Now that we have almost reached our funding target, the Glorious Central Committee of Leamington Underground Cinema has permitted us to share the initial outline of the events that will make up this year’s festival.
At this stage, while the hastily press-ganged organising committee are still waiting for the drugs to fully wear off and becoming accustomed to their new subterranean lodgings, details are still a bit vague. However, more info will be filled in gradually over the next couple of weeks.
The beancounters in the bunker finance office are looking more relaxed than usual as it turns out that we have almost hit our funding target of £3000.
Many thanks to everyone who has pledged or spread the word about this campaign and the festival. Of course we’re not quite there yet so please encourage everyone to keep pledging on the kickstarter page – there may even be a special surprise for whoever takes us over the £3k mark.
The target we set was the bare minimum for putting on five days worth of events – but if we are able to raise more than we will be able to improve the events on offer and expand the programme.
An outline of events at the festival will be hitting the internet this Monday 4th August which will consist of 9 screenings & events from the 7th to the 11th.
If we are able to hit these stretch targets then we will add the following
£3200 — Add a very special extra mystery feature film to the video game award event
£3500 — Add special musical guests to the Thursday night screening
£4000 — We will add a new event featuring a World Cinema classic screening
£5000 — We will put on a free public screening of a cult classic movie in Leamington Spa in the next 6 months
To help give our kickstarter campaign a gentle and understanding boot up the rear end, the Glorious Central Committee has authorised some additional motivation. The next ten backers, pledging £25 or more will get an additional gift in the shape of a cool, original cinema lobby card from one of the following classic movies: Blade Runner, ET, Close Encounters and Saturday Night Fever.
So get pledging asap and a rather nice bit of cinema history will be yours. The LUC FESTIVAL 2014 Kickstarter campaign page can be found right here:
After a spectacular first week, the LUC Festival 2014 Kickstarter Campaign, has been ticking over quietly for the last seven days. After a brief investigation, the Glorious Central Committee’s Special Inquisitions Squad have concluded that this is because “The weather has been amazing. Everyone is outside, skiving off work and enjoying the sunshine rather than thinking about film festival crowd-funding campaigns”.
Based on these findings, our leaders came up with two plans:
1. Build a giant nuclear powered laser device which when fired into the sky will produce unseasonably arctic conditions and force everyone inside to look at their computers and think about exciting indoor activities for later in the year.
or
2. Do loads of e-mailing, general PR and write a blog update titled “LUC Festival Kickstarter – 3 weeks to go”.
After the debate on which option to choose snowballed into a cavalcade of terrible puns related to cold temperatures, mostly delivered in vaguely East-European accents, the laser project was abandoned and, well, here we are.
At present the total has reached £1831, which is a marvellous 61% of our £3000 target – with 3 weeks left there is still plenty of time to get involved. There are still plenty of sponsorship opportunities available, although the marvellous people at Aspect Consultants and Emerald IT are sponsoring the short film prize and video game prize respectively.
You can back the festival for as little as £1, with rewards starting at £5 pledged. If you want to be sure of your seat at all events a festival pass can be yours for £25. Above that we’ve got all sorts of goodies available, including exclusive artwork, PR packages, a special song written especially for you and even the chance to be one of our esteemed panel of judges.
Due to the way that kickstarter works – the festival will only be funded if we reach or exceed the £3000 target by the 15th August. Otherwise there will be no funding and a much smaller festival – possibly hosted in an abandoned caravan up on bricks in a bleak pub car park in the middle of the night.
Taking a more positive view, if we raise more money than we need then we will look to expand the festival or put on another free event in Leamington sometime soon.
So please get pledging, or spread the word as widely and wildly as you can without breaking any really serious laws.
We’ve got a brand new reward for one lucky backer of our Kickstarter campaign:
AN EXCLUSIVE BESPOKE SONG WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY LEWIS J SMITH
This is a very special and strictly unique, one-off reward. Leamington musical sensation, Lewis J Smith, will write a song all about you (or perhaps more interestingly someone you nominate) and will perform it at an event during the festival for you and everyone else to enjoy. We’ll even bung it on a CD for you.
Just think , you can get Lewis to serenade you, or perhaps someone that you’d like to send a special message to, while also contributing to this year’s festival. You could even team up and get a song written for one of your mates, we promise that Lewis will not make it too much of a creepy and strange experience – unless that is exactly what you are after.
Check out some of Lewis’s material here (https://soundcloud.com/lewisjsmith) and follow him rabidly on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LewisJSmith. The cost of this exceptionally unique reward is £275, but when you consider that he’ll cerainly be rather famous soon, that could turn out to be an absolute bargain.
With 28 days to go and almost a quarter of the funds already raised the LUC Fest 2014 Kickstarter Campaign has started far better than we expected. If you’ve been thinking about backing the festival or need some good reasons to help persuade your friends/family/warden as to why they should pitch in, or let you have your allowance early, here are the top ten reasons that the irritating hipsters in the marketing department have come up with…
1. To make sure that there will be an ace film festival in Leamington this year.
If you came along last year you will know what we mean, but if you didn’t make it – have a gander at all the stuff that happened at the first LUC Fest. We want to put on five days of cool feature screenings, loads of shorts and unique film events at venues around the town.
Also, we are – as far as we know – the only film festival that puts on a quiz at our award ceremony. You don’t get that at Cannes.
2. To make sure that you will have access to all events and avoid the bitter sting of disappointment
There were a few screenings last year where, we were completely sold-out and full up – latecomers reduced to peering in through the door. Don’t let this happen to you this year. Festival pass holders will get entrance to all events and the option to reserve a seat at all events to make sure that you don’t miss any of the programme. Grab your pass on our Kickstarter page.
3. To keep it free for filmmakers to submit their work
Most film festivals make money by charging entrance fees to filmmakers who want to submit their work for consideration. We want to keep the LUC festival free for all filmmakers. Removing the financial barrier provides young or hard up artists all over the world with the opportunity to get their film screened in front of an audience.
4. To help establish Leamington the home of a renowned short film festival
Keeping entry free with a £1000 prize for the best film has enabled the LUC short film prize (in only its second year) to already attract over 1200 submissions from 75 different countries! If we can successfully fund the festival and short film prize for the next few years, then we have the chance of establishing Leamington Spa as the home of a widely recognised short film competition.
5. To make sure you have one of our exceedingly unique, customised festival passes
Honestly, they are going to be brilliant – the design is under wraps at the moment but everyone who backs the festival to the tune of at least £25 will get their own customised piece of LUC Festival history!
6. To get loads of positive PR for your company or organisation
Individuals, companies and organisations that are able to back the festival to the amount of £125 or more will get the benefit of advertising at all festival events, and from £250 upwards will appear on the festival posters, programmes and even in our trailer. Last time round the festival was attended by around 500 people in total, the posters were absolutely everywhere around the town and the trailer was viewed about a thousand times online.
Added to this exposure will be the less tangible but equally important increase in karma for all involved.
7. To support alternative, cult, non-mainstream film screenings
Leamington Underground Cinema is all about showing brilliant but less well-known films. The local area is well served for mainstream cinema and film events, but we want to provide screenings that champion cool, alternative films. This doesn’t mean that we want to screen incredibly difficult or willfully obscure material – but there is a whole wealth of brilliantly entertaining, but little-seen cinema out there that we want to bring to the local audience. Check out last year’s programme to get an idea of our ethos.
8. To help launch our first ever video Game contest
As Leamington Spa is a hotbed of game developing activity, we thought it would be great to create some kind of innovative, mutant, hybrid crossover with our film festival. As with the short film prize The Emerald It LUC Video Game Prize 2014 is completely free to enter and there will be a £500 for the best film-themed game submitted. There will be a glittering award ceremony where the best games will be on display – check out the rules and entry form asap.
9. To help support the arts and culture scene in Leamington Spa
There are a whole load of great artists, musicians, developers and filmmakers fuelling a scene that is bubbling away beneath the respectable veneer of Royal Leamington Spa, we want to provide a platform for this stuff to come to the surface and bring some recognition and an audience to all the talent that is lurking around the town.
10. To make sure you get to see the full LUC festival 2014 Trailer
Yes. The successful funding of the festival will reveal the continuing fate of our professional and unflustered announcer/hostage – last time we saw him he was in a car boot…
Now that we have almost reached our funding target, the Glorious Central Committee of Leamington Underground Cinema has permitted us to share the initial outline of the events that will make up this year’s festival.
leamingtonundergroundcinema.wordpress.com 