A film exploring the significance of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and its role in video game history. PRE-ORDER a copy of the FILM NOW to get IMMEDIATE ACCESS to a 1 HOUR+ Exclusive BACKER PACK full of insights from legendary ZX Spectrum game developers and the original hardware designers themselves. More exclusive content added regularly! The Rubber Keyed Wonder will have a very limited replication run so order your Blu-ray or DVD copy today to avoid disappointment!
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Hi all,
Well, what can we say! Today has been a whirlwind of activity, everytime we updated the stretch goal artwork the total changed and we had to redo it until we'd hit them all!
THANK YOU to all of you who have come into this campaign. Many of you are from all over the world and we all share a mutual love for the ZX Spectrum (or the various clones and of course the ZX Spectrum Next) so welcome one and welcome all to this campaign!
For now we'll keep this update fairly simple because there are several questions emerging that we'll address now.
Game developers used to have a saying, it goes right back to Al Alcorn with PONG in 1972, which is 'if it doesn't work right say it's a feature!' However with the Kickstarter Add-Ons feature I think we'd be stretching that phrase way beyond the realms of credibility in this case. The Add-ons idea is a good one, and in some cases it works perfectly, an ambrosiac IT utopia of perfectly functioning code. However in other cases it's an inconsistent pain. Not allowing us to add pictures for what the add-ons are is another pain. One trend we have noticed since the campaign started is where a backer increases their pledge to select some add-ons and then almost immediately reduces them again. This has happened so many times that it concerns us that it may be that some backers are accidentally cancelling the add-ons they've just selected. Please ensure before the campaign closes that you still have the add-ons you selected. Especially in the case of the John Harris A2 posters (see below as to why!).
How to Use the Add-On Feature
A backer just needs to go to 'Manage My Pledge' then the add-ons are visible, the ones you already have selected are still marked, but the ones you don't have have a green button next to them to select should you wish.
There are some backers worried they won't get to add certain items onto your pledges in time due to the issues with the Kickstarter add-on functionality. Therefore we have a simple fall back option for you, if you can't work the add-ons feature (or it won't work for you!) then rather than miss out we have laid all the add-ons items out below with pictures and prices so you can clearly see what is available, if you can't add it on via Kickstarter then simply work out what extras you want and then increase your pledge by that amount and then send us a message over Kickstarter with what items you added on and then that acts as your own receipt.
Also please note that the 3 x John Harris A2 ZX Posters will not be available at all once the campaign finishes, even if a backer comes to us later who struggled with the add-on feature we will NOT be able to squeeze it in. Therefore if you want the John Harris A2 posters exclusive to this film, either individually or as a 3 x poster combo you have just (checks watch) 37 hours to pledge for them!
All ADD-ON Items as follows;
The Rubber-Keyed Wonder Official Movie Poster - £15
John Harris ZX 81 Manual artwork as an A2 Poster - £15
John Harris ZX Spectrum Manual Artwork A2 Poster - £15
John Harris ZX Microdrive Manual Artwork as A2 Poster - £15
Oliver Frey Exclusive Double-Sided Slipcase (Blu-Ray or Dvd) - £20
Exclusive 'Rubber-Keyed Wonder' Double-Sided Drinks Coaster - £8
The John Harris - ZX Spectrum Manual Artwork Mouse Mat - £12
MAN WITH JOYSTICK - Oliver Frey A2 Poster from CRASH Magazine in 1985 - £15
MAN WITH SWORD - Oliver Frey A2 Poster from CRASH Magazine in 1985 - £15
BOY WITH SPECTRUM - Oliver Frey A2 poster of early 1985 CRASH - £15
Jonathan Bett's ZX Spectrum Next manual artwork as an A2 Poster - £15
Official set of A5 Film Postcards - £10
ZX Manual A5 x 4 Postcard Collection - £10
Official T-Shirt with spectrum art - £20
Official T-shirt with poster art - £20
Official Film Keyring and stickers - £10
The Rubber Keyed Wonder cap - £20
John Harris ZX Art 3 x A2 Poster Collection - £35
As was pointed out by a helpful backer earlier, where certain items automatically have postage attached, if you select an add-on item and it can be posted in your existing package you will be refunded any extra postage prior to shipping. An example of this would be if you bought some postcards to go with your Blu-ray then obviously the postcards can be included in the same package as the Blu-ray so it would be unfair to charge extra postage. We can't edit the add-ons or perks once backers started pledging so just to let you know we are aware and we will sort this so it is fair for all!
Mr Chris Wilkins, a friend and long term supporter of our projects is doing mighty fine work with the Newsfield Publications Magazine legends that are CRASH, ZZAP! 64 and also his other Magazine Fusion. Chris did some very kind plugging of our film and he just informed us that today is the final day for him to lockdown his printing numbers for the CRASH, ZZAP! 64 and FUSION Christmas annuals so if you want them you better get over to his shop here; https://fusion-zzap-crash-annuals.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Thanks to you all supporting this film project we are so happy that so many people share our passion to see a film like this made. Any extra funds raised are going into the film, largely the 3rd party archive footage but also we have noticed one or two people have requested subtitles in further languages. Just to let you know we have heard you and once the dust has settled and we know our final total we are looking to run a survey in the future to see if we can fund some further subtitle languages and which languages they should be. We just wanted to let backers know we have seen this.
The last thing to really say is please if you can, to please use these last few hours to repost our campaign link and try to get one or two more ZX Spectrum fans to join in with this campaign! We are planning some amazing updates starting for this Christmas and no one is going to want to miss those...highly nostalgic and we hope a lot of fun!
Our campaign link is; http://bit.ly/ZXSpectrumMovie
Also Nicola and I have a new personal twitter so please follow us at @anthonyc1972
Best wishes and have wonderful weekends!
Ant & Nic
Hi all,
We hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
Welcome to everyone who has joined us since the last update, at time of writing we have nearly 1,400 backers in this campaign so thank you each and every one of you for coming along with us for this very Speccie journey! Actually, one of the first things I'm looking forward to learning with this film is how widely used the term 'Speccie' actually is when referring to the ZX Spectrum as I could have just alienated a stack of fans with the word 'Speccie'! Anyway more on that another time!
Yesterday we broke through the £60k mark and secured a photo gallery for the physical version of this project (Dvd and Blu-ray) . Thank you all for getting us this far!
Yes there are just a few days left in this campaign and I'm sure we all want to secure those last few stretch goals! The next one is another 30 mins of additional content at £65k, then at £67k the highly prized double-sided /reversible John Harris / Film poster inlay for the Dvd and Blu-ray version of this film. Then at £70k we want the subtitles to cover all the extra content and then finally at £75k a lovely 12 page colour collectable booklet to really finish off the collectable Dvd and Blu-ray version of this project.
Going for our stretch goals will mean that we will crucially have extra budget available to search for and license additional 3rd party archive footage for this film. Many who have watched our previous films will understand how we like to add it to our work as it really helps take you back to the era we're covering. Please help us hit these final goals to secure as much of this crucial and highly nostalgic footage as possible from broadcasters like BBC, ZDF, ITV etc.
Firstly please take a quick look at the add-ons for this campaign, the John Harris Mouse Mat...
and the ZX Spectrum Double-Sided Drinks coaster...
these have been incredibly popular with backers since the last update so please do consider raising your pledges to just snag those one or two extra items as it all makes a difference! We have wonderful Posters, T-shirts and many other items available so please just take a moment to look over them again (everything available is displayed on the main page of this campaign!) and consider that little extra item or two. Physical backers you may like to consider grabbing the amazing double-sided Oliver Frey slipcase,
Or digital backers you may consider upgrading to a physical copy of this project as you still get a digital download anyway and you can then enjoy the Audio Commentary and Photo Gallery now secured and your extra pledges will push us further towards more content and that John Harris reversible cover!
To add additional items to your pledge simply go to 'Manage My Pledge' within Kickstarter and you will see the add-ons listed and you can select additional items from there.
In these last few days finding fellow Spectrum fans to join this journey is the key right now! Each and every backer who comes in and buys the film gets their name immortalized in the end credits and gets to take part in this journey of being involved in a film production in the computer's very own 40th anniversary year! Please help us find those fans and bring them in and please use this campaign link as it's a little shorter; http://bit.ly/ZXSpectrumMovie
Many of you have written to us suggesting we try to get some high profile Spectrum fans (Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost come up over and over!) to retweet about the campaign and give it more exposure in these last few days. We are therefore going to gently try that this week (starting today) but we just want to request that if any of you want to also do this to please not spam anyone! If you feel you want to ask a high profile Spectrum fan for a campaign re-tweet please be polite, respectful and certainly never tweet anyone more than once a day! Nic and I are going to try and engage a couple in Spectrum related discussions in the hope for a RT or two (you never know!). We have always said we know the Spectrum fans are out there, it's just finding them which is the key! We like to run friendly, fair and kind campaigns, and this includes how we promote or project this campaign to the big wide world! Always respectful and polite wherever possible please!
Also we have a new personal Twitter account we are using now which is @anthonyc1972, it is for both of us and if you check us out (and follow!) you can see who we're approaching for some last minute Sinclair ZX Spectrum love.
Oh and as said above we have a shortened Kickstarter campaign link that is good for Twitter RT's which is; http://bit.ly/ZXSpectrumMovie
A couple of you have mentioned to us about making our previous films available. We do hope to still do this and have material coming back from storage any moment now. However please do understand our focus is 100% with this campaign, so all we have left are some leftover Kickstarter stock items, as we never reproduce items from previous campaigns out of fairness to our previous backers. There is also a distributor for our previous films now so we also need to be fair to them. However we are working on something so we should be updating later this week with more info on that.
Thank you all again, we can't do this without you and it means a great deal to us that you have faith in us to make you a great film and we cannot wait to get on with it!
Take care everyone!
Best wishes!
Ant & Nic
Hi all,
I know we start many of these updates with a thank you to everyone but it's hard not to with such an amazing campaign, wonderful support, wonderful (and very personal) stories being sent into us and of course steadily chipping away at those stretch goals! So once again THANK YOU!
We have had some really good suggestions coming in from you and two that keep coming up are handy desk items with our artwork on, specifically drinks coasters and Mouse Mats.
The Rubber-Keyed Wonder Hot and Cold Beverage Surface Protecting Raised Drink Platform (or Drinks Coaster for short!)
Now this title may be deemed too long and we're tempted to shorten it to 'Drinks Coaster', but the above title rolls off the tongue that much better don't you think? Maybe we'll call it drinks coaster for now then! Anyway this 'coaster' is very high quality and has full colour printing to both sides and features the main film artwork on one side and the alternate film artwork on the other. It is made of 100% eco friendly and recyclable plastics and costs £8. Now we've added this item into the add-ons section and we've set the postage to zero for the moment. All backers who have pledged for the £35 tiers and upwards will be getting physical items anyway so provided you select the coaster as an add-on we can just include it in there with free postage as postage has already been paid, however any digital customers who kindly add a coaster on, then before we ship we will need to collect some postage from you but we'll cover that in the survey at another time.
The John Harris - ZX Spectrum Manual Artwork Mouse Mat
Many people have told us how when they unboxed their ZX Spectrum in the early 1980's how they recall the amazing artwork from John Harris adorning the manual inside, this artwork for many encouraged (perhaps invited) them to open the manual and get started on their path of programming and getting to grips with this new, fantastic computer! Even if you just used the Speccie for playing games many of you will remember the amazing artwork on the manual! Therefore we now have the stunning John Harris ZX Spectrum Manual artwork in full colour on a Mouse Mat! These Mouse Mats are 100% eco friendly and recyclable and cost £12.
Remember with not only these two new perks but with all the perks and add-on items featured on this campaign they are there to help fund the film production and when you display them you can say you helped make this film happen, they are for only those who helped fund the film into existence making them unique!
We do get asked how to use the add-ons feature, to be honest it's one of those cases of once you know how, it's easy (supposedly!) So to do it you go to 'Manage My Pledge' but be careful as if you have already got add-ons selected you will notice that when you select the Coaster and / or Mouse Mat you will need to reselect the add-ons you already had selected as well as in some cases your original pledge tier.
Extra funding is crucial to this project because as we may have mentioned before it is the 3rd party archive footage and photos that will make such a massive difference to this film. There is so much BBC (and many other broadcasters) amassed footage across the 1970's 80's and beyond that quite simply the more we can allocate to the archive budget the more this film will be loaded with the kind of nostalgic archive we were able to include in our earlier films. Therefore the primary purpose of the products (or perks) is to create something unique and collectible but also gets us that crucial extra funding which also drives us towards those stretch goals.
At time of writing we have almost secured our 5th funding goal which is for another 30 mins of content! If just some of you grab some of these new perk items today we could well secure that very soon! We can see that many of you have been continuing to spread the word and gradually more and more ZX Spectrum fans (and of course fans of the many clones) are joining us from all over the world.
Please just take another moment to share the campaign link, if you are in Spectrum groups explain this is not just something that can be picked up on Amazon later, if there's Spectrum fans holding out for that they will be massively disappointed as we are making one production run for next year and that's it! We need the funding to make a better film, it's as simple as that because we are going to give this film our absolute all and we cannot wait to get on with it because you have made this all happen!
Campaign link for sharing; http://bit.ly/ZXSpectrumMovie
Thank you all once again!
Best wishes!
Ant & Nic