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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Crowdfunding...

Mike Garrick said:
Having done a couple of crowd funding projects which where semi successful my observations are.......

1) Crowd funding it is not, it should be called extended friends & family funding . Which is fine because it gives them a online vehicle to give you money whilst feeling good without feeling like they are funding that lazy relative who makes films whilst smoking bongs. (not your relatives Gunliek, mine)
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It can be exactly that. Depends on how much you are raising. I didn't really hit up friends and family during my campaign. Some backed the project early on, but most came in after they started seeing news articles about it.

Mike Garrick said:
2) This is not money for nothing, you need to devote considerable time & energy to updates requests & everything else. In effect you will not be doing anything else whilst the campaign runs so forget trying to advance said project until the funding window closes.
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Absolutely true. I don't think I've worked so hard on anything in my life. I spent 6 months researching and preparing for the campaign and during the campaign, which lasted 30 days, I slept about 3 hours a night and was on a computer nearly the entire time working. It's a tremendous amount of work.

Mike Garrick said:
3) Never rely on the Indiegogo/Kickstarter to promote your project it will not happen unless you are lucky or (Sigh) you are Brandon.
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Ha :) That's a mistake many people make actually. They think that by just putting their project on IGG or Kickstarter the money will come. That's definitely not the case. Before we were selected as a Staff Pick by Kickstarter we had over 200 backers and were one of the most popular active narrative film campaigns on the site. That was all from Twitter.

Mike Garrick said:
SO GO FOR IT....with eyes wide open.
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Absolutely.
 
Brandon J.F. said:
I don't think you understand the concept of both marketing and crowdfunding. You obviously CAN offer something of value. All the law says is that the money received is not an investment. You can't offer an equity position to people for backing you. Lots of films are funded by pre-selling distribution rights to various territories. Is skipping the middle man and pre-selling your film directly to the viewer all that different? And that is not even all you can offer...

How is crowdfunding something a way to help market it? Simple. You are proving there is an audience/customer base for what you are doing.

Did David Fincher need charity for his Kickstarter campaign? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/624061548/the-goon-movie-lets-kickstart-this-sucker?ref=category Hardly. He was proving there is an audience for a film studios were not confident about funding. He did that.

How about Charlie Kaufman? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anomalisa/charlie-kaufmans-anomalisa?ref=category

Did these guys not offer anything of value? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...per-watch-for-iphone-and-android?ref=category 68,929 people seem to think they did.

These guys leveraged their large YouTube audience to raise over $250,000 for their web series: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freddiew/video-game-high-school?ref=category They delivered and now they are doing it again for season 2 and they are on target to raise over $600,000: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freddiew/video-game-high-school-season-two

Check out all these tech devices that were funded: http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/technology/most-funded

Charity? Pity? Nothing of value?
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You are very naive thinking that any of these actually made any money for the project. They probably haven't even covered a weekly payroll for the staff that managed them. Thehigh profile examples are just another spin on multi lrevel marketing scheme and yes- hype marketing. Which while popular now has very little to do with value... they merely exploit the original concept in a different direction. You could even say they expand it :)
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
You are very naive thinking that any of these actually made any money for the project. They probably haven't even covered a weekly payroll for the staff that managed them. Thehigh profile examples are just another spin on multi lrevel marketing scheme and yes- hype marketing. Which while popular now has very little to do with value... they merely exploit the original concept in a different direction. You could even say they expand it :)
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Naive? Maybe you should read a little before you start calling people names because this is a subject you clearly know nothing about. Stick to lenses ;)
 
Yes naive. That's my story and I'm sticking to it ;)
As for name calling-where? when? be careful naive is an adjective so no- not a name :)
 
OK, guys... I really want this thread to stay constructive and up.

Jacek.

You dislike crowdfunding. It's fine. Point taken...

We might disagree on other things, too.
I am totally fine with that. Actually I love diversity and differences of opinion. All fine!

I am looking into this and haven't made up my mind about anything yet.
THANKS for all the great input guys!

I appreachiate ALL thoughts here, BTW, but let's keep it friendly.
 
It's only that I find ALL the input here valuable and the discussion good.

So as long as one agree to disagree, it's all fine! :)

Don't have to go into personal stuff.

I hope.

I have learned a lot already. Hopefully others, too!
 
my feeling is that 'crowd' or as i like to call it - community funding - is best suited towards independent, niche projects that appeal to a local community or network (geographical and/or virtual). the challenge is if that community is big enough - you can probably get investors or a studio to back it and if it's small enough, you have to find a way to appeal to the peripheries of the group or empower the members to evangelize for you. i'm of the opinion that virtue is the best medicine... honesty and authenticity goes a long way in the virtual realm. if you don't fully believe in your project, your audience, or your process - drop it and find the thing that you can't not do.

as others have mentioned, your story about your story is just as important as the story itself (look at beasts of the southern wild, zen dog, et al.) - look deep into your own story and see if it doesn't take on universal, mythic, or untold proportions. the internet is not a void in which things happen, it is not the greek, abstract realm that is wholly separate from physical reality. anything you can do to knit your virtual content to actual time, space, people, and challenges is a winner in my (e-)book.

when and if i do seek community funding for an independent project - my first and main focus after building a web community will be to go on tour and speak my story (story-telling) in order to raise awareness and fund-raise in the normal old-fashioned way. and when i finish, i'll be going back to those very same places to premiere, so that they can see it before anyone else. i don't want to do a project that doesn't impact the world i live in and the people i live by. it is only with great humility that i would ever ask anyone for support. that's my thing, you guys do your thing and feel free to borrow anything you can - i really appreciate all the thoughts and information here, and gunleik for facilitating another great discussion.
 
Jon Jones said:
Banned??
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must be a mistake... mods?

i guess there was a slight bit of personal insultations, both by respected members of this forum - none of which was necessary, but i hardly felt it deserving of such drastic penal measures... (send apologies, guys)

sanjin's sat through a few time-outs... maybe he can jump in with some wisdom.
 
In my experience successful crowd funding is not about "the story" it is about the promotion or the sizzle.

This the opposite of traditional funding models where it is always about the story. Hence you an get projects up that have flimsy storylines whilst others can have something original to say & because of their inability to promote online, sink into obscurity.

This can appear unfair to people use to traditional funding routes . However I'm far more pragmatic about, it's just another worthwhile funding source so you can either deal exploit it or not it's up to the individual.

Note: In no way am I casting aspersions on Brandon's "Hybrid Vigor" project he deserves every acclaim for getting this project up.
 
Brandon J.F. said:
Honestly, it's about a lot more than just these 10 steps. Most of these points are fairly obvious, but people do get them wrong. Some of these points are totally incorrect.

I backed over 100 Kickstarter campaigns before starting my own and obsessively studied what successful campaigns did. Even developed custom software to help analyze things and find backers before I even launched the campaign.

If you want to succeed at crowdfunding make a Kickstarter campaign and start backing people right now. Pick popular campaigns, Staff Picks, and brand new campaigns. You are only charged if the campaigns reach their goal. I've backed almost 200 campaigns from almost every category. You can back for as little as $1.

A presence on Facebook and Twitter is hugely important and posting once a week and/or waiting til the end is a perfect recipe for failure. It's campaign suicide.
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Excepting the 5 ive seen successfully fund of course from $30 to $75K... to each their own and if you saw my caveat... I havent tried these, they were notes from a workshop I attended.

Over list your campaigns to friends on Facebook at your own Peril... I refuse to fund campaigns that act like spammers.. but thats just me and the $7500 Ive spent this year funding projects on Kickstarter and GoGo.

I appreciate your opinion, but rather than being derisive... maybe share some tricks as that is what Gunleik (the OP) was seeking... you know... community. ;)

Have a good day Brandon!
 
Great thread!

Ok this is quite long so I'm sorry...

Here is my recent experience with Kickstarter. At first my plan was not to crowdfund my project ZEN DOG. I was going to go the more traditional route of talking to investors, curators, business types, etc. - One day I woke up with the idea in my head that Kickstarter could be an amazing idea if you let. Not only could you get your film funded through a mass of eager backers willing to hear your voice, but you would also inadvertently be building your audience base before you ever shot a single frame. I liked the idea of this new age of grass roots viral marketing mixed with actual financing. So we set out to make a kick-ass Kickstarter campaign for Zen Dog just to give a try. Why not! What ended up happening is that my team and I became obsessed with the quality of our Campaign video. We reshot and reshot a lot of moments and began investing a ton of time into its message. We wanted it to be entertaining and clear throughout but mostly, I wanted it to be transparent and honest. I didn't want this film or this campaign to feel like a charity in anyway. I did this by explaining that we had the big costs like gear covered. We had a script. We had drive. We had famous Alan Watts. We bought a picture car with my own money. Then we even went on to show a visual representation of where your money was going exactly. What ended up happening is that we created a video that announced to the world, your voice is as important as this film because it's your voice and your dollar that will make it a reality. By backing Zen Dog, you're in a sense backing yourself.

After a few weeks planning and making the video, we released it to the world. I would be a liar if I didn't admit that I thought our campaign video was so awesome that every indie blog and magazine would be promoting our campaign like it was their birth rite. I was in for a rude awakening when after 26 straight days, we only raised $4800 with just over 70 backers. We had a bumpy start, getting our first $1200 in a single day, but then things tapered out after about a week. I kept having wet dreams that Kickstarter would wake up one day and realize our passion and feature us or better yet send out a newsletter about our movie...but that never happened and I am so happy it didn't because I wouldn't learn the most valuable lesson about any Kickstarter or filmmaking endeavor or anything you're passionate about sharing and that is simply, NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOU UNLESS YOU SHOW THEM.

I've been around facbeook long enough to see a Kickstarter campaign coming down the hills every month or so. A lot of Kickstarters come off as a charity and borderline SPAM so it was a weird thing for me to all of the sudden be shlepping around my art and my dream like I was a hobo begging for change. I didn't want to be "THAT GUY" to friends and family online so I kept my mouth shut and watched our dollar amount go nowhere. I pretty much conceited defeat 80 hours before our campaign was set to close. It seemed impossible and stupid to think that we would ever raise $25k in just over 3 full days but then again, crazier things have happened. I was actually ready to call it quits and almost recorded an update video where I admitted defeat and thanked everyone for playing... I was so close to making this humiliating, "well we tried" video.

One morning I woke up and checked out the Kickstarter page and noticed that it no longer displayed how many DAYS were left. It now kicked over to HOURS and I had exactly 72 hours before this assumed failure was about to be laid to rest. Family, friends, even my girlfriend, were all apologizing to me and cursing the very idea of Kickstarter prior to this as if to soften the blow. I felt like people were treating me like I was dying in that last week. It was strange. They knew how much energy my team and I put into this and it hurt them to see it go nowhere.

After it switched over to hours, I literally had a FUCK IT moment where I made a vow to myself that I would not eat, sleep or drink until I emailed, personally facebook messaged, phone called and text messaged every single contact that I've ever work with, met with, slept with or known. Seeing it switch to hours , it was like a bomb went off in my brain and I couldn't go backwards in negative thought anymore. I quickly wrote out a short pre-scripted message that explained my kickstater campaign, the insane money wall we were up against, explained that THEY could be responsible for turning this around and then ultimately I straight up just asked every single person for a $50 minimum pledge. I guilt tripped my friends, my enemies (no joke) and my colleagues into believing that rather than waste their money on a cheap date watching a movie and eating taco bell, they should give it to me instead, because I would do better things with it. I actually went to each of my 1100+ facebook friends and sent this script to each of them. After I copy/pasted the script into the messenger window, I would add a top line personally addressed to the particular friend and then I would add a personal line only meant for them ("I heard you just got married, how awesome!" - "sorry about your water heater dude.") - Bulk Mail is effective because it saves time but it is very often ineffective because it secretly puts people off and gives them an easier chance to ignore you. By writing personal messages sent out to individuals, I forced a dialogue to happen. A lot of people I was out of touch with for years, are now back in my life again. It's awesome for weird introverted filmmakers like me that would never do such a thing otherwise!

If someone wrote me back saying that they were broke, I would often convince them that they could give anything really. Just being a backer and committing to the film at any level was as important to me as their actual monetary donation. People liked that. I made them feel special because they were special and still are very special to me. So after a few hours of getting through the first couple hundred I could see the fruits of my labor begin to pay off. All of the sudden, I now had another thousand raised and that was just in a few hours of spreading awareness. My plan was slowly working and this made me hopeful to not give up. I think if after a few hours of emailing and having worn out fingers, if my numbers didn't change, I might have given up right then ....but who really knows...

I remained relentless throughout the 72 hour blitzkrieg. I did not give up at all. I barely slept. I barely ate. I just wrote emails and answered emails and made calls and returned calls and I did it all on my own because sadly but realistically, a lot of people thought the thing was going to fail, STILL!! - After 24 hours of emails, I did some calculating. We now had over 100 backers and just over 10k raised. I would send out nightly video updates to my base of 100 and basically tell them, if push comes to shove, I need you guys to sacrifice and increase your pledges so we can get there. I gave them charts and graphs explaining that if only X amount of people increased their pledges by X amount, we would hit our goal. It was a long shot but to my surprise my backers would listen to my pleas and almost always increase their amounts. Some by thousands of dollars like Andrew Benz who started at $300 and then eventually jumped up to $2,500. Others that threw down $1 would jump to $100. I was taking advantage of Kickstarter's excellent communication platform to spread awareness and the possibility that we could all make it if we didn't add another single backer in the remaining couple of days. Everyone stayed along for the ride. What ended up happening was that the base of backers ended up spreading the word to others and they spread it mothers who spread it to more others and then it became a viral hit. As we moved closer, every backer was watching the minutes drop and the number go up. Remarkably we raised $4,268 over our goal and actually ended up raising the entire $30k budget we were after in those final 3 days. And this all happened because of the grass roots effort and because I refused to give up. I refused to accept the thought of defeat and because of Kickstarter I learned some valuable lessons that I will never forget and that will ultimately result in a better film. I now have backers to serve and make proud of but I also have a clear understanding that attitude will always affect your journey. You have to believe in yourself if you want others to believe in you. Simple as that. If you have any self-doubt, people will tune in on that and deem that your dreams have no value. People want to invest in hope because we all share that same drive and we all ultimately win at the end of the day. Every backer told me they felt like they won as well because they know this movie will get made now because of them. It's more than money to me. It's the willingness that a stranger outside of my tight circle actually believes in something so much they are willing to whip out their credit card and take a chance.

Some interesting last minute notes. On average, a backer will donate around $70...average. Our average was $105 per backer! Also, on average, you can expect a 10% hit from declined credit cards or people backing out after you've been financed. We collected every last dollar without a single backer dipping out. That's amazing. But also, that's inspiring to me and the reason why we are doing weekly Sunday update videos until the bitter end. We want to keep all of our backers informed because we value them more than they know. Like I said, don't ever try to make it about the money you're raising. Make it about the support. The money will come later.

I really think crowdsourcing is the future if you allow it.

Good luck dude!
 
Yup Rick, find that story very interesting on many levels....

One thing I see, is that it isn't a thing you neccesarily can do many times.
Unless you break the barrier to "external" non-known audiences...

Let's say I have a "story about the story" with a very set (biological) timeframe...

Unless I make it before (june), the chance will be gone... :)
 
@ Rick
Huge story reinforces the main point for success in crowd funding is promote, promote.

Good luck with the project keep us all updated how it goes whilst at the same raising the profile or should that be promoting your project on Reduser : )
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
We have different understanding of capitalism. Free market is all about equalizing value by the means of competition. Manipulating values is more evident in systems that are more government controlled with subsidies, taxes, etc. As the matter of fact most forms of value manipulation, such as price fixing are illegal in capitalism as they breach its fundamental premise...
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The trouble with traditional capitalism is that you need capital to start. That can be angel investors or savings. Film making though is highly volatile. One indie film for $10k budget will make $100m while 10,000 others will lose money. So the only way to properly finance small films and make your money back would be to have a lot of cash and diversify. You saw this in the 70s where one successful new film maker would take a few under their wing and fund their films (Coppola jumps to mind.) I'm not seeing a lot of that anymore. Peter Jackson has done a bit of this with Blomkamp but it's uncommon.

I like the kickstarter model for films and gadgets because it's built in market research. You have to sell your market on the concept. And unlike most market research your subjects can't say "oh yeah that's something I would pay $10 for" they actually have to pay $10 up front for it. If the idea isn't good enough to win over enough people to be worth the time then you just might have saved yourself months of work and your life savings. If the idea is good enough to get people to buy it up front then you get your budget.

Also, kickstarter is a far easier distribution model than anything else out there today. Vimeo just started accepting payments for films but it isn't terribly common for people to pay to watch a movie yet. On the other hand, sending a DVD or link to everyone on a mailing list is pretty easy. Kickstarter takes their cut and then you just deliver the product when it's done.
 
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