Well it’s been a few weeks since our last update, and a busy few weeks it’s been, I haven’t had time to do anything much. This weekend was the first time I had a few evenings off. So I’ll put a lot of things in this post to get you back up to speed with where we are at the moment.

The Clobber

Our costume department is and running, we should have photos soon of the costumes as we get them done we get our publicity shots for each character. I have added them to the gallery for costumes. The Major’s uniform is now complete and I’m heading out tomorrow to collect Cromwell Jackson’s costume. As these will probably be the first to be complete expect them to be some of the first shots on the site.

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Art Department

Our art department is coming together we have found just about everyone we need locally, and will be working with the University of Glamorgan’s Production Design course offering some of the students a chance to get there first professional credit.

We have also started to put our props together and building and painting many of the smaller items. I’ll get some pictures together in the coming week so you can see what we have been up to, also thanks to those who have bought some items for us. Anything that is bought for us will be sent back to the buyer after the film with a certificate of authenticity, or auctioned off if requested to raise funds for marketing.

Locations

We have our bay location sorted and signed up, also the steel works is all signed up so that’s 2 down. We are currently looking at Cardiff Coal Exchange as our major location, were now to the point where we need to get a price sorted and book it with them. They seem quite happy to have us go wild and get what we want, so hopefully they can be good for a price, as we will hold our marketing fundraiser there with a special preview of some of the scenes. I’m going to have a word with them about costs for getting local bands in to see if I can get a discount.

There are a few photos of the Coal Exchange and Atrium in the gallery, were still working with the Atrium but as were using most of their students as our art department we should get a good deal.

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Fundraising

Everything is going well on the fund raising angle at the moment; I haven’t had time to do the accounts, so the total is a little out of date. A rough estimate we expect we’re well on our way to £8000. I’ll get to the accounts on Monday and update the fundraising section.

Also the #barrowpants campaign is going well. Yes these are John Barrowman’s boxershorts, yes really, the one he wore for his number on Children in Need. The original winner has kindly donated them to help raise funds. They are on eBay now and ready for your bidding.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150410878244

We have also created an Amazon Wishlist, for anyone who wants to get us some props or other things. However it seems to not work for market place items, so if there is something and it won’t ship to Casimir Productions. Feel free to paypal us the money with instruction of what you want to buy for Casimir Effect.

Anything bought direct for the film will be offered to whoever has purchased it for us, once we have done with it, or auctioned on request. We will create certificates of authenticity for each item.

We have the support of Torchwood Australia who are doing a but around there group to help out, we thank you for your help and hope to make it over there one day fr a film festival. And Save Ianto Jones have put one of there fundrasing planing into full swing, for the few weeks over Valentines Day. It good to see that Gareth’s fanbase is coming together and and showing there support. It’s going to be a fun an exciting ride over the next few months and we hope that we can give something back to those who are supporting us. With set photo’s regular blog updates during filming and post-production.

SFX Weekender

What we got up to this weekend, well…

We met many new faces and found we had sent them stuff, it’s nice to put a face to a name. Thanks to all those that came over to our chalet and wasted much of the night chatting about life the universe and everything; big hugs to you all. We spent most of our time at in the signing area selling our wares and handing out flyers and generally saying hi a lot.

Well we arrived Friday evening with the #barrowpants, and had a few people coming knocking just to see them. I think it was around midnight we heard Sarah, Tess, Giorgia, and someone whose name escapes me (comment here so I can make a mental note) and dragged them in. I think we had Carol-Anne and Fee turn up at one point and a number of other people who came to say hi and have their photo taken with the #barrowpants.

The next day was not so much hectic, but we wish we had a bit more of an idea of the structure of the day. Sitting behind a table selling is harder than you think. We did well though and the remaining stock will be added to the website in the next few days along with a new print of Dr. Bob from Eloise Moffat. I overheard a lot of Cosplay people talking about Dr. Bob’s outfit, Well hopefully we will be getting the Dr. Bob publicity shots up soon. If anyone wants outfit tips we can do a breakdown of each costume and where we got each part from and what was created for the film. It would be good to see a lot of Casimir Effect Cosplay at future events.

The awards were interesting and fun, Robert Rankin made it and the random Tennant Cosplayer made the show. After that it was back to the chalet, were we had more people come over for a natter and a few drinks. Nicki, Fee, Carol-Anne and a few others turned up to escape the music of Pat Sharpe, and Neil Buchannan.

The weekend had its problems but they were all managed well and for the first event it went very well and I hope next year is better. At the moment were hoping to be there next year, with a few exclusive clips from the film, lots of Merch, costumes and props. Hey if they want us to do a talk about how we did it then were up for it. So start poking SFX to get us up there on the stage, this also might mean we can get the cast there if they have no work commitments. If we can get something off the ground, we will sponsor an outside party, something low key no loud music, a row of BBQs, marquee and heaters and hopefully a good time for anyone who wants to have the Saturday night chilling and chatting about sci-fi. So let’s start looking at putting together an outside BBQ event and chill out zone. Either way we plan on having a massive chalet party in one of the areas.

Anyway it was a good weekend and we wish we had more time to drink, sleep and party.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CASIMIR EFFECT REACHES THEIR FIRST BUDGET GOAL

Using a unique funding model Casimir Productions is on schedule to reach their budget.

Casimir Effect is a lo-to-no budget film originally developed as a student film; it rapidly developed into something larger and more ambitious. Now Casimir Effect is being developed as a short feature for festival consideration. The aim of the producer and director is to develop high quality science fiction with minimal budget.

Casimir Productions had reached their first funding goal on schedule and they are set to hit their final target ahead of time. This is the first milestone in the development of Casimir Effect, and from here development will go ahead according to plan. With a planned budget of £10,000 GBP the producer is looking at potential investors to push the budget higher to give each department more flexibility and freedom to experiment and produce something stunning.

Instead of using a limited number of high profile investors Casimir Productions are using a model that relies on donations, eBay auctions and special events for supporters. Using unique ideas and the support of Gareth David-Lloyd’s and Neil Rayment’s fan base; Casimir Effect has established a core following of loyal supporters who are helping market and spread the word about the film and everyone involved.

Redeveloping this model during post-production Casimir Productions aims to get sponsorship through their planned festival circuit. With each festival being coordinated and supported by their developing community. Casimir Productions will have a number of promoters ready and eager to give Casimir Effect a strong presence wherever they go.

At this point Casimir Productions would like to thank all those who have helped out fund-raising and promoting the film. Though it’s impossible to list everyone and their individual contributions, they know who they are and should give themselves a pat on the back. With the New Year we will dig in and reach a larger audience and drive forward to our final funding goal.

Casimir Effect: Is a high concept and ambitions film developed as an independent low-to-no budget production. A story of unrequited love set on the backdrop of a temporal paradox. The film will be developed with the assistance of Skillset Screen Academy Wales.

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Press Release No.4 (102.88KB) Added: 02/01/2010 Downloads: 297 CASIMIR EFFECT REACHES THEIR FIRST BUDGET GOAL: Using a unique funding model Casimir Productions is on schedule to reach their budget.

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.

It’s been a few days since I have had chance to sit down and take it the scenery. So let’s try and do this in some level of chronological order. We have had audition for our lead actress; I can’t give names just yet, but she is good and overall fits our ideas of Alice. Next week I’ll pop out a press release confirming everything to do with the main roles.

The auctions are doing well, a big thank you goes to all those bidding, and I do hope you keep vigilant as they seem to have days of jumping around. At least money raised for these should be enough to start developing merchandise for the Hub 3 in Birmingham. Our aim is to make around £5,000 by Christmas 2009, both from merchandise, auctions and private funding.

Wrexham was good, for a small con it did well this year, there were a few names and plenty of interested. I think the only negative I could find was lack of publicity, so it was still quite small. However we should be at the next one with more promotion for us and we will do lots of promotion for Wales Comic-Con. There was mention that the next one will be in about 6 month’s time. I’m unsure at this time if Gareth will be there, I think the general idea was to be, but this all depends on prior commitments.

The Blue Gillespie Gig was good, an odd shape venue, but overall it worked out well. It was good to meet a few of you out there and talk a bit about the film and our plans. The Picture below is by Jann Tarrant. I will say if any of you are looking for a Photographer she is a good choice along with Mark Crowle Groves.

After the gig I was whisked off to the set of the Sherlock Holmes film Gareth is working on, it was interesting to see a full scale shoot in action and see hoe a different crew do things. Everything in this industry is a learning curve, and every film has a different way of doing things.