Firstly, we had great fun at the Art of Digital conference. This was an event put together by our mates at Arts Council England and FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) to promote the use of digital tools within arts organisations. This was really cool as, while everyone should know that “digital tools” and “social media” are hugely useful for artists and creators, it’s very rare that you get such a diverse array of techies, marketers, futurists and artists all together in one place. There’s a good outline of some of the talks that took place over on the Art In Liverpool blog, but personal highlights were Herb Kim talking about the Thinking Digital conference that he runs, and how Twitter and blogging were key promotional tools for this, Matt Mason on “The Pirate’s Dilemma” plus hearing about how Liverpool photography collective Fab came together through social media.

We were of course talking about the Under The Mud / Kickstarter project, explaining how the film was put together with input from different people all over the place from whom we “begged, borrowed and stole” (according to Lenny’s video!) – basically doing what is sometimes known as crowdsourcing. We compared this to the way that your contributions to Kickstarter are crowdfunding Under The Mud, and how this is a really nice fit in keeping with the community spirit of the film. It also allows a digital social media campaign to become a really social media campaign in the offline world, as explained on the presentation slides.

And speaking of moving social media campaigns into the offline world, we’ve had some great news with our bus! We’ve managed to find an authentic 1950’s style old fashioned bus (rather than a boring modern-day one) which we’re going to paint with everything and anything Under The Mud and drive around Liverpool – not just through Garston (where the film’s set) and along Penny Lane, past Paul McCartney’s old houses, but John, George and Ringo’s too – as well all the other famous Liverpool landmarks across our city – including Liverpool and Everton’s football grounds. We know it’ll catch people’s attention going around town – we’ll even take some of the cast along for the ride! We’ve had to call in a few favours, but we think this is going to look even cooler ever – and don’t tell anyone yet, but we might take the bus on a bit of a tour…so the bus with your name on will be going even further afield.

Of course, to do this we need to keep the momentum going with Kickstarter! Thank you so much to everyone who’s already contributed – we’re excited and flattered by how many people from all over the globe have got involved so far. And if you can’t contribute any money, why not become a fan of Under The Mud on Facebook and suggest that your friends do the same?

There are so many other cool things going on behind the scenes that we’re not allowed to mention yet, but stay tuned and we’ll be able to share some more of the great stuff our contributions are helping us to do soon

Lots of love,

The “Under The Mud” team

5.30pm
Sunday the 25th of November
Salford Arts Theatre, Westerham Avenue (off Liverpool Street).

Screenings are FREE!

Lenny and Mick with Michael Sheen

LA really is a great big freeway – though thanks to Fat Nav Mick Colligan we never got lost!

Hollywood was a blast with a bit of help from Liverpool Acme and Virgin Atlantic four boys from Liverpool set off on their madcap adventure.

The trip ended up including wildfires that stopped us ever seeing Malibu, A-list celebrities, an open mic spot for Lenny and Mick, a Critics Choice award and Venice Beach and all hosted by two of LA’s finest – Mal Young and Brian O’Hare.  Not to mention a master tape that never played…all to be revealed in more detail soon.

Lisa and David at Galway FM

It was two days worth of good old Irish hospitality as ‘Under the Mud’ actress Lisa Parry and me (UTM writer David Catterall) headed to Galway for the 2007 Junior Film Fleadh.

The flight over was an interesting one as neither of us are particularly good with flying, especially on such a small aircraft. It was a good job we both had a lot to catch up on, and prepare for. We were heading straight for a radio interview as soon as we landed. Galway FM’s Craig Kelly was our host and what followed was a lively and fun interview that would hopefully get a few more bums on seats for the screening the following day.

From there we headed to our guesthouse to settle in and glam up for dinner.After a wonderful evening of wine, food and good company we turned in for the night.The screening took place at the Town Hall Theatre, a really cosy venue that was able to play host to a generously sized audience. The majority of this audience were teenagers and film makers who were interested in the process of how the film was conceived, so both of us has plenty of interesting questions to answer in the Q&A afterwards. The film went down extremely well with people, and we discovered that we had inspired the local Film companies to want to do something similar.

After sampling the local Guinness and a good old Irish knees up in a spectacular old tavern we set off home the next day content, happy and terrified of the bumpy ride home!

Lenny, Mick & Dolph Lundgren

Mick Colligan and Lenny Wood went to the Cannes Film Festival followed by a camera crew to promote Under the Mud. As well as hanging out with the stars there was time for some useful insights into the world of film.

See what Mick and Lenny had to say to the BBC in this video.

We stayed with supporters of the festival – officially titled Sonoma Valley Food, Wine and Film Festival (so you can imagine the hospitality we encountered). Our accommodation can only be described as breath-taking (including a hill-top luxury villa with valley-view infinity pool). We had a fleet of new Jags at our beck-and-call 16 hours a day, we mixed with Robin Williams, stars from Lost, The Sopranos and the creative team from Pixar – Toy Story / Cars etc (one of whom watched the UTM DVD twice on the run, she enjoyed it so much!) and all-in-all had a total blast.

Oh yes, and the film went down really well too. One slight gripe was that our screening slots weren’t great – 10am first day, 8.30pm last day – clashing with the awards ceremony, which meant we had no chance of the audience award, which was disappointing – but its fair to say we did win the hearts of Sonoma. Lenny and Mick did a couple of impromptu gigs and we socialised 24/7.

After one panel, during which I had told the long saga of how the film came to be made, two people approached me afterwards, one an entertainment Lawyer offering pro-bono work on the music clearances, the other offering investment to help pay the outstanding music clearances (both have been in touch since we got back, I’ll keep you all informed).

So, thanks to South Liverpool Housing and Niace for making the trip possible, next up – a screening at BAFTA, Piccadily (date tbc) meanwhile the search for a distributor goes on.

Roy Boulter