All The Stations - project to video every British Railway Station

[PeterY]

I enjoy watching Geoff and the Londonist videos on Youtube and I was quite happy to make a small donation. I believe people have the choice whether to fund or not, it's that simple.

Again I believe Goeff and Vicki have a lot of uptapped talent.

I also think it will be quite tiring and some stations, the more "famous" ones that keep getting mentioned on here, hard to arrange a train that actually stops at them.

 

[WelshBluebird]

The way I see it, if you think it is a waste of money / effort then don't back the kickstarter or pay any attention to it. The fact they have raised around £30k worth of backing though does suggest some people think it is worthy.

To those wondering that its a lot of money that could be spent better elsewhere, maybe have a look how much some of the big youtube stars get in terms of both sponsorships and Patreon subscriptions! More than a few pull in thousands a month.

 

[xc170]

So much bitterness and negativity.

Geoff has made some really interesting videos both on his personal channel and Londonist. The "Least used station in x" videos are always worth a watch, I'm happy to send a few quid his way via Kickstarter for him to produce more videos.

I bet most people here who's criticised this will still watch his videos then no doubt return here to point out any mistakes.

 

[Master29]

Isn`t there such thing as an all line rover. I`m sure it`s a lot cheaper than 30k plus for just 2 people. Just over 2k if memory serves. 28k+ of administrative costs??:roll:

 

[bearhugger]

Isn`t there such thing as an all line rover. I`m sure it`s a lot cheaper than 30k plus for just 2 people. Just over 2k if memory serves. 28k+ of administrative costs??:roll:

AIUI, They will be using All Line Rovers, and I imagine there will be costs for accommodation & food costs but the majority of the costs are due to to the fact that Geoff will be sending whatever footage they capture to professianal video editors on almost a daily basis to produce the videos and that is what's costing a large proportion of whatever is left of the cash they have raised.

 

[swt class 450]

I still find it shocking that he has managed to get over £33000 from people! Do these people even realise that they are paying for a railway enthusiast to travel around the country riding on trains and making videos!

For £33000 it sounds like he is going to be staying in five star hotels and getting chauffers in Mercedes Benz cars to and from the railway stations and buying all of his food and drink from Fortnum & Mason and Harrods. It also sounds like for that price he will be using the most expensive cameras available and the most expensive video editing software sold.

I just think it is wrong to ask people for money to do something like this. Imagine if Michael Portillo started asking the public for money to do his Great British Railway Journeys series. If he wants to travel around on trains and make videos then that is great and he should do that (using his own money) but i just dont think it is right to ask for money.

 

[Kite159]

I still find it shocking that he has managed to get over £33000 from people! Do these people even realise that they are paying for a railway enthusiast to travel around the country riding on trains and making videos!

For £33000 it sounds like he is going to be staying in five star hotels and getting chauffers in Mercedes Benz cars to and from the railway stations and buying all of his food and drink from Fortnum & Mason and Harrods. It also sounds like for that price he will be using the most expensive cameras available and the most expensive video editing software sold.

I just think it is wrong to ask people for money to do something like this. Imagine if Michael Portillo started asking the public for money to do his Great British Railway Journeys series. If he wants to travel around on trains and make videos then that is great and he should do that (using his own money) but i just dont think it is right to ask for money.

Mr Portillo does, via the TV license (via the production company being paid for by the BBC)

 

[Busaholic]

I still find it shocking that he has managed to get over £33000 from people! Do these people even realise that they are paying for a railway enthusiast to travel around the country riding on trains and making videos!

For £33000 it sounds like he is going to be staying in five star hotels and getting chauffers in Mercedes Benz cars to and from the railway stations and buying all of his food and drink from Fortnum & Mason and Harrods. It also sounds like for that price he will be using the most expensive cameras available and the most expensive video editing software sold.

I just think it is wrong to ask people for money to do something like this. Imagine if Michael Portillo started asking the public for money to do his Great British Railway Journeys series. If he wants to travel around on trains and make videos then that is great and he should do that (using his own money) but i just dont think it is right to ask for money.

Far from Michael Portillo paying for his journeys, he is being fabulously paid by us licence fee payers to indulge himself - enough to keep him in pastel jackets for life.

 

[Hadders]

I believe it's going to take Vicki and Geoff 3 months to complete this. So assuming they use 6 two week ALRs each this comes in at £8,940 for the train fares before any accommodation, video costs etc are added. They could reduce this by using a Two Together Railcard but this would prevent any Monday-Friday journeys before 0930.

I have no problem with what they're doing and wish them well with it.

 

[Dai Corner]

Also, they're taking three months off from their normal work. I doubt many of us could afford to do that.

I've chipped in and look forward to seeing the results.

 

[Starmill]

again - what is the point? It is nice to have a complete record of each station but I don't understand the purpose. Why os 2017 such a watershed? Is it to help people navigate? is it some kind of art installation? etc

I am heading towards out but remain to be convinced!

I think you might just need to accept that there are occasionally things that you do not understand. I could look at your entire life and I doubt you could come up with an answer that satisfied me if I asked "What is the point?". However, I am not trying to pull you up on this point, am I?

 

[bearhugger]

Also, they're taking three months off from their normal work. I doubt many of us could afford to do that.

I've chipped in and look forward to seeing the results.

Maybe part of the amount they have raised is to cover lost earnings?

 

[Dai Corner]

Maybe part of the amount they have raised is to cover lost earnings?

Exactly. Geoff is a freelance video producer and his daily rate is £250. Three months at that rate is getting on for £25,000.

http://www.geofftech.co.uk/video/index.html

Supporters are commissioning a professional to make a series of videos, not funding a holiday for a trainspotter.

 

[cuccir]

again - what is the point? It is nice to have a complete record of each station but I don't understand the purpose. Why os 2017 such a watershed? Is it to help people navigate? is it some kind of art installation? etc

I am heading towards out but remain to be convinced!

I'm a huge fan of Geoff Marshall's videos, but like you I ask "what's the point"? Seems to me he and the lady are getting the public to fund a rather long holiday spent doing their hobby.

I'd like to visit allthenudebeaches in Europe. Can I have thirty grand, please?

This "project" would have been far more worthwhile in the 20's and 30's when film was rare, and film of rail stations even rarer. But now everyone seems to have a phone capable of making a video and putting it on youtube...here's the ruse, get the public to send in aviseo of their own station and send it to Geoff and save thirty grand.

Also, is he paying tax on this income? If not, why not??

I don't quite get the question here?

A Kickstarter project is the same as any other arts/entertainment/creative project, except that rather than paying for a DVD or to see the photos in an exhibition when finished, the punters are paying upfront for the production so that they can access the material later.

To that end then, the underlying point is I guess the same as other arts/documentary - a mixture of entertainment/education. If people are entertained or informed by this as an art project, an act of documentary or because of railway enthusiasm, I don't suppose that matters - fundamentally, they are proposing to produce a product and asking people to pay for it. If they can argue that the project has wider benefit eg through depositing material at the National Rail Museum, then that's part of the sales pitch.

With regards to tax: my understanding is that Kickstarter is taxable income, but that expenses in producing the product are deductable (to continue the analogy above: if they'd produced this using loans and then charged for a DVD/exhibition/book or whatever, then the income from those sales would be taxable but could be offset against outgoings such as loan repayments). So fundamentally, yes if they make a profit they'd pay tax, subject to the same caveats as anyone else.

If you can come up with a product about Europe's nude beaches that people want to buy/read/err...'experience', then get on kickstarter and get it funded.

 

[AlterEgo]

I see Geoff has uploaded a few pilot videos already. I think it's a good concept, but I wonder about the longevity - a couple of thousand stations is a LOT of content. I hope his viewers share his stamina!

The rest of you moaning about "ooh, I hate Geoff, he's getting paid to be on trains" can Pipe down (pardon the pun). If you want to do something, get off your backsides and make it happen. Geoff isn't magic, but he does work hard and use his noggin.

 

[trash80]

If you don't like the project tough luck, i (and the other backers) do like the project and we'll spend our money how we like!

 

[AntoniC]

Yesterday I got my local station of Southport ( SOP ) !.

 

[Lrd]

I see Geoff has uploaded a few pilot videos already. I think it's a good concept, but I wonder about the longevity - a couple of thousand stations is a LOT of content. I hope his viewers share his stamina!

I can't wait for the videos to start coming out but I thought the original goal of three videos a week was a bit too excessive (especially over 12 weeks) but they got one of their stretch goals to make it four videos per week. And then the feature length video at the end.

I can see either themselves or their viewers (me included) getting a little burnt out towards the end.

 

[KingDaveRa]

I was a bit underwhelmed when they said they weren't getting out at every station. But then I pondered it and it made a bit more sense to me. Visiting every station and ticking them off to say you've done it is great - documenting it a bit further with a photo is cool too (and a great many have done it). But getting out and setting up to film something? Not so much.

For every station that you could get out at and spend ten minutes talking down the camera saying something notable about it, there's probably umpteen more stations of little note. Even if you did five minutes, that some 200-odd hours of film, unedited. So that's not happening. I suppose a happy medium might've been a photo at every station, then to talk about the notable ones. One an average line it might add about five minutes worth of content, but to *produce* it would probably take hours on end.

I watched Geoff and Vicki's live updates on Youtube, and I got the feeling Geoff had his producer hat on when they decided to do things the way they are, because the logistics of doing otherwise are just too hard. Researching, filming, editing, and post-prod on all that content would be a massive job, so it makes sense they've had to do it the way they have.

HOWEVER! Calling it 'All the stations' is a bit of a liberty imho, and they probably could've called it 'All the lines' as that'd be more proper.

But either way, fair play to them. It's a lot of travelling, and it should produce an interesting document of the British rail system in 2017, and I'm all for that.

 

[Master29]

Apparently no one is allowed to disagree with people begging for money to go on a jolly. I`ve read all the reasons and still think the same. Up to the individual of course but quite frankly... Time will tell, not endless rantings of "they're doing a great job so naysayers can shut up".

 

[trash80]

Well you see you calling it a "jolly" is the problem right there. They intend to produce multiple videos every week (which is where most of the money is going - editing and production), that takes a lot of work.

 

[bramling]

Apparently no one is allowed to disagree with people begging for money to go on a jolly. I`ve read all the reasons and still think the same. Up to the individual of course but quite frankly... Time will tell, not endless rantings of "they're doing a great job so naysayers can shut up".

Must admit I tend to agree. I could value something like a 'walk round' of each station simply to capture a record of the architecture and such like, however this seems more to me like "look at me I've been to every station" which isn't particularly useful. Maybe I'm getting uncharitable in my advancing years, however I'm seeing this as not much more than attention-seeking self publicity.

 

[bicbasher]

The pilot from Lincoln Central was my favourite so far. Last time I went to the city, the footbridge hadn't been installed, so was a fascinating look at a different angle.

 

[Master29]

Well you see you calling it a "jolly" is the problem right there. They intend to produce multiple videos every week (which is where most of the money is going - editing and production), that takes a lot of work.

Calling it a jolly to me is no problem at all, and how does editing, production, multiple DVD`s cost all that money if they produce it themselves?

 

[jopsuk]

they're doing it as work. THose of us that have backed this accept that they are (shock! Horror!) allowed to draw a wage for themselves from this.

Plus whilst on the trip they will (and they've explained this in the kickstarter and update videos) be hiring other people to edit and produce.

 

[Dai Corner]

As I've posted before in this thread, Geoff's a freelance video producer (ex BBC I believe). We are commissioning a series of professionally produced videos, not funding a holiday for a trainspotter.

Nobody complains when loco owners ask for money to repair/ restore their machines or preserved railways to extend their lines.

 

[Trainfan344]

All the stations means they have to be on a train that calls at every station in the UK. All the lines would imply it's all the lines in the UK including freight only lines etc, I think it's going to be a good project, in a good documentary!

 

[PR1Berske]

I'm taken aback by the negative criticism in this thread.
"Jolly" suggests Geoff taking the money and a passport to Heathrow. This project requires logistics, editing, arranging interviews, travel, uploading videos, filming, the lot. That's not "jolly", that's hard work.

 

[KingDaveRa]

All the stations means they have to be on a train that calls at every station in the UK. All the lines would imply it's all the lines in the UK including freight only lines etc, I think it's going to be a good project, in a good documentary!

Good point. It'd be all too easy to get lost in the semantics of a title!

I'm looking forward to the end result though. Should be interesting.

 

[AlterEgo]

Apparently no one is allowed to disagree with people begging for money to go on a jolly. I've read all the reasons and still think the same. Up to the individual of course but quite frankly... Time will tell, not endless rantings of "they're doing a great job so naysayers can shut up".

There's nothing forcing you to donate. Indeed, I didn't donate myself, because I'm not *that* bothered.

If you don't want to donate, why would you want to blow raspberries at the project? Good luck to them. Some of us are canny enough to make our hobbies self-funding, but it does involve a healthy dose of get off your backside and hard work. Geoff isn't just some dude off the street, he's built a considerable profile over ten years working on a great site and running two YouTube channels.

The point is, he asked for money from people who wanted to see the content, he managed to secure it - he's vindicated by that alone.