Two community centre leaders, Karma and Cliff, try to justify their group programme practising the art of the insult. A documentary crew follows them as they facilitate a weird couple of hours.
THEMES:
The film explores themes of community, queerness and being a local menace.
Director's Statement
Eleanor Mason, Director/ Writer
I want to make something funny for gays, by gays, about gays and that’s this short! I was thinking about my next writing project and I realised it was time to do something I had creative control over from start to finish. There’s a lot of waiting and development in writing, which isn’t a bad thing, but this is my opportunity to make a project happen on my own timeline.
My goal for the short is to share stupid jokes from huge characters on a low-budget. It’s also nice to have an excuse to work with lovely talented people and force producer Natalia to budget for coffee and a biscuit.
“Slag-offers'' is a single location short film with a very small cast, so we have estimated our budget at just below £3,500.00 This is a very conservative amount for a short film, and most of the budget will be spent on equipment and crew.
We’ve developed an in-depth budget with cast, travel, lighting, editing, sound, and much more accounted for. Below is a snapshot of the breakdown.
This is what your donation will pay for.
Once we’ve made the film, we’ll need to get it out of our hard drives and into the world. If you support the project you’ll also be supporting us in implementing our release strategy. Below is a quick overview to give you an idea of what our next steps will look like:
PHASE 1:
We will begin by targeting British and overseas comedy and LGBTQ+ film festivals, eg. NewFest: The New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, BFI Flare, GFest, GLITCH. We will devise a strategic plan to target a mixture of these festivals, prioritising those which are qualifying for BAFTA or BIFA awards during this phase.
PHASE 2:
After what will hopefully be a successful campaign in phase 1, we will host a premiere at an LGBTQ+ London venue. A great opportunity to showcase the film to cast, crew and our backers!
PHASE 3:
Online distribution. We will aim to have the short film added to a streaming platform in order to share the film with wider audiences.
Eleanor Mason is a comedy writer and director. Her experience includes making it to the final 6 of Triforce & Greenacre Films - ScriptSearch, where she developed a treatment for her feature film. She was shortlisted for the David Nobbs Memorial Trust new comedy writing competition in 2023 with her writing partner Caitlin Powell, and they were also shortlisted for the Funny Women 2021 Comedy Writing Award. Eleanor has written for Breaking the News, DM's are Open and Newsjack, and was longlisted for ScreenSkills ERA 50:50 TellHerVision Project.
Eleanor co-wrote the comedy plays Drag Queens vs. Zombies and Drag Queens vs. Vampires. Drag Queens vs Zombies achieved 5-star reviews and won Best Comedy at the Buxton Fringe awards 2022. Drag Queens vs Vampires was one of the Top 20 Best reviewed Edinburgh Fringe shows in 2023 with a sold-out run.
Eleanor has a Screenwriting MA from the University of York, and while at university she undertook work experience at BBC Arena, sitting in on the final edit of “Night and Day”, a 24 hour long film.
Natalia is a producer who has worked in the British film and TV industry in various roles for 8 years. Her first experience in film was at the New York Film Academy in 2010 where she wrote and directed her own short “By Chance” on 16mm film Arriflex cameras. She then attended Film School at the University of Bradford Media and technology faculty, where she was heavily involved with the student radio, student film and photography societies and joined the BBC LookNorth news offices as a work-experience intern.
From her first job in the BBC mini series "Gunpowder", shot in Yorkshire and starring Kit Harington, Natalia has immersed herself in every production and learned valuable skills from the very best British crew. She was hired for two seasons of Warner Brother's Studios' "Pennyworth" both times as supervisor within the Accounts department. She has also traveled internationally to work on the India unit of "Tenet" directed by Christopher Nolan and the second part of "The Old Guard" franchise shot in Italy.
More recently she was part of the production team of the award winning independent dark comedy film “The Bystanders”; produced by Luisa Riviere and directed by Gabriel Foster-Prior. Her role was a crossover between crowd assistant director and production manager. In the last 6 months she was selected to complete the “Step-up” production course run by The Production Guild of Great Britain at Leavesden Studios.
We’re so grateful to you for taking an interest in supporting “Slag-offers”. It means a lot to us, and we completely understand that not everyone will be able to help financially (we think we’re a better investment than paying your energy bill but totally get it if you don’t agree).
The good news is if you can’t donate you can still share this page with people that might. Post it on your social media, it takes a few seconds and we’ll be forever grateful.
Please follow along as we work on the film - we’re making it for you to enjoy! Eleanor will be sharing progress on her social media accounts, you can follow her here:
Twitter - @EleanorMTweets
Threads - EleanorMWrites
Instagram - @EleanorMWrites