Crowd Funding – Done – Part 9

In our second to last part of our 10 part series we ask David Mandel, Co-Producer of Mulligan some more questions about their very successful crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter:

1. After you reached your goal of 10K so fast did you refocus on keeping up the momentum for further funds and if so what did you do?

We thought about this for a little bit. To be honest, I think the relief at reaching the goal so quickly transformed into focusing our energies more on the stuff the money was for: festivals, sound, and color correction. We made sure to keep in contact with our backers and to do what we could to encourage more donations, but primarily we shifted back into post-production mode.

It would’ve been nice to raise more money, but ‘mo money, mo problems.’ We had some brief discussions about where such ‘overflow’ money might go, and it quickly spiraled into all sorts of further questions and issues. This is why it was good to spend a lot of time thinking about our needs before we launched this Kickstarter project. Once we reached our $10K goal, we were able to pursue what the money was intended for.

2. What goal would you have set in hindsight?

Hard to say. We’re too close to it to have full hindsight. The important thing is that we raised $10,000, which is exactly what we needed. Note that I say $10,000, when the number on Kickstarter shows $11,528. That’s because Amazon and Kickstarter both take a cut that comes out to about 10%. So what we actually wind up with is just over $10,000.

Maybe a month from now, if/when we get into a bunch of festivals and have to think about travel, accommodation, and stuff like that, we’ll wish we had set the goal higher. But when we discussed this before launching, it seemed too far off and ambiguous to put down as an expense. In the really unlikely (and unpleasant) possibility that we don’t get into a single festival, we’d be sitting with extra money in our pockets, looking silly to our supporters.

We made this movie on an incredible shoestring budget, and so we know what we’re capable of and how little we need to accomplish it. This Kickstarter campaign reflects that mentality, and we’re once again just super proud and grateful to everyone for that final result.

3. What are the next steps for you?

We’re going to keep uploading clips for our backers on the Kickstarter page. We’ve already started the sound mixing with a very talented sound mixer named Alex Inglizian out in Chicago. We’ve also reached out to a post house and are coordinating the color-correction process. And we’ve been submitting to a few festivals and hope to hear back within the next couple of months - our Kickstarter backers will be the first to know when we get in.

In addition to all that Mulligan work, we’re all busy prepping for our next feature, which we’ll be shooting in March out in LA. Same team, same budget, and everyone’s just as excited and working just as hard. So, quite busy!

4. How are you organized for the ‘goodies’?

Pretty good. In a few days hope to have some pictures of the ‘prototype’ golf balls, pencils, and tees to show to the backers who’ll be getting them as a reward. I’m unfortunately a little behind on making the thank you e-cards, so that might be a full day’s work for me once I get back from vacation. Funnily enough, some of the rewards all rest on writer/star Jonathan Eliot’s shoulders - he’s got to leave voice mails in his creepy voice for several donors, as well as ship some of his drawings that he made for the movie. But he’s a graduate student and has loads of time. :)

The movie itself and soundtrack we’re still working on, but that should be ready by the date we gave on the Kickstarter page - May of this year. If we’re lucky, we’ll get those rewards out sooner, but the current workload is pretty overwhelming as it is.

Of course, our biggest “goodie” is sharing clips and news from the movie with our backers, and we’re very committed to keeping everyone informed and engaged with our progress. Hopefully we’ll have lots of happy news to share over this coming year, and if not, we’ll make sure to keep them entertained - we’re pretty good at that.