Giving Thanks

Switzerland does not have a holiday to give thanks and I think every country should. My first Thanksgiving in America – I had been here for 11 months - I must have had about a dozen invitations so I would not be alone. I do not remember where I went, but I do remember one of my first Thanksgiving meals in the following years spent with the big family of my friend, with all the trimmings and the leftovers for days after and, of course black Friday – what a concept.

There was nothing not to love about Thanksgiving – it’s non-denominational, no gift giving involved.

One year, maybe 15 years ago, I hosted a thanksgiving dinner for ten people. Trouble started early when I picked up the 20 pounds turkey from the farmer’s market not realizing that a 20 pound turkey was going to weigh 20 pounds (duh). It had never occurred to me either that the turkey might not fit my oven – it did with 2 mm of clearance all around. Then I did not tie the legs together with nylon but left the cotton strings the bird came with, which of course singed and disintegrated in the oven which resulted in a literal spread eagle and a VERY dry affair. The one thing that did turn out great was my mom’s recipe for gravy and we sure needed it for the dry turkey. Needless to say I have been the very fortunate recipient of invitations to Thanksgiving ever since.

Thanksgiving gives me an opportunity to reflect on what I am thankful for without being caught up in the frenzy of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Other than a roof over my head, food on my table and the newest gadget I am thankful for having the opportunities I’ve been afforded by my upbringing and my education, for a really cool job I love and for working with so many awesome people that run the gamut from CEO’s of fortune 500 companies, to community leaders, diplomats, college students, teamsters and some serious divas (of all sizes, shapes and forms).

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Crowd Funding – What’s Taking so Long? – Part 5

In our Crowd Funding series we are following in real time the Kickstarter campaign for an independent feature called Mulligan. 

That is: by now we thought we’d be in the thick of it, but as it goes with these things, the start of the campaign has been pushed back twice. Below a short interview with David Mandel, the co-producer of Mulligan on what’s going on.

What was the reasoning behind pushing back the start of the Kickstarter campaign?

Unfortunately, we were just too busy and too rushed, and didn’t want to release a substandard project just because of an arbitrary self-imposed deadline. Since we first started preparing for Kickstarter we’ve had to:

• Find a sound mixer

• Go through and figure out the sound issues in the movie

• Upload footage and sound files back and forth between people on different ends of the country

• Do some minor additional editing

• Coordinate ADR sessions for 4 actors, all of whom are working on other projects in four different time zones. Yes, 4.

• Prepare for and submit a DVD to SXSW film festival

Meanwhile, this same group of people is also busy prepping our next feature, to be shot in March.

That’s a lot to work on when it’s your primary job, but everyone involved in this is already working a 9-5, so to try to make all of this happen AND get the Kickstarter campaign in shape… let’s just say we were running on fumes by last week. So everyone agreed it didn’t make sense to just launch on our original date, especially given that we have nothing to lose by delaying, and everything to gain by making sure that when we do launch, we’re doing it in the best possible way. Deadlines are important, but there’s no need to force ourselves into a corner and put out an inferior product.

What’s been the most difficult aspect of getting ready?

Without a doubt, the video. The video has to do so many things - convey the story, be appealing without feeling too needy, explain what the money’s for and how it’ll be used, show off the footage, and just generally touch people. It took a while to coordinate shooting it - probably unnecessarily so. Then to edit it. Then we started sending out drafts of it to friends and strangers, and the responses weren’t good. So we’ve taken the feedback and gone back to the drawing board for the video. It’s painful, but there’s no question we’re doing the right thing. Had we launched with that video, there’s a chance we wouldn’t have raised the full amount. And there have been - and still are - lots of arguments about how to proceed, what to leave in and what to take out, etc. It’s all good, it’s part of the process.

We’re very lucky in that we’ve got the time and the determination to try and get this to be the best it can be, and again, not be pressured because of an external deadline. So we’ve pushed the launch date from November 18 (last Friday) to December 2 (next Friday). The biggest lesson here is that you should always try to get feedback on something you’re sharing with the world - and that you should give yourself enough time to adapt when that feedback isn’t glowing.

Crowd Funding – Who’s DOING It? - Part 4

If we go back to part 2 of this series on Crowd Funding and look at “Outreach” and what needs to get done to have a successful run in fundraising for an independent film (documentary or narrative) it’s clear that it’s all in the preparation.

So I asked my friend David Mandel who’s the co-producer of an independent narrative film called Mulligan to share his experience of preparing, launching and hopefully successfully finishing his Kickstarter campaign. David and his team are planning to launch on Friday, November 18, 2011.

Here a few questions I asked David during the preparation process:

1. Why Kickstarter? Very few other options exist - Kickstarter seemed to be the best known, either through their own marketing or because so many other people have used it. I’ve gotten a couple of emails about Kickstarter in the past and after looking through the website and browsing several projects, it seemed like a good fit - they have a relatively high success rate (not sure the exact numbers) and their overall approach and layout are very attractive.

2. What did you do to prepare? I’m working with Will, the director and Graham, the producer (I’m a co-producer) on it. It’s a bit tricky because Will and Graham are currently out in LA - but Graham’s moving back here right before the campaign starts. We’ve sent close to 100 emails back and forth about amount we need, what rewards to give, how we’re going to do outreach, etc.

The reward system is what has occupied the biggest part of our thinking (see below), but every aspect gets a lot of thought and discussion, particularly because we feel as though we’re trying to raise a significant amount of money (also see below). The division of responsibilities is still being hammered out, but basically I will be primary on updating and managing the Kickstarter page, Will will be working on Facebook and other social media - as the director he is much more the ‘face’ of the movie, and Graham has been working behind the scenes to negotiate the rates for the various expenses for which this money is being raised.

One big thing to come out of this process is that, succeed or fail, we believe it’s a good marketing opportunity. It’s very much a ‘launch’ for the movie, even though it hasn’t even been submitted to festivals. Our thinking is that spending this much time and effort to raise awareness for the movie at this stage will pay off down the road if and when it gets into festivals or gets distributed. And I do suspect that - if done right - this campaign will have a positive effect on festival/distribution opportunities.

3. How did you choose the ‘goodies’ - (called Rewards on Kickstarter)? This has been the most overthought aspect of the whole process. We did a lot of research into various other projects on Kickstarter, paying close attention to the rewards and the donation levels - that relationship is very important. Many stress that you shouldn’t do ‘the PBS/NPR’ thing, i.e. ask $100 for a tote bag. Having spent some time in the non-profit world, I know why that is done, but I also understand why some feel it’s a ridiculous price.

So, our goal was to come up with good rewards that people would want, mix in some humorous stories/selling points about them, and try to price them accordingly. This obviously gets much harder as you climb up the tiers of donor levels - it’s hard to think of anything you can provide that’s worth $500 or $1,000. We also tried to steer clear of rewards that would require a lot of time and energy to ‘produce’ and/or mail - we haven’t made DVDs yet, and as you might know, printing and copying them is both expensive and time-consuming.

Where possible, we tried to come up with digital alternatives that would be easier and cheaper to deliver, without making people think we were ripping them off. Most people probably feel a DVD of a movie is worth more than a digital download of it - even though the digital download is in some ways more useful because it can be played and accessed anywhere. I’d like to say we were thinking of our carbon footprint, but the reality is we’re all working jobs in addition to this movie, and don’t have the time and money to print and mail 100 DVDs.

You also have to think about your potential donors - some of these will be friends, family, acquaintances, but hopefully there will be lots of people who have never heard of you or the movie, and what would any of this be worth to them? The best thing is to try to sell the movie, sell yourself, and make people feel as though they’re being acknowledged and reward them on multiple levels.

4. How did you choose the length of the ask (30 days)? Some research suggested 30 days was the ideal timeframe. It matches our schedule of needs, and it’s during a time of the year when (hopefully) most people will be in a giving mood: Thanksgiving and early December. I think it gives us time to learn and adapt as we progress, so that if we do hit a ‘slump,’ we can regroup and think of ways out of it before the clock runs out.

5. How did you choose the amount realistic to raise? Did you base it on need or based on what you think you can raise? We’re trying to raise $10,000. This is probably the hardest thing to figure out, and it’s one of those things that has to be partially based on reason and partially based on emotion/hope. We know how much money we need based on certain deliverables: festival submissions, color correction, sound design, a website, etc. It's hard to ask people for money - even though the project is more than worthy of it. Everyone knows what today's economy is like, that there are problems out there that need people's money and attention. But this is a film that very much deserves to be made and seen, and I'm confident if people could see the full finished product, they'd take the afternoon off and plunk down a movie ticket’s worth to see it. I hope that translates to a successful fundraising campaign.

I can safely say that having exhausted all cheap and free possibilities; this is the minimum amount that we can ask for in order to guarantee making this movie the best it can be. It’s also reassuring to know that should we go over our asking price, we get to keep the overages.

How do we know we can raise this much? Mostly from looking at similar projects that have been successful on Kickstarter, and from acknowledging how much thought and effort we are putting into this. Because of the stage we’re at with the film (picture-lock), we can show off clips from the film, and I think that’s going to be the biggest selling point. The movie sells itself, and I suspect it’ll be a lot easier for people to commit to a project that’s so close to completion and one they can already watch parts of.

Next on Friday, November 18th: Questions for David: how is the countdown to the launch panning out? Any surprises? Anything you’d do differently?

And you, dear reader: leave us your comments!

How do I Fund my Documentary – Interlude

After having written about crowd funding, attending the Independent Feature Project week seminars for documentary filmmakers in September and reading anything and everything about documentary funding, outreach, sourcing, networking and ROI’s I’m a bit tired. I think I’m going to take a nap now. Oh right, I sold my sofa to fund the Kickstarter campaign – we needed a great video to launch. Well, then I’ll just go to bed - no pillows though – that was ruined on one of the late night working sessions to reach out to backers before the Kickstarter deadline expired. It’s actually quite comfy sleeping without my pillow – I just sometimes have a hard time adjusting my eye line at the computer screen now that I carry my head at a permanent 45 degree angle because I can’t pay for the chiropractor to set my spine straight, but it it’s well worth it – I raised another $25 by pre selling a DVD of a film I have pitched so many times I recite it in my sleep and I have done so much outreach work for it that I have to pinch myself every once in a while as a reminder that the film hasn’t actually been shot yet. Maybe I won’t nap after all. Sound familiar? Welcome to my world.

But how DO I FUND MY DOC? Find a sugar daddy. If that’s against your morals or you are too old for a savory sugar daddy, find some other outlet for your passion and creativity. I highly recommend blogging – cheap, fast, instant gratification, no help needed.

The above mentioned Independent Feature Week of seminars had two days of seminars geared towards independent documentary filmmakers. One of the seminars was titled How to Fund your Documentary. IndieWIRE’s Sophia Savage wrote a nice recap on the seminar. The recap is worth the read – the seminar itself was not so inspiring (I guess that’s when I found a Wiki entry called “death by Power Point” – need I say more).

Both days I heard a lot about pitching and three projects were pitched in front of an audience. Nothing new – just the good old points rehashed yet again: your doc should (must!) have an untold, character driven story. You need to have unique access or position to tell that story and you need a certain urgency to sell. Add a dash of salt et voila!

But as my friend Aideen would say: we’re excellent at what we do but we are not geniuses. And at my tender age I must confess – I know she’s right. If I had a genius I would imagine that by now it would have stuck out its head and asked for a drink. So where do I go without the genius in my back pocket? Work twice as hard or get a day job (yuck!).

The question of course is never answered: how do to fund your (that is my) documentary? I’d love for one of the panelists to look me in the eye and say: Nina, go to so-and-so and they’ll fund your film soup to nuts (or was it soup to desert?). Now, that would be a nice ROI for the $140 I paid for the seminars.

As Wendy Levy from Tomorrow Partners said: we have to be interactivists not just filmmakers. Amen.