Sponsor a roll of film

Funding a body of work is hard going with institutional funding getting scarcer and scarcer and harder to achieve with so many strings now attached.

In the past I sometimes managed to secure good amounts of funding for work, and continue to use income from book sales, exhibitions and talks also, but for my new body of work I have just started, I wanted to try something different and whilst smaller in scale, it is more personal and a way for you to be involved if you like in a very specific single element of the production of the work itself.

The chance for you to ‘sponsor a roll of film’.

The idea and expression is not mine but that of Angela Cappetta, a New York based photographer, and Angela has kindly allowed me to follow her lead - you should follow her work on Substack also, it’s great. Angela has already set up her own sponsor a roll of film idea and you can see and support Angela’s work through the link above.

The premise is a simple one.

Through the well known ‘buy me a coffee website’ that millions of creatives around the world use, you can sponsor a roll of film with a £5 donation. I won’t be spending it on a £5 coffee of course but on film.

This gives you shared sponsorship of that roll with one other person.

Each roll has 12 frames on it.

£10 from you sponsors a whole roll and if you’re feeling really flush, £50 sponsors a whole box of 5 films with your name on it!

I’ll let you know where that film ends up being used of course (if possible on the day I’m on location but sometimes it’s hard to do things like that when I’m out making work) and your name as a production sponsor will be in the final work (book and website) along with the film roll number.

I was talking with Angela about this yesterday and whilst each frame on each single roll is a small thing in itself, its ability to record something that will last into future history is quite astounding.

So this is different to anything I have done before but could be very impactful - and quite simple, I hope!

Thank you as ever for reading and your support of my work.

My best wishes and please, take care of yourself.

Marc