (n/d). Why Video is Exploding on Social Media in 2018. Available: https://www.wyzowl.com/video-social-media-2018/. Last accessed 10th Nov 2018.

- https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/press/

- DeMers, J. (2017). Why Instagram Is The Top Social Platform For Engagement (And How To Use It). Available: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2017/03/28/why-instagram-is-the-top-social-platform-for-engagement-and-how-to-use-it/#18b26a7936bd. Last accessed 10th Nov 2018.

- Kemp, B. (n/d). Producing a fundraising leaflet. Available: http://www.adeptdesign.co.uk/blog/blog/post/21-producing-a-fundraising-leaflet. Last accessed 10th Nov 2018.