Their movie isn't out yet -- or even made -- but three teenage filmmakers already have video promotions from Jude Law and Stephen Fry.
"Now more than ever it's incredibly difficult to get a film funded even if you've been doing it for years and have a good track record," Law says in the video he shot for Adrian Bliss, Ben Robbins and Toby Stubbs, who discovered "Clovis Dardentor," an 1896 novel by Jules Verne, and decided to make a movie of the comic story about two friends who try to get adopted by a wealthy man.
"No matter how passionate you are, or how good your film could be, it's still a monumental struggle to get the money together. What could make it harder is if you're a teenager like Adrian, Toby and Ben who found a forgotten Jules Verne novel in the British library and they knew instantly they wanted to make it into a film," says Law, speaking alone on camera with a "Sherlock Holmes" sign behind him.
Determined to become filmmakers, the trio hatched their plan during their final year in a London secondary school. But Stubbs, 18, says they knew they had to find a creative way get funding.
So, they used the Internet, social networking and a bit of bluster to get their production off the ground. Many people have turned to micro-financing to launch record albums or films, employing the Internet as a fundraising tool.
But Stubbs, Bliss and Robbins found a way to involve celebrities. "We thought about it and thought what could we sell to people that there are lots of in a film and that's when credits came up," Stubbs says. "Everyone wants to see their names on the end credits of a film."
The result is http://www.BuyACredit.com ,which sells end credits for $10 a name. Stubbs, Bliss and Robbins, 19, are also selling advertising space on the site.
"Essentially, you can be a movie producer and see your name on the end credits of a film knowing that you've helped to make it happen," Law says in the video. "The aim of the project is to provide a window into the world of movies and to show ... a real-time 'making of' through the Web site, blogs, YouTube and Twitter." Larger donors are offered set visits and even cameo roles. Fry has already appeared in a 10-minute film the three produced called "Jam" and will have the lead role of the wealthy Mr. Eustache in "Clovis Dardentor." The teens landed Fry after sending dozens of tweets to his Twitter page.
The teens say Law was soon giving advice. He looked over their script, offered to make the video and hired his own camera crew to shoot while doing publicity for the film "Sherlock Holmes," in which he played Watson to Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes.
