Money
In the early days of Spannering we tried to persuade broadcasters like the BBC or Channel 4 to pay us to make our film about McLibel. But they'd all had legal dalliances with McDonald's and didn't fancy it, so we were forced to make the film using the maxing out credit cards / rich boyfriend funding model. Which turned out to have the unforeseen benefit that, once we'd finished the film, we owned all the rights and could distribute it as far and wide as our imaginations allowed. Whereas, if the BBC had paid for it, they have stuck it on telly once or twice, got maybe 2 million viewers and left it at that. No international sales, no DVD, no Global Premiere to 63 countries, no nothing.
So by the time McLibel had reached 22 million viewers we realised that owning the rights is the key point. Which meant that, when we came to make Age of Stupid (which was also going to need a much bigger budget, as Franny had her heart set on lots of animation and an orchestral score - and as rich boyfriend had departed) we needed to come up with a cunning plan...
1/ CROWD-FUNDING 
350+ ordinary people and groups (including a hockey team and a women's health centre) invested £450, 000 for the production and the same again for the distribution of The Age of Stupid. All the investors own a percentage of the profits and received their first payment in January 2010. This is the largest amount yet raised for a single project in this way and has been featured in loads of press, including a feature in Time magazine. NB As of August 2010 we are selling a few of Spanner's "shares" to raise further funds for distribution - please see "Invest Now" on the right of this page if you fancy owning a slice of the Stupid pie.
- Loads more info about crowd-funding, including our legal docs and top tips for copying our model.
- Video of the Making Of Stupid, including a scene at the first ever crowd-funding pitch.
2/ COPENHAGEN WEDDING LIST 
To raise the cash to produce our daily web TV show, The Stupid Show, from the UN's Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December 2009, we asked people to sponsor any and every item from ferry journeys and audio cables to tambourines and mittens. More than a 100 generous souls donated a very impressive £20,727, which was a bit short of our original target, but we made the shows anyway - in fact, we stayed up for an extra 48 hours when the conference over-ran and produced a final extra show, which was the best of the bunch.
3/ GLOBAL PREMIERE WEDDING LIST 
Everything from transport and posters to edible decor and mountain yaks (no really) was sponsored by lots of generous people for Stupid's Global Premiere in New York.
DONATE NOW
There's a million things we'd love to do - with the top of the list being a multi-language version of McLibel - but don't have the cash for. Very frustrating. Could you help us out?
ONE-OFF
REGULAR
Even if it's just a few quid, cash coming in once a week or month is enormously helpful in allowing us to make future plans. So huge appreciation to all our regular donors and more info about how to join them here.
INVEST NOW
Even though The Age of Stupid was finished in 2008 and first released in 2009, there's still tonnes of work to do selling it to TV, making DVDs, licensing schools packs, updating this website and on and on.
So Franny is selling some of her shares and would be delighted to sign over one or more to you - minimum investment £5,000. More info here or give us a shout on person@ageofstupid.net.
