Recent updates

Seven days to go...

An update for Upfest 2016 - Europe's largest street art & graffiti festival

May 10 2016

bigUP to all our crowd funding supporters!

It's been a crazy few weeks here at Upfest HQ and we're stoked that over 200 of you have supported our fundsurfer campaign already, we're now on the homeward stretch but with just under £4,000 still needed to hit target one final push is needed!  If we don't hit our goal of £15,000 then we wont receive a penny, so if you've supported please share the project with your friends and help us get over the finishing line enabling us to release your rewards, support the festival artists with materials and help us keep the festival free to the thousands planning on attending.

Keep up to date on how we're doing at www.fundsurfer.com/upfest

Please share with your friends

Thanks again foryour support!

The Upfest Crew

Recording update!

An update for Victoria Klewin & The TrueTones debut album

May 9 2016

Hello everybody,

Firstly, please accept my sincere apologies for not being in touch with you sooner. I am so very grateful for your support and would never want any of you to feel as if it's not appreciated. The start of the year was pretty horrendous for me personally (I'll spare you the details) and then we were very busy recording throughout March and April...so I feel as though my feet have only just touched the ground! Recording the album was like a life line for me during a very difficult time, but it was also a bit of a whirlwind of emotions. As it currently stands, we have finished recording all the songs and are now just about finishing off the mixing. Next step is to send it off to be mastered and getting all the artwork and packaging sorted. I can tell you that the album will be 11 tracks (of pure musical delight!), 9 of which we recorded with Ben Capp at The Island and 2 with Jeff Spencer at J&J Studio earlier in 2015. It's going to be a very eclectic affair, a true mix of soul, jazz, blues and funk originals...with other influences appearing too. I've done this on purpose because I want to create music I love and not try to pigeon-hole it just for the sake of marketability. Call me crazy, but I have faith that people can handle more than one musical genre in a single album! I know you guys will! :)

So...I promised you exclusive content and here it comes! Here's a slideshow of photos from our time in the studio, which will be shortly followed by a short video which I need to edit together from all the various clips I've collected. You'll get to see and hear the album coming together, with a few sneaky previews of the tracks!

http://www.photosnack.com/victoriaklewin/vkttalbumrecordingexclusivecontentforfundsurferbackers.html

Thank you for making this possible!

Victoria x

Urgent collection needed. Please pledge and share now!

An update for Calais Refugee Solidarity Bristol

May 9 2016

Hi everyone - supplies are running very low in the Calais warehouse - so much so that some distributions are unable to take place at all.

The situation is still very bad indeed so we need to do a big push this week.

We will be holding a collection for urgent items this week. We ask you to please stick to this list only - there will be a quick turnaround and this will help us check and sort things quickly to ensure everything we send is suitable.

Usual rules apply - clean, washed, undamaged items only please. Small and medium items only.

Drop-off is at The Palestine Museum 11am - 7pm. 

Please do share this with anyone who can help! Thanks everyone. 

Just 4 days left

An update for The Imperial Plan by The Fable

May 7 2016

Hi pledgers,

Just wanted to thank you again for investing. It doesn't look like I will hit the overall target but as I am not in a gigging band building a fan base I sadly don't have a huge email list of addresses by which to promote it. I have had to rely on social media and people sharing the links.

However, your help has enabled me to crack on with the studio work and several tracks have advanced dramatically over the past few weeks. I am even considering setting a date for the album release as 1st July 2016 (exactly 100 years since the first day of the Battle of the Somme). I shall keep you posted on that one.

In the meantime, here is the latest version of a very short but important track in my story. I wanted to depict the troops marching through their town after signing up to fight en-mass. Friends, workmates and family members all rushed to join up in the early months of the war - the Pals Battalions as they were known.

Conscription didn't actually come into force until late spring of 1916. This track is designed to depict the patriotic nature of those early soldiers and their excitement at going off on such a big 'adventure'. The track is yet to be mixed or mastered but I hope you like it.

https://soundcloud.com/thefable_ww1/hearts-full-of-pride-arr4

Mike (The Fable)

NB. I sounds better on headphones that on your average computer speakers :-)

Over 1000 backers!

An update for Help Refugees - #holidaysforgood - shelter campaign

May 6 2016

INCREDIBLE: We have just passed the 1000 backers mark. I wanted to send a quick update and thank you for your response and participation in this campaign.

We are still hopeful of reaching our £50,000 target with 18 days left to donate.

Please tell as many people as you can and share this campaign on social media, let's keep this momentum going!

£50,000 will help 345 people, can we do it?

NEW UPDATES

An update for Bristol's First Cat Cafe

May 3 2016

Dear Supporters

It has been 6 weeks since our crowdfunding campaign has been funded! I apologise I have been silent recently. Now I will be much more active and keep you posted on the developments of You&Meow. But I needed to be fully focused on legal aspects of the cafe after our campaign closed. SO! Now I am back and I would like to update you all on the major things happening recently.

1. Premises - As many of you may remember I found potential premises during our crowdfunding campaign, but the offer didn’t go through as landlord hasn’t been interested in renting it for a long term. I am currently looking for new premises. And here I would like to kindly ask all of you for your kind patience with our Opening Date. My dream is to open as soon as possible (this summer) and I believe many of you can’t wait either. But for this type of business where animals and food are involved together premises is much complex and little bit more difficult to find. I met with Holly Hedge Animal Sanctuary last Thursday, the shelter where our cats will be coming from, and they also stated the importance of premises. I take it very personally and with much respect to make sure the business is safe for everyone - our cats and customers.

2. Online store - I am working on launching an online store where we will start selling cat inspired merchandising. I will be doing some testing with the products next following days, but soon our online store should be up and running. I will keep you posted :)

3. Recruitment - By the end of May I will release a form where you can submit your details if you are interested in our job opportunities.

Thank you so much again for your wonderful support and patience. And again, if you have any further questions, feel free to contact me via email on youandmeowcafe@gmail.com

Ewa

"Breathe. Nothing is under control."

An update for Support our debut feature film -- 7x7!

May 2 2016

Hello everyone,

THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO!! But, hey, you know what? WE'RE DOING IT! We're shifting up into a higher gear and loving every minute of it. We'd be lying if we said it doesn't feel out of control and overwhelming sometimes, but we have such an incredible team and so much support -- from all of YOU, for starters! -- that we are handling it all with passion and grace.

This week we will be hiring the rest of our department heads and heading up to San Francisco to secure our shooting permits and do a preliminary tech scout of our shooting locations up there. We have decided to start principal photography in the foggy city and then finish up the shoot in Los Angeles. 

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of spending some digital facetime with two of our LEAD ACTORS! We confirmed our three principals last week and it was so much fun to get to know them and speak to them about the script. I saw these characters who Katherine and I have lived with for 2 years on the page come to life in physical form. WOW! Our lawyers are doing their thing today and tomorrow, and we can't wait to make the announcement once the contracts are signed, sealed and delivered.

As generous contributors to our campaign, you will be the FIRST to hear the news! 

Do you want to continue supporting us? Do you know 4 people who you could reach out to personally to ask for a contribution on our behalf? If you have friends and family who like movies, have them try this one on for size: "Do you want the most exclusive movie ticket of the century?? $25 will make you among the first to see 7x7 when it comes out!!"

I mean, really. Who could pass that up??

Thank you again for your continued support! Stay tuned this week for more exciting updates!

Your micro-budget pioneers,

Liam, Katherine and Lindsay

5-weeks from "ACTION!"

An update for Support our debut feature film -- 7x7!

Apr 28 2016

Hello everyone,

We are 5 weeks away from calling "ACTION!" and rolling camera. Can you believe it?? There's still so much to do, but everything is starting to fall into place.

Our main focus has been the casting puzzle, and I'm excited to share that we have confirmed our first talent! She will be playing Marcy, one of the two female leads. We're close to confirming our other two leads as well, so we'll be announcing the whole package officially when they've all signed the dotted line.

We're doing a lot of hiring in other departments as well -- director of photography, line producer, first assistant director, unit production manager. The team is growing, and the requisites for us are passion, experience and GOOD VIBES! This is going to be a fun and exciting shoot, but a challenging 18 days as well. We need to create a family who will all have each other's backs, keep complaining to a minimum and never forget to have fun along the way.

I finished the first draft of my shot lists yesterday. This is, essentially, the movie on paper. A description in technical camera terms of the scenes that have been playing in my head for two years. It fills two small legal pads. I'm looking forward to sitting down with my cinematographer to collaborate further with him, and I'm going to find a storyboard artist to work with to turn the descriptions into pictures, which will support us a lot on set. You can get a sneak peek of Scenes 1, 84 and 85 in the picture below... :)

Thank you again for your contributions! We're almost at 50 backers already. Next stop: 100! Please continue to spread the word to anyone else who might contribute. 

With love and gratitude,

Liam, Katherine and Lindsay

#holidaysforgood - Help Refugees - Can we hit £50,000?

An update for Help Refugees - #holidaysforgood - shelter campaign

Apr 27 2016

UPDATE: Can we hit £50,000? 

Wow! Thank you so much for the donations that have been rolling in thick and fast. 

Our original target was to raise over £25,000 and so create shelter for over 170 people. In less than two weeks we exceeded this initial goal and increased the target to £35,000 - enough to create 60 shelters and help 240 people. Now, only seven days later, we have met that target as well and have been completely blown away by the response to this campaign. 

The question now is, can we hit £50,000 and help 345 people?

There are 27 days left to go, please keep donating, sharing and pushing this campaign. 

My conversations with Help4Heroes

An update for The Imperial Plan by The Fable

Apr 23 2016

Hi pledgers,

I just wanted to update you on the project. There are still 18 days left. Pledges have stalled this week for some reason but I have put a lot of effort in today to try to kindle more interest.

For a while now I have been planning to talk to Help4Heroes to ask for their help in promoting my finished album. In return I would give some of the profits to the charity. This week I decided to bring that discussion forward and have started to talk to them about it. It is my intent to donate at least 50% of any profits the album makes to relevant charities - especially if they help me to promote it.

Perhaps by starting to promote it now they can help me find more backers, finish the project sooner and at the same time It will all get a little more publicity.

In addition to Help4Heroes I have also been posting the links onto various Poppy Appeal Facebook pages and the main Royal British Legion page. If anyone can think of other ways I might be able to get the word out I would be grateful for your advice.

You can email me at mike@bmin.co.uk.

Thank you once again for your pledge. I really appreciate it and have been in the studio working on the rest of the tracks knowing that your money is going to help me cover the cost.

All the best,

Mike