As noted in a prior blog post, George and I along with a friend, went to Autosport International [The UK's biggest motorsport show] with the intention of getting companies interested, along with buying my race equipment. As the producer, George was in charge of speaking to companies and getting their interest. This worked, with around 15 companies saying they would like to speak further. Along with this, we picked up a copy of the Autosport show guide which included emails from most companies at the event. As stated in my earlier post, I sent out an email to the majority of relevant companies in this guide.
This has very much been a team game, but I was happy to receive a reply from companies that are interested in working with us. I am fortunate to have a social media following which allows me to give possible sponsors a greater reason to partner with us. As companies would be sponsoring me as much as the project, that is why I felt it was important for me to send these emails. George was following up the 15+ companies he spoke to at the event, but he is yet to have a positive response. There has been a clear communication between us to ensure we do not have any overlap between possible sponsors. This has enabled both myself and George to be more confident that we will meet our current budget, including the cost of all my racing equipment which I have paid for out of my own money.
We have now got strong leads with at least 7 companies who are willing to sponsor us. Some have taken the option of £150 that we offered, however, some have decided to provide additional funds which will lead to further/bigger promotion throughout our documentary. I am very happy that all of the sponsor interest was created by me being proactive. I could have waited for a few weeks after the event to send out emails, but I wanted to ensure we took the opportunity to get companies interested before they set aside budget elsewhere. I am very proud that I have been able to create these deals with companies who see the benefit of helping us. We are on course to secure around £2000 worth of investment if the current sponsors all come in. This would be massive for the project and would allow us to explore further subjects and sequences that we did not think we could afford when starting this project. These extra funds will certainly make sure this documentary is a polished product, as it will now allow us to fully explore the subject matter.
This is a mockup that I have created to show how my race suit will look if all the sponsors oblige with their promises. I m very excited to see so many large companies willing to back our project. This fills me with a lot of confidence going forward.
Along with finding sponsors, I suggested to George that he contact camera companies to try and obtain some additional action cameras for our project. These cameras will be essential for the race license, testing and race day sequences. They allow a different perspective which will give us a lot of coverage from these sequences. As a producer, it was George's job to email these companies and he did so with success. He obtained a reply from the large camera company Olympus. They have sent us a 4K action camera (see right) which will give us a great perspective from inside the car. After George mentioned this to the group, I went online to research the camera. The quality is fantastic and exactly what we would be expecting from a 4K camera, but it has a really wide angle lens which could distort my cinematic vision. George will need to do some camera testing to ensure he knows exactly what the camera performs like and how we can best utilise it. I have already mentioned to the group about my concern with this camera, but I know we can use it to good effect somewhere. We will be understanding George's thoughts over the coming days where I hope he will provide us with footage and a firm understanding of what this camera can deliver. This will be vital to ensure we have no issues with this camera when shooting, and get the shots we want.
As George was struggling to maintain the level of emails I was asking for, (as he was prioritising the dissertation) I decided to email a few extra companies hoping to secure a secondary action camera. This was a big success and within a couple of hours, we had secured another 4K action camera for our project. This one was from a company called OLFI [One Life Film It] who really seemed engaged with the idea. They really wanted to be apart of the project and sent us the top-of-the-range camera they had on offer. I was really excited to have an up-and-coming camera company on board as they can certainly understand the struggles that we are going through with equipment. The camera was not as high quality as the one George has secured, but it would certainly come in very useful for a secondary action shot from inside the car. Over the coming days, I am going to properly test this camera and ensure I know what its strengths and weaknesses are. This will allow us to understand how to best utilise what equipment we have and ensure my cinematic style is not compromised.
I had wanted to secure some additional tripods, but as of yet, nobody has responded to George's emails. As a director, I am utilising any spare time I have to help George and Cailan with their roles while understanding what they need from me. I am also currently deciding what to do with contributors, as Billy Monger and another possible contributor have not responded to George's emails. This is concerning as I want to ensure the heart is there but, while we are waiting, I am looking into other contributors who could help tell a similar story.
Helping secure funding and extra equipment has allowed me to keep busy in these early stages when the emphasis is on George to secure contributors and locations along with Cailan creating storyboards, but over the coming week, I will be involved much more as a director. I have been creating updated scripts, giving further details on each scene as well as developing camera plans for each scene. I have been in a constant conversation with the rest of the group to allow new ideas to be created. We have just over a week until we shoot our first main sequence, I am very excited but also worried as I do honestly feel under-prepared, as we still have a lot of things such as media access to be sorted. George is in the process of obtaining this, which will allow us to get the best angles possible for these scenes.
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