One Flew over the Traffic Light (w/title)
Drawing the battle lines for a consumer fightback, this documentary feature film exposes ninety years of defective traffic policy and offers a blueprint for change based on a trust in human nature rather than an obsession with controlling it.
It will show that conventional traffic control is anathema to good road-user relationships, and that roads are safer, more efficient and more fun when we are free to act sociably on roads designed for equality.
The film’s central event will be an entire city that has agreed to switch off its traffic lights. Will it work or won’t it? Given the right preparation, of course it will. The film will contrast the misery of getting from A to B under standard traffic control with the joy of getting about on a level, sociable playing-field: poverty in coercion versus poetry in motion.
One Flew over the Traffic Light will feature a colourful range of road-users, from cab drivers to celebrities. On board if required are double Oscar winner, Jeremy Irons, and an Oscar-winning co-producer.
£50,000 will get the show on the road. The final budget is estimated at £1,500,000. Full funding buys the rights to 50% of net revenue (from film distribution and TV sales). Smaller stakes will be rewarded pro rata, e.g. £150,000 will qualify for 5% of net revenue, £15,000 for 0.5%.
For contributions of £3,750 or less, donors will qualify for a screen credit, an appearance in the film, an invitation to a special screening, and the satisfaction of supporting a life-enhancing cause. As far as possible, money raised will be seen on the screen, but third party introductions will qualify for an introducer’s fee.
Current (April 2020) tax incentives for investors:
- Under the EIS (Enterprise Investment Scheme), income tax relief at 30%. It can be taken in the tax year of investment or carried back to the previous tax year.
- Capital gains tax deferral of tax due on other capital gains for the life of the investment.
- For higher tax payers, loss relief which can be a deduction against income or a capital loss (thus a total tax relief up to 61.5% combined with initial income tax relief).
- Full inheritance tax relief provided the investment has been held for two years and is held at time of death.
Tangible returns can’t be guaranteed, but Super Size Me made $11,536,423 in the US, $1,995,967 in the UK, $2,016,222 in Australia, and $1,958,207 in Germany, to name just four territories. If One Flew over the Traffic Light gets similar distribution – and we’re all road-users, so it could be even bigger – it will see healthy returns. There is additional revenue potential from the international TV market.
Intangible benefits include involvement in a perception-shifting documentary feature that could bring universal, transformative gains.
To discuss sponsorship or support in cash and/or kind, please email martincassini at outlook dot com
Martin Cassini
