It has been a busy few weeks we have most of our Head of Departments (HoDs) sorted, a few who have first priority are getting back to me in the next few weeks, they will do it if their other work they are negotiating falls through.

We have done some location scouting; I’m waiting to hear back from a few more places before I get photos of them but all seems to be panning out well in the locations department. Have a look at one possible location.

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The Store

Many of you have asked for t-shirt and merch to help support Casimir Effect, well after hunting around for the best deals I can get, we now have a store. At the moment we are limiting it to a single colour with 2 designs, once we get more orders in we can expand the colour range and designs. The next designs will be Dr. Alice Sharpe followed by Cromwell Jackson, each one will be rendered in a similar manner to Dr. Robert Cameron’s.

We are making sure all the t-shirts and clothes we offer are of decent quality, many of them are from Fruit of the Loom stock or equivalent quality so should last many years. We can do over sized items on request, however because these are hard to source we cannot offer them as part of the size range. But if you have a size query for an oversize item drop us an e-mail and we shall see what we can find.

We are also open to suggestions of other items you would be interested in buying, at the moment we are looking into Mugs, Caps and Mouse Mats. Once we have a good quality source for these items we will add them to the store, any other suggestions we will look into as they come in.

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Go to the store now.

Now everything seems to be picking up in pace we need to generate more awareness for Casimir Effect which is where you come in. With our limited budget we cannot afford massive advertising expenditure so we do as much as we can with what we have and hope that you can help.

Talk to People

This is by far the easiest and cheapest form of promotion; I do it a lot, sometimes I feel as though I have not more to say about my life other than Casimir Effect. You don’t need to go Verbal Diarrhoea lengths to help, but if you have any friends who like sci-fi or like a romance with a twist then let them know and send them a link. This is great for forums, Twitter, Facebook and any other place where you talk to people with similar interests. Also as we have Gareth and Neil if you know any Gareth fans or Matrix fans that’s another angle you can use on the people you know.

Banner and Website Promotions

We have provided a selection of icons and banners for you to use, these can be found on the Viral Marketing section. Please feel free to use them on your websites blog and whatever you can squeeze them on to. Like taking to people this is a cheap way to help out and get the word spread.

Social Networks

Many people use Facebook, Myspace, twitter and countless other way to connect with the rest of the world. We try to keep our main site as up-to-date as possible, and keep Myspace and Facebook topped up when we can. However if you see something of interests on one of Casimir Effects site pages, tweet it blog it or do whatever you can to get it out there. Re-Tweeting our Twitter posts is a fantastic way to expand our network of friends.

Tombstones

At the top of each blog update there are a number of popup tombstones each for a different way to spread the word about an update. There is everything from Facebook status updates, through Twitter updates and Diggs. If you can click on one or two of these which suite your style then it will help us spread the word

Internet Campaigns

Flyers

This is one of the elements of promotion that will cost something but can bring a whole new audience to Casimir Effect. In our Viral Marketing section we have flyers to download. These as simple flyers can be cheaply copied please don’t spend massive amounts of your own money printing stunning colour versions, just a print and cheap B&W photocopy is all it needs. Then cut them up and spread them around at gigs, college, university, work, conventions, events, festivals, well anywhere you think you can get away with dropping some flyers. If you work in a shop you could pop them in people’s bags when packing them or in packages if you sell stuff online.

Fan Fiction

It’s probably too early for people to look at writing fan-fic, but to let you know we love the stuff. The only thing we ask is that if you do write some you put that it is Copyright Casimir Productions as it is our world and characters. Hey we may even put some of the best stories up on the site, we will try to link to them if we can. We aren’t opposed to  NC-17 slash-fiction, at the end of the day it’s a bit of adult fun; however we cannot link to NC-17 Slash-Fiction is as Casimir Effect is aimed at a general audience where such stories may be considered inappropriate.

Funding Update

We are 40% of the way to our first Funding goal, thank you to everyone who has helped. Our first midpoint is coming up we might be £150 sort of this if everything keep going as it is. It just means that little bit extra needs to be found over Christmas. Other than that it’s fantastic that so many of you want to help.

Well the fundraising is going well, thanks to all of you who are bidding, and spreading the word. Were over 20% of the way to our first goal, and hopefully we can hit that target. Next week were starting to dig in to funding from various film governing bodies to see if they are willing to help out. Were also hoping that some of you can dig a bit deeper and donate a few pounds here and there you could even ask your friends to chip in some change at the end of the week or something. Every penny helps.

First Budget Goal

£1,604.31 GBP / £5,000 GBP

31st December 2009

Second Budget Goal

£1,604.31 GBP / £10,000 GBP

15th March 2010

[wordbay] [/wordbay]

Our Main eBay page >>

Well were back home now, Gareth has gone off to film The Bill then off to the USA for the conventions he is doing over there.

The last day was good, since Kai arrived the stage became a more interesting place, as he and Gareth worked it. Thanks to Kerry for the donation of a few items to eBay, these will be going up in the next few days.  We never made it to the party so I hope those who were there enjoyed it; I heard about some of it and wished I wasn’t so knackered. Maybe at the SFX con.

Well now back to business, I’ve just got the accounts up-to-date; I have a few tweaks to make as it seems if your Java isn’t up-to-date. I’ll create an alternate menu system for people who are in this situation, so the site may be a bit odd over the next day or so.

Also a thanks to Banana’s and co for making sure every breathing person was given a flyer.

Well the Saturday was fun, Lydia and I finally got our VIP passes and were able to do stuff unhindered. We caught a few of the talks, most of which went down the usual angle of talks at the hub other than Gareth refusing to talk about John Barrowman. The green room was good better than most I have been to at conventions, at least they catered for all tastes and made as healthy as possible, the green room people should pat themselves on the back. We got talking to a few people about the film and will be receiving a few donations from con-goers to auction off for the film. So keep your eyes on our eBay page over the coming months.  Sadly we didn’t get any pictures of yesterday; I’ll try to get some today.

There was a surprise visit from Kai Own who ended up doing a comedy sketch with Gareth, which from what I can guess was written for John Barrowman and James Marsters, Kai and Gareth still had the crowd screaming. Then after the hectic day we all got chance to just sit and chill as a hand full of people came over to natter.

Not sure what to expect today, Kai hasn’t been booked on anything but we presume he is talking over James Marsters slots. So once more we brave the microcosm of the Hub 3.