Bid For My Life – The less public face

Anyone that has contact with me will have probably been spammed by my incessant desire to get people to know about this new project of mine. It’s being crowd funded, so the more exposure at this early stage, the better. ‘Bid For My Life’ is a documentary about auctioning off days of my life to the highest bidders. The full public pitch is here:

http://www.indiegogo.com/bidformylife

The truth is, the actual documentary I have in mind is less about people paying me to do ridiculous things, and more about what kind of person wants that kind of power over me, and how they use that power. Sure, I’ve no doubt that I’ll have a myriad of insanity to take part in, but hopefully we’ll see a variety of things, beyond putting me in uncomfortable situations as a form of gladiatorial torture. I want the documentary to be a little bit touching, a little bit enlightening, and certainly a lot of fun, but that’s why I’ve thought through some of the insights I could come across, depending on what actually happens during the month of April.

I’ve already started the campaign, and the most popular feature of it is my ‘5 Minutes of My Life’ videos. Essentially, every contributor over £100 gets 5 minutes of my life. They can ask me to do anything. We’ve had ‘serenade shoppers’ at a local supermarket, write a story for 5 minutes, and even film my cat for five minutes. No surprise there who the real star of my YouTube account is. 

However, the documentary… ahh the documentary. Many questions have come in about how I can ensure I get acceptable things to do, and bidders at all for the auction. Well, in a sense, the beauty of the documentary is that whatever happens will tell us something, and work for the documentary. If it’s an inspiring take on the generosity of strangers, or an uncomfortable look into mob mentality and devaluing anyone you don’t know, then it’ll tell a story and pass on a message. Since the bidding will start at £1 per day, it’s not difficult to assume that I will get at least one bid on each day. I’m not worried about having large bids, since that’s not the point of the documentary. Any points that I try to prove can only be improved by having low bids. Each of my ‘bosses’ for the day will be interviewed to ask what they have asked me to do, why they have asked me to do it, and whether or not they would do the same thing for the same amount of money, amongst other questions that may become relevant when it is clear what they are asking of me. I am hoping that we get some regular ‘work’ requests too, mainly because the challenges that might be set can only be ‘best attempts’. I’ll use the ‘beer’ example that I made on the campaign page. Someone can challenge me to drink 100 beers in an hour if they like, but the contract with me will stipulate it is just my best attempt you are buying, not a guarantee of a success. I will try it, but realistically there is no way I would be able to succeed.

The thing that excites me most about the project is the fact that by bidding, you become a part of the documentary. From the first bid, even an unsuccessful one adds to the story, and if you win the auction, you will be writing the script for a chunk of the 60-90 minute documentary.

Of course to get to that stage, we do need to be able to pay the expenses of the crew, and various other costs intrinsic to the shooting of a documentary like this, so even if you can only contribute £1, that would be a help to us, and you’ll get to see the final thing when it’s all done. Please tell your friends that might be interested, and if we’re lucky, and can fund it, we may all learn something.