We had a busy time last week what with getting our Kickstarter project going, talking at Liverpool’s Art of Digital conference as well as working on all things Under The Mud that aren’t Kickstarter-related. And there are exciting things to tell you about all three of those!
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
