FINAL HOURS! ADD-ON SOLUTIONS
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 05:10:05 PM

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!

Final 38 hours!

For now we'll keep this update fairly simple because there are several questions emerging that we'll address now.

The Add-on Feature

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.

 Add-on Item Issues

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

Postage

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!

Further News

 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

And Finally...

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

Down to the Final Days and our Final Goals!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 01:23:23 AM

Hi all,

We hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Welcome!

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!

Another Stretch Goal Smashed!

 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!

Few Days Remaining - Let's Go For It!

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.

Classic Film and Video Archive Footage

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.

How can you help us reach these goals?

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!

How to add additional items to your pledge?

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.

Share the link wherever possible

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

 Celebrity Tweeting - ZX Spectrum fans everywhere!

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!

Ant & Nic's new Twitter! (@anthonyc1972)

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  

Previous Films

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.

And Finally...

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

NEW ITEMS NOW AVAILABLE
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 11:35:32 PM

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!

New Perks!

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!

How to add an add-on

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 for 3rd Party Archive

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.

In Conclusion

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

2 STRETCH GOALS SMASHED! SUBTITLES + 30MINS MORE CONTENT ACHIEVED!
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Nov 07, 2021 at 03:52:08 AM

Hi all,

Just a quick update to thank you all so much for helping this project smash through 2 STRETCH GOALS and we are so very very close to breaking through a 3rd which will unlock a Director's commentary with Special guests for the DVD / Blu-ray version of this project. THANK YOU EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!

Subtitles

This project has now successfully funded subtitles for the Main Feature in ENGLISH HoH, PORTUGUESE, SPANISH, ITALIAN, POLISH and RUSSIAN!

A Worldwide Backer Audience!

We would like to thank the people from those countries who reached out and worked with us to make the subtitles happen THANK YOU and also to welcome so many people from ACROSS THE WORLD into this campaign it's amazing! 

We would also like to thank the ZX Load Museum in Portugal (https://loadzx.com) who have been incredible in their support to help this campaign reach ZX Spectrum fans quite literally worldwide! We would also like to thank El Mundo Del Spectrum (https://www.elmundodelspectrum.com) in Spain, Henrique Olifiers from Brazil (as well as the Spectrum Next of course!) Paolo Santagostin in Italy and our dear friends in Poland and Russia, welcome everyone to our journey!

Send in the Clones

We have learned so much more about the various Spectrum clones across the world and those mentioned above and many others have taken the time to write to us sharing more story elements we were not aware of. With backers taking the time to write to us with so many stories is going to be vital in us telling a more detailed and complete story of this fantastic computer and all that it achieved. We think when this film is finished a great deal of Commodore 64 fans are going to be shocked by just how worldwide the ZX Spectrum (clones or not) really was! It is critical to the story that it is properly covered!

More Content & More Subtitles!

Today represents the midpoint of this campaign and with your help this weekend we can break through the next stretch goal giving us the remaining days of the campaign to fund filling out the disc / download. There's a lot more content and featurettes we want to add to this project and we of course want to include as many gaming making ofs as possible as this is the perfect home for them but we really need your help to try and unlock them and subtitles so everyone can enjoy and understand them!

How Can You Help?

There are two ways you can help this campaign hit all its goals, firstly please take the below link and simply share it on all your social channels, you are now part of this project and it may just take that one link you share that makes that one difference at the end, so we really ask that you just take a moment this weekend to share it out! We need your help finding ZX Spectrum fans worldwide, we know they are there and we need to find them so please use this link and lets bring as many others into this campaign and join our journey; http://bit.ly/ZXSpectrumMovie

The second way you can help is take another look over the add-ons options in Manage My Pledge' the Slipcase, Posters, Postcards and other eye-catching, wonderful perks for this campaign are exclusive to it, they are not going to be repeated. Many people write to us once campaigns are over and shipped asking to buy slip cases and other Kickstarter exclusives and we just don't sell them afterwards!

Digital backers please consider upping your pledge to get a physical version of this project as you still get a digital download with it anyway, and physical backers please consider grabbing an Exclusive double sided Oliver Frey slipcase featuring CRASH Magazine artwork making it highly rare and collectible! 

 Also please remember if this project hits the £67K stretch goal all physical backers will get a wonderful reversible John Harris ZX Spectrum Manual / film artwork cover, another reason for digital backers to upgrade to a collectable physical copy now! 

Also if you were always planning to grab a poster or two then please have a look and grab it now as the higher the total gets the more people that will be attracted to this campaign as they won't want to miss out! 

There are so many expensive elements we want to include in this film and every penny we can raise during this process will determine exactly what we can do so please do what you can! 

Our primary concern is the 3rd party archive footage we want to license in from across the world, the more we can raise the more vital archive footage and photos we can add to make this film as good as it can possibly be!

Thank you all once again, a remarkable couple of weeks and we are now building a good head of steam going into the final straight of this campaign! We are also looking still on what we have left from our original films and WILL come back soon on that!

Please share this link and let's find those ZX Spectrum fans; http://bit.ly/ZXSpectrumMovie

Have  lovely weekends every one of you!

Best wishes!

Ant & Nic

We Did It - THANK YOU! Time for the STRETCH GOALS!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Nov 03, 2021 at 02:13:40 AM

Welcome one and Welcome all!

Welcome to the very first update for The Rubber-Keyed Wonder: 40 Years of The Sinclair ZX Spectrum! Nicola and I would like to thank each and every one of you for believing in this project and helping it reach its initial funding goal in just 1 WEEK, so THANK YOU! We knew there were plenty of ZX Spectrum fans out there and we just hoped to find enough of you, so thank you again!

STRETCH GOALS

Now that we have hit the initial target we know we are at the very least making a film, however we want to push on and keep finding ZX Spectrum fans out there to push our funding higher so we can secure more items to greater benefit this project, such as expensive 3rd party archive footage (Sir Clive Sinclair and Rick Dickinson can sadly only appear in this film through those means) but also just as importantly we want to fill the disc / download with fantastic extra content to make this an unbeatable collectors piece for the ZX Spectrum's 40th anniversary next year!

Plese see below a map for our stretch goals and below are some notes on them;

Subtitles

We have had a number of messages from backers from Spain, Portugal, and Italy who feel strongly that if we included these subtitle languages as soon as possible it will help to invite support from those countries where the ZX Spectrum (whether the actual unit or a clone) is greatly supported. 

Subtitles are expensive, especially when applying to DVD and Blu-ray and because of the expense (around £1k+ per language) we have to be really careful to apply the most popular languages (in terms of the audience for the film) while desperately hoping to not offend others. We have added Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Subtitles as the first stretch goal as that will fund those languages for the main feature. Depending on how well the campaign does over the next few weeks will determine whether we consider adding further languages.

More Content

We want to really fill out this disc / download with loads more stunning content so we have stretch goals that mean you get a lot more included to hopefully fill up the disc / download with all sorts of ZX Spectrum content.

JOHN HARRIS - ZX SPECTRUM MANUAL ARTWORK REVERSIBLE COVER for Blu-ray / DVD

Please also notice that on the stretch goals that if we hit the £67k mark (meaning we have filled one disc / download to capacity to 3 hours!) then the John Harris ZX Spectrum Manual cover is provided to all physical backers as a reversible cover with the current film cover artwork on one side and John's art on the other. This will be for both the DVD and Blu-ray versions of the film all tiers featuring the physical copy.

NEW PERKS NOW AVAILABLE

The artist John Harris has kindly provided us with his legendary ZX 81, ZX Spectrum Manual and ZX Spectrum Microdrive Manual artwork for this campaign and we have now added these stunning pieces as high quality A2 posters to the add-ons section accessible through the 'Manage My Pledge' option. We are hoping to interview John for this film and are currently trying to make this happen with his agent so more on that in future updates, however it is wonderful that we have his incredible artwork for this campaign. The Posters are priced individually at £15 each but if you look at the add-ons section in your 'Manage My Pledge' you will see you can buy all 3 x John Harris A2 posters at a discounted price of £35!

Oliver Frey Collectable Slipcase

We have had several questions from backers asking us about the Oliver Frey doubled sided collectable Slipcase for DVD and Blu-ray, and yes they are available in the add-ons at £20. These will never be repeated again so if you wish to bag a piece of nostalgic double-sided CRASH MAGAZINE artwork for your physical copy please use 'Manage my Pledge' and select the Slip-case add on to your perk. Please don't forget that all the other items are available in the add ons too such as T-Shirts, A2 Posters and Postcards etc, anything extra you can grab will push our film budget up!

Physical Copies of the From Bedrooms to Billions Trilogy

If there is one thing we hear a lot after a campaign ends is regret from people who didn't snag a physical copy (Blu-ray or DVD) of our films when the campaign was originally running. We never repeat our first run of Dvd's and Blu-rays and after that it is down to a distributor and a different cover, which is the case with The From Bedrooms to Billions Trilogy.  There have been a number of backers requesting the option to buy copies from our previous Kickstarted From Bedrooms to Billions trilogy to help with this campaign, which is really kind of course. The problem is we can only use what tiny stock we have left of the original films, which means they have the Oliver Frey artwork etc and we won't produce more out of respect to those original backers (though tempting when you see the prices they go for on Ebay!), not to mention the current agreement with our distributor. Therefore we are currently having a look at what we have left from our Kickstarter stock which should be posters, some films, postcards and even the highly sought after and ridiculously (and amusingly) over hyped 'Floppy Disk Beer Mat...(any Amiga Years Backers reading this still using them for your hot coffee please do say haha!) and then we will come back with what we have left before the end of the campaign for those that are still interested, but your requests were heard!

In Conclusion

It is 5 years since our last Kickstarter and we were nervous about coming back as...well...you never know if people still want to see these films get made. The response from you all in the last 7 days has been nothing short of incredible and it means a great deal to us that you funded us so fast. As filmmakers we just want to make the film as good as it can be so we hope you will understand that we will use these last 3 weeks as an opportunity to try to pack out the disc/downloads with incredible content that a wide audience of many languages can enjoy!

Please share and plug this campaign wherever you can, let them know what we're trying to do and how much were striving to make this film as memorable as possible! 

The campaign link is; https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1195082866/the-rubber-keyed-wonder-40-years-of-the-zx-spectrum

Thank you all so much for backing this project to life!

Have lovely weekends everyone!

Best wishes!

Ant & Nic