Scotland Loves Anime 2020

Yes, this crowdfund exists to get you to do good by watching anime from the comfort of your own home. And we’ll send you exclusive goodies to thank you for it!

Sound like the charity work for you? Read on...

Scotland Loves Anime is a film festival founded in 2010 with one goal: to challenge the stereotype of anime as a hobby for teens by showcasing a range of films and educating audiences on the context behind them.

We do this in 3 ways:

1. Curate a programme of recent releases, seminal classics, art films, and shorts

2. Start each screening with an expert introduction to give context and education

3. Host events with Japanese industry guests otherwise unlikely to come to the UK

Our guiding principle has always been that we want you to leave the cinema knowing more than when you went in.

Here’s what we’ve done in 10 years:

• Screened over 135 different films to over 46,000 people across Edinburgh and Glasgow and a selection of those films across numerous other venues in Scotland, with introductions to each film by co-author of the Anime Encyclopedia and author of Anime: A History, Dr Jonathan Clements.
  
  
• Introduced audiences to over 35 Japanese creatives including Naoko Yamada, Makoto Shinkai, Miho Maruo, Shinichiro Watanabe, Yumi Sato, Keiichi Hara, Kenji Kamiyama, Syuko Yokoyama, Yasuhiro Yoshiura and Ryosuke Takahashi.
  
  
• Run 10 free education events for students in animation and related fields with guests from Japan and beyond, to give them a nuanced insight into an industry that is notoriously difficult to access.

Last year we celebrated our 10th anniversary. We had no idea that this year we would be asking ourselves:

“How do we run a film festival that keeps our attendees and volunteers safe but supports the independent cinemas we rely on?”

We couldn’t run without our hosts, independent cinemas the Edinburgh Filmhouse and Glasgow Film Theatre. Their enthusiasm, professionalism, and warm welcome to our little band of cinematic misfits is key to our continued success.

But they rely on us too. Scotland Loves Anime is one of the busiest weeks of their year, and every ticket, coffee, snack and meal our attendees buy helps keep them open and doing great work the rest of the year.

Cinemas are big buildings, with big bills to pay. In this pandemic, our partners have faced obstacle after obstacle to make that as difficult as possible. Let’s look at their timeline:

March: Required to close. The beginning of 5 months earning nothing and depleting their savings.

July: Technically allowed to reopen… once they had bought and installed all items necessary to maintain social distancing guidelines (masks, hand sanitiser stations, bar screens, etc.) and trained all staff on new health and safety policies.

September: Finally able to reopen - with greatly reduced seating capacity, which means greatly reduced income.

It’ll come as no surprise to you that this year’s Scotland Loves Anime will be almost entirely online. This was of course the right decision. But it will have a serious financial impact on these long-term partners, who bring so much value to their own communities as well as ours.

This crowdfund exists so we can offset that impact, to the best of our abilities.

“Why can’t cinemas find another way to earn money, like shops and pubs had to?”

Other brick and mortar establishments are surviving lockdown by moving fully online or pivoting to offer new services entirely.

Cinemas can’t easily screen their films online. Building the platform and buying those rights would take resources they don’t have.

As for pivoting, they already offer more services than just film screening. Food and drink service, private room hire, events… But the amount they can physically earn is limited by the number of people they can house. Put 6 feet between each customer, they lose a lot of income.

And some of this income is lost forever...

“Can’t they just make up these losses after lockdown ends?”

Since lockdown started in the UK, sales of home projectors have gone up 365%, and 12 million people have signed up to a new streaming service. People miss the cinema… so they’re finding ways to miss it less.

This will have a lasting impact, even after lockdown.

Not everyone who used to have a cinema habit will rebuild that habit. People who used to spontaneously fit in a film after work will be working remotely full time. It would be naive to think cinemas can bounce back the way pubs will.

And they were already at a financial disadvantage to begin with...

“Don’t companies have other ways to get emergency cash?”

They do… but the Filmhouse and GFT aren’t actually companies. Like Scotland Loves Anime, they’re independent registered charities.

It’s frowned upon for charities to stash away too much of their money for a rainy day. A full-up savings account screams “We don’t need grants or donations!” or “We’re not committed to our mission!” depending on who’s listening. Those 5 months of closure and emergency social distancing expenses would have done a number on any charity’s bank account.

Loans do exist for charities, but they’re best for the “spend money to make money” situations. You need to be certain you’ll be able to make the repayments on top of your existing expenses. For all the reasons above, that’s a hard argument for cinemas to make right now.

Our partners have thankfully been able to secure some one-off grants from the government, and funding bodies like Creative Scotland. But once that money is gone, it’s gone. They have no parent company to bail them out, no investors to inject cash to keep them afloat.

They have one option left: financial support from their community. Us.

“How do we run a film festival that keeps our attendees and volunteers safe but supports the independent cinemas we rely on?”

Here’s what we came up with:

• Online screenings: We've partnered with Screen Anime to present a film festival’s worth of content on their anime film streaming platform. You can expect a line-up of 12-15 works, available for one month from the 25th of October.
  
  
• Physical screenings: Our independent cinema partners will hold screenings for just two films, at reduced capacity. There will be no in-person guests or events at these screenings, although you can still enjoy a pre-recorded intro from Dr. Jonathan Clements.
  
  
• Film introductions: While we are unable to bring Jonathan Clements to the UK this year, we'll be recording his expert introductions to play before both the physical and the online screenings.
  
  
• Guests: We’re also unable to bring guests over, but will have creative staff making digital appearances from Japan. A lot of the films aimed for 2020 release are sadly now sliding back, but we're able to prepare some work-in-progress presentations for a selection of the hottest upcoming works for 2021!

How does that help cinemas, you ask?

Because we’ll be splitting the takings equally 3 ways. A third to Scotland Loves Anime, a third to the Edinburgh Filmhouse, and a third to the Glasgow Film Theatre.

It’s that simple! The more tickets we sell, the more money makes it directly to our independent cinema partners at a time they need all the help they can get.

“Do you even need your cut? How much can it cost to run a film festival online?”

So glad you asked - we love a bit of transparency!

Our costs are of course lower this year. We don’t have to pay for accommodation, meals, transport, and other expenses of our guests, volunteers, and staff.

But our income is also likely to be lower. Much lower.

Last year: Scotland Loves Anime attendees came to Edinburgh or Glasgow and paid £10.95 for a ticket to see one film, or £64 for a festival pass to see all the films.

This year: Anyone across the UK can access every film, interview, and expert introduction from the entirety of Scotland Loves Anime, for a whole month, for the price of a one-month subscription to Screen Anime:

£3.99. Of which our cut will be £1.33.

Now, here’s some of what that £1.33 has to pay for this year:

• Appearance fees for digital guests
• High quality interpreting and translation
• Recording, editing, and processing for all interviews and introductions
• Screening licence fees for all films (except those owned by our sponsor Anime Ltd, who waive their licence fee)
• Processing costs for all films for both online and physical use
• Marketing expenses, everything from the domain name to flyer design
• Co-ordination, paying people to complete the many (MANY) emails, bookings, and grant applications that make this whole thing possible
• An accountant, to keep our books organised and - yes - transparent

You can see that most of those are just standard film festival costs. Holding it online doesn’t make an interpreter or accountant charge any less, or make them any less necessary.

“So why have you been talking about the cinemas this whole time?”

Scotland Loves Anime usually brings in around £54,000 from all income sources combined. Here’s how that breaks down:

That means we get around £35,000 from sponsorship and other funding before the event even runs. 

We’re currently working to secure this amount for our 2020 festival too. If we succeed, that plus our £3.99 ticket sales would cover 100% of the reduced running costs for Scotland Loves Anime 2020...

And our cinema partners would get nothing.

The greatest thing about Scotland Loves Anime is its community. We’re anime fans and film enthusiasts, in love with both the fandom experience and the cinema experience. We’ve been on this ride together for 10 years - we knew you’d understand why we’re doing this, and want to help.

Running this crowdfund is the right thing to do. We knew our community would agree with us, and that those of you in a position to chip in would be happy to have the chance to do so.

But it’s still important to us to thank you, the best way we know how: exclusive goodies!

Here’s what we’re asking: Instead of the £3.99 ticket price, spend as much as you normally would on Scotland Loves Anime.

• £11 if you would have seen one film
• £22 if you would have seen two films
• £64 if you would have got a festival pass
• £99 if you…

Okay, there’s usually no £99 ticket option. But we have exclusive goodies to give away to those supporting us, and we know some of you will want the chance to take the £99 tier!

So without further ado, here’s what you get at each tier:

£11: The price of a ticket to one Scotland Loves Anime films

• one-month pass to Screen Anime from October 25th
• to be thanked by name in the digital and physical versions of the festival magazine

£22: The price of two tickets to Scotland Loves Anime films

• Everything in the £11 tier
• A physical copy of the 116-page festival magazine, packed with high quality articles from expert anime journalists and all supporter names in print - exclusive to this crowdfund!

£64: The price of a festival pass to access all films and events

• Everything in the £22 tier
• An A3 quad poster featuring one of our classic illustrations and styled like an outdoor promotional poster - exclusive to this crowdfund!

£99: The price of sponsorship

• Everything in the £64 tier
• 5 prize winning films from Scotland Loves Anime (Patema Inverted, Giovanni's Island, Miss Hokusai, The Case of Hana & Alice and The Night is Short, Walk on Girl) in a custom designed festival-themed rigid case - exclusive to this crowdfund!

If you buy one of these tiers, you don’t have to sign up at Screen Anime. Instead, we’ll just send login details to the email address of your choice on October 25th.

All rewards, including the magazines, will ship after the crowdfund closes in November 2020. These will all be exclusive to this campaign, which means we will only produce enough for our supporters.

We will never reproduce these items, sell them, or make them otherwise available ever again. When we say exclusive, we mean EXCLUSIVE.

And remember, whether you spend £99 or £3.99, you will have access to all the same films, interviews, and expert introductions, and all takings will be split evenly 3 ways between the Edinburgh Filmhouse, the Glasgow Film Theatre, and us. Taking part in Scotland Loves Anime 2020 in any way will help our independent cinema partners during these difficult times.

When you place your pledge, please remember to opt-in to GiftAid if you're eligible to do so, as this means that your donation will be increased by 25% at no extra cost to you.

We're also aware that Scotland Loves Anime brings in supporters, and festival-goers, from far beyond the UK, and while we can't offer you access to the entire festival experience due to geographical restrictions, we still want to give you an opportunity to support us and get something back in return, which is why we've also introduced a tier specifically for International backers.

Even if we managed to replace income from the 5,000 tickets we’d usually sell, and gave our cinema partners 100% of that £19,000… It still wouldn’t add up to what they usually make in a Scotland Loves Anime weekend. Because we can’t send them the funds for the chickpea curry we’d normally scarf down between screenings, or the latte we’d take in to stay awake through our 5th film of the day. 

But now, with this crowdfund, you can. (Okay, sort of.)

In 2011, the gross box office across all of Scotland Loves Anime was £12,198.

In 2019, the gross box office for just one venue was a whopping £31,580!

We’ve set our initial goal as the 2011 number. But we’re really hoping to raise the 2019 number, make sure our partners are as little out of pocket as possible.

There’s a huge gap between them though, so we’ve come up with some nostalgic milestones to meet on the way…

£2,700: Number of audience members heartbroken that The Night is Short, Walk on Girl wasn’t a competition category film in 2017. (Even the judges brought it into deliberations!)

£4,000: Amount of times our festival director asked the selection committee if he could include Redline in the line-up annually

£5,763: Distance in miles that Japanese guests travel to get to Glasgow annually (it’s 5,737 for Tokyo to Edinburgh in case you were wondering...)

£7,630: Total seats available for screenings at the Filmhouse and GFT during Scotland Loves Anime each year

INITIAL GOAL: £12,198: Gross box office from Scotland Loves Anime 2011

£13,599: Total running time of every film screened at Scotland Loves Anime to date

£15,600: Minutes volunteers work on average across both Scotland Loves Anime weekends

£20,930: Total number of tickets sold for main screenings in the last 4 years

£23,000: Amount of miles in the round trip the Guest of Honour makes each year, from Tokyo to Glasgow, to Edinburgh, then back to Tokyo (Yes, it’s a round number! We were surprised too)

£24,168: Total calories guests consume of classic Scottish snack Tunnock’s Teacakes

£28,500: Millilitres of whisky gifted to Scotland Loves Anime guests to date

STRETCH GOAL: £31,580: Gross box office from just one venue in Scotland Loves Anime 2019

BONUS GOAL: 134 backers, for the 134 films we’ve screened over 10 years of Scotland Loves Anime!

This is one goal we know we can be confident of hitting. For 11 years now we’ve seen the special place this event has in people’s hearts, including those who couldn’t attend. We have no doubt that at least 134 of you will recognise the very real need for this crowdfund and be willing and able to lend a hand.

But what we really need is for as many of you as possible to back us on day one.

We know from crowdfunding history that the more a campaign raises in its first 24 hours, the better its chances are of meeting its goal. Specifically, 30% is the tipping point. Crowdfunds that make 30% of their goal on day one are far more likely to meet their goal than those that don’t.

In other words, if we raise over £3,660 in 24 hours, we can feel good about our chances of making our initial goal of £12,198. 

And if we raise over £9,474 in 24 hours, we can actually start feeling optimistic about meeting our stretch goal of £31,580!

But if we don’t even hit £3,660 in 24 hours… Statistically, the odds will be against us.

So we’re hoping it doesn’t come to that! If you hope so too, here’s how you can help:

Back the campaign in its first 24 hours

The earlier you donate the higher the impact, but the amount truly doesn’t matter! We will be delighted with every single donation we receive, whether it’s £1 or £1,000. Each donation represents support, and will be received with nothing but gratitude. 

Publicly commit to backing the campaign later on

Let’s say you’re keen to donate, but you can’t manage it on day one. In that case, it would help us hugely if you shared your intention to donate! Just wait for the campaign to go live, then go on your social media and share our campaign link with your own words of support. This will encourage your friends and followers to click the link and donate too. (Though please do come back and actually donate when you can!)

Share our campaign on social media with your own original words

Social media shares are the second most important currency in a crowdfunding campaign! And the best kind of share is one that includes your own words.

On Twitter for example, a quote tweet with your own sentiments added is better than a straight retweet of our post (though we’re grateful for those too!). It doesn’t need to be much. Just share our campaign link with “I support this campaign because [sincere reason].” This will do far more for our campaign’s success than you may realise.

We understand that not everyone will be in a position to donate, especially during this pandemic. Within our community, we know that a number of you fight through huge personal obstacles to make it to Scotland Loves Anime in person, including unstable employment, caring responsibilities, disability… We are fiercely proud just to have you as a member of our community.

We’re thankful for any kind of support anyone can give us throughout the entirety of the campaign, and ask that you only do what feels comfortable and right for you. You know your own circumstances best, and we trust you to take care of yourself first. 

If you have any questions, you can catch us on Twitter and Facebook, or email us through our website.

Finally, thank you so much for your love and support over these 11 years! We can’t wait until we can watch films with you in person again, keeping our fingers crossed for SLA 2021.