Cambridge students hope to raise £3,000 for pilot TV show

If you haven’t heard of Ruling Class yet, you will do soon, right now in fact.

An aggressive marketing campaign was launched at the beginning of the month to attempt to raise the finances required for this exciting new project.

The brainchild of students who met through Cambridge societies, particularly the practical filmmaking society Cinecam, Ruling Class is being pitched as ‘School of Rock meets The West Wing’, a declaration that sets the bar very high indeed if you have good taste.

The plot focuses on a school that decides to give students the power to run their very own elections for Head Boy and Girl, with the musical angle introduced through main character Quentin being the lead singer of a band called The Suicidal Parasols. The production is being aided in this arena by real-life band, Dirty Blonde.

Cambridge based band Dirty Blonde

The goal is to shoot a pilot, which will then be split into a four-episode mini-series. Should this be successful, the core production team will seek a commission to complete the series, with them hopeful of interest from ‘one of the main channels, Netflix or Lovefilm Instant’.

Whilst £1,300 has already been raised for this project through sponsorship, the team hopes to make up the rest of their £4,000 budget through crowd funding, and they’re now only four hundred pounds short of their target.

Writer/director Matthew Lee highlights the project’s potential ability to interest young people in the political process in a manner that is not preachy or patronising.

Writer/director Matt Lee, on a slope

This project is one that displays the ambition of, and possibilities that may arise, from the Cambridge filmmaking scene.

Filming will begin in late September, and the success of Ruling Class will hopefully pave the way for projects of a similar ilk to emerge.

Pretty professional looking storyboards

You can support the project yourself through the indiegogo campaign – they’ve only got 67 hours left…