My Brother's Keeper

Funded in under a week!! You guys rock!! New target : £1500

Wow! Words are literally failing us right now, thank you so SO much for all your generous donations. To hit our target in under a week is something we never anticipated happening and we are genuinely overwhelmed by all the support we've received so far...

So what now?
Well, we have 3 weeks left on our crowd funding campaign and so we've decided to go for a new target of £1500.
Aren't you just being greedy?
Promise we're not! Firstly, as I'm sure you can imagine, in order to run their website, the lovely folks at Sponsume take a cut from all our donations (this is how all crowd funding models work) so technically speaking, we haven't actually made £1000 just yet, we're a few hundred pounds shy of that feat as it stands. On top of that, we would absolutely love to raise enough to be able to fund all our desired film festival submissions. As you may or may not know, this can be a really expensive process, what with your average festival charging anything between £10-£50 for submissions, on top of the costs involved with making up DVDs, post and packaging etc. For lowly broke little filmmakers such as us, it soon adds up, so having the peace of mind to know that we can submit to all the festivals we really want to target would be absolutely awesome. Finally, if by some miracle, we managed to exceed this target also, we promise that every extra penny raised will go straight into producing the next Not So Lovely Films piece of work...whatever that may end up being!

So please, even if you have already donated and earned yourself eternal status in our eyes as a living legend, please keep spreading the word.It's not just about getting us the funds but as importantly building interest in the film and what we do!

With a million thanks already and hoping to dish out a million more

 

What’s All This About Then?

 

My Brother’s Keeper: Or How Not To Survive The Apocalypse is a black comedy short film written and directed by Jen Moss and produced by Not So Lovely Films.

“It’s the end of the world, humanity is under threat and hope is fading fast. It can’t get much worse…unless you’re Jess. Holed up with her well-meaning but dim-witted brother, Jo, Jess isn’t sure what will destroy her will to live first: the zombies or Jo’s taste in music.
Like they say, you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose who you survive the apocalypse with.”

The story is essentially a comedic exploration of sibling dynamics that happens to be set against the backdrop of a zombie outbreak.

The film was shot in one day, on location at Abney Park, a stunning derelict cemetery and chapel in North London. You can see in the photos below and get an idea from our behind the scenes video above, just how beautiful this location is and it really does help give the film its fantastic look.

Who Are You?

Not So Lovely Films was established in 2010 by Jen Moss, Ailsa Scott and Catriona Scott. Having met at the UK’s biggest horror film festival, FrightFest, several years before, where we discovered a mutual love for all things horror, we decided to combine our creative knowledge and talents (having come from varying backgrounds in the music, film and television industries) to fund and produce writer Moss’ first short Dumped, which she also directed.
In 2011 we produced our second short, 'THE MORNING AFTER'', starring pop star Kate Nash in her debut acting role. The award-winning film premiered at the FrightFest Halloween All-Nighter in Leicester Square in October 2011 and has gone on to screen at a great number of international film festivals (including official selection at the Viscera Film Festival in LA) before launching online on well-known horror website DreadCentral.
You can check it out here, along with an interview from director Jen Moss.

Who’s in it?

Finding the right actors to play the roles of Jess and Jo was essential to making the film work as the story lives and dies by the siblings ‘chemistry. We therefore couldn’t be happier with our casting. 

Jess is played by the beautiful and talented April Pearson (Skins, Tormented) and Jo is hilariously bought to life by Alex Esmail (Attack The Block, Payback Season). These guys were absolutely amazing on the day, truly believable as a bickering brother and sister and both very, very funny.

Who else is involved?

We were fortunate enough to assemble a truly outstanding crew for this short, from make-up to production design, from sound to on-set photography, via our script supervisor and production assistant, everyone worked relentlessly (in pretty awful weather conditions we might add) to make the film come to life. 
Behind the camera, we were fortunate enough to benefit from the experience and artistry of Bruce Melhuish, an extremely talented Director of Photography whose credits include feature films “The Glass Man” and “2 days in the Smoke”. You can check out Bruce’s showreel here: www.brucemelhuish.com

What do you need my money for?

As previously mentioned, the good news is that we’ve already shot the film so the amount we manage to raise here isn’t going to affect what you see on screen. In order to ensure the highest possible quality of film, we decided to pay upfront to secure our great location, cast and hire all the necessary equipment. The whole thing has been completely self-funded. We ended up going slightly over budget leaving us in need of extra cash to recoup some of the upfront funding and help get the film through post production and finished to a standard that our production team, cast, crew and hopefully you our backers will be proud of.

What will you do with the finished film?

We are extremely confident in the film’s potential value and when we have it finished, we are fully intending to submit to relevant festivals around the world. Our primary target is Film 4 Frightfest, the UK’s biggest and best genre film festival which takes place at the Empire Leicester Square at the end of August. We feel very strongly that My Brother’s Keeper would be a perfect fit and in keeping with the festival’s stellar genre programming. It really would be a dream come true for us to see the fruits of our labour up on the UK’s biggest screen! The submission deadline for Frightfest is fast approaching which is another reason we need your help to get the film finished... and soon.

Sounds awesome, what can I do to help?

Over on your right, you’ll find a selection of different donation options. We’ve lined up some pretty cool rewards for our higher backers from signed scripts to our producer Ailsa’s legendary baked goods! But even if you can only spare a fiver, that would be amazing and earn you our eternal gratitude. To quote a well-known supermarket, every little helps so we really do appreciate you giving anything you can.
You don’t have to be UK based to donate either as the site accepts donations in Euros and US dollars as well as British pounds so wherever you may be, please give whatever you can.
It’s not just your money that we need though, we need your help spreading the word so please, like us on facebook, follow us on Twitter and repost, retweet and generally tell the world about our endeavours!

A MILLION THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not So Lovely Films

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