Polaroid Campaign Summary
During this campaign our participants donated £20,270 to Adferiad Recovery through both the auction and the poster reprint store!
Thank you
The best part of every campaign is getting to thank everyone that made it possible!!
We sincerely want to thank all of you that have donated so far, spread the word, helped us plan, gave us feedback, helped us deal with some unpleasantness, and those that sent us lovely words of encouragement throughout it all. So many of you donated above and beyond your order or auction total and we’re so excited by that!! We’re also so thankful for those that donated to help others take home items and those that helped us with shipping costs!
An extra special thanks to these folks:
Linda - You continue to be an inspiration to everyone on this team
Maddie - For still being the reason all of our London work is even possible
Jenn - For designing those gorgeous posters!
Susy, Courtney, Bethany, Rachael, and Janica - For your feedback, ideas, laughter, and your willingness to jump in!
Mandy - For giving so selflessly and for sharing your friendship with us, you are a gift
To Ania and Rehza (with a zed). Fearless teammates, feedback machines, encouragement experts, and wonderful friends. Rehza is responsible for all of our edits and she is brilliant.
To Jay & Britt at Mr. Fogg’s for being amazing, accommodating, and so very patient with us.
To the lovely people at the NT, both that we had the pleasure of meeting and those that we encountered while seeing the play. We’re so grateful for everything they have done to safely bring back live theatre.
To Ffion, Matt, Sandy and everyone at Adferiad Recovery for being a dream to work with and for all of the incredible work you do! We appreciate you all so much.
To Michael. For everything.
Campaign Summary
Why did we do this and why did we choose to do polaroids?
We knew travel and live theatre weren’t going to be possible yet for so many people and we *hoped* the footage and pictures would bring a little fun, excitement, and happiness to everyone this summer, regardless of location or ability to travel.
We chose to do polaroids because we’re fascinated by the idea of capturing something or someone at a very specific moment in time that could never be replicated. A Welsh play opening the NT after a pandemic closed it and Michael performing again in front of a live audience after one of the most isolating and challenging years of all of our lives felt like something that would never happen again. We wanted the output to be one-of-a-kind photos. We wanted new, unique, and something shot specifically for fans of Michael and supporters of Adferiad.
The polaroid campaign was conceptualized, pitched, and agreed upon in March & April of 2021. The original plan looks almost nothing like the end result and for so many reasons we’re thankful for that. Because of uncertainty around travel and ongoing discussions with the NT, we weren’t able to announce the campaign until June. We could not release details about our intent to hold an auction until we had executed at least a portion of the concept, just in case something went wrong during travel (and it did, we were supposed to have Rehza there filming and had to readjust at the very last minute!) We prefer longer lead times for our campaigns but sometimes you are at the mercy of a global pandemic and you have to improvise.
April through June was all planning. We met with various stakeholders, plotted the safest locations and backup locations, iterated on ideas and plans about 4500 times, studied lighting and how to take a half-decent polaroid, secured venues, ordered equipment, and planned a complicated trip that adhered to travel laws and everyone’s schedules at the same time.
How it was done
The shots were taken across 3 days, in 4 locations, using 2 polaroid cameras (Michael used his own polaroid camera for the NT shots), a billion packs of film, 2 digital cameras, lighting/reflectors, and a tripod.
All of the equipment used for the first day of shooting!
We planned everything with the safety of the team in mind first. We were tested several times during our self-isolation period and during the course of the shooting week. We hired the entirety of Mr. Fogg’s Society of Exploration to ensure minimal contact with others. We chose to do an outdoor shoot at Hyde Park. All of this was intentional and kept the team safe.
We had an incredible time collaborating with Michael from planning through launch of this campaign. From the shots, outfits, footage, angles, coloring, and poster layouts, we all came with ideas and had a great time building off of each other’s visions. Together we came up with something that worked and that we’re immensely proud of. We hope you enjoyed seeing the results of that work.
Michael with his polaroid camera!
From shooting onward: Rehza remotely edited all of the teaser trailers, Jenn created our fabulous posters, we budgeted for how much product and shipping we could do, we worked with Adferiad, and we ran an auction for the very first time.
We spent considerable time researching/planning how to run the auction successfully. Even eBay can’t stop people from skipping out on paying a winning bid so the idea that we could have somehow stopped it is hilarious. We caught the fraudulent bids by watching bidding patterns, analyzing them real-time, and then contacting the suspected accounts. Massive shoutout to everyone we reached out to that promised to uphold their bids! We chose to tweet about what was happening to hopefully educate people on what happens when you do that: TWC will be forced to shoulder the cost. We would never, ever ask other people to cover fraudulent bids nor would we allow our charity to receive less, that risk falls entirely on us and we planned for it (just not to the extent that it was happening). Luckily some amazing people stepped in to win these polaroids so we could spend our money on shipping and more reprint merch for the store.
With all of that said, the actions/words of a few will not deter us from celebrating the success of this campaign with all of you or continuing to try new things. Onward. Forward.
In closing, we’d just like to reiterate that The White Curl operates solely under the model of never touching a donor’s money. For that reason we cannot guarantee someone will donate until we have the reference ID in hand and can check it with the charity. It’s a risk that we willingly take on in EVERY campaign and it’s the most important core concept of our business model. You will never have to guess where your money goes when you deal with TWC and we’re very proud of that. Does it cause some hiccups? Yes. Does it protect us, you, and the charity? YES. That’s what matters.
To those of you that showed us love, showed this charity love, and showed each other love: thank you.
We hope to see you later this year for an event we’re hosting with Michael that we’re very excited about. We’ll be sharing more details about that soon!
Your friends,
Lynn & Annie
