If You Ain't Livin' On Edge, You're Takin' Too Much Space

The first time I heard the quote: "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space" was at "The Conversation" at Columbia University, March of 2010.  It was an exciting time, the internet and social media in particular were changing how a filmmaker - or any artist, content producer and creative - shared their wares with his or her audience and fan base. We now had direct access to audiences without layers of sales agents, distributors, aggregators, studios, etc.  We could engage directly, get our messages out AND (potentially) make some money.

Copyright, Copyleft and Other Considerations

Since we just recently were on the topic of right vs. left I thought I’d educate myself a bit on copyright law. My interest in the topic came up during the recent Digital Hollywood seminars here in New York on a panel about the art of the deal.  Lawyers on the panel used a lot of verbiage that I had certainly heard of, but lets face it, had little educated knowledge about.  Did you know what a “sunset provision” was? No, not a deal involving Sunset Boulevard, nor Before nor After Sunset. 

 

Here a quick overview of some of the concpets that came up during this and other pannels: Copyright, Sunset Provision, Creative Commons Licenses, Copyleft, Public Domain, Fair Use, and FRAPA and what they mean to me as a content producer and filmmaker.  Texts in italics are copied if not noted otherwise from Wikipedia or other sources (noted). 

 

To bring it to a point:  this is really a discussion to be had about the space between all our first Amendent rights (as US citizens) and our rights as content creators. With the event of the internet in general and social media in particular the landscape has shifted into a new dimension. Legal concepts and structures like Fair Use, Creative Commons Licenses and FRAPA give us protection, rights and options to negotiate that space between our right of freedom of speech and our right to protect our work as content producers.   

Crowd Funding a Year Later: One Success – One Bomb – Part 11

Gary Delfiner, Rob Barabas, David Mandel (blog interviewee),
Aubrey Levy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A year ago we accompanied David Mandel and his partners on the Kickstarter campaign for their feature Mulligan.  Here, a year and one more Kickstarter campaign later, a wrap up.

David: you now have two Kickstarter campaigns under your belt one, the feature Mulligan very successful the other, a documentary Indestructible Baseball on the Isthmus not so. Can you tell us where the big differences were between the two campaigns in terms of preparation, staffing, ask level, execution and leverage with ‘goodies’?

Crowd Funding – Where the Hell is my Gift? – Part 10

I feel like a three year old: I want my gift and I want it now.  Now, now, now!  

So, I did a bit of research and after I’m feeling more like a ten year old. Intellectually I understand the fact that instant gratification is not always possible and that a reward waits in the future, but I still want my gift now, darn it.

I have invested in three projects on Kickstarter, a book, a cultural center and a film. Of course I have not invested in either, I have invested in PARTS of either:  small parts.  And herein lays the problem.  We (the Kickstarter community) invest in our friends’ and colleagues’ projects, or causes we are passionate about and more than not they are asking for donations to cover parts but not all of their funding needs. 

If I fundraise 10K for research of a documentary film I would be foolish to promise the finished film. First off, the delivery would be a few years from now and secondly I would not be able to guarantee delivery to begin with, because too many things can happen from research to finished film.  This seems too basic to have to mention, but I guess I do: make your pledges such, that you can deliver and do so on time. And in the interim: communicate!

There needs to be as much thought given to the fundraising part as to the delivery.  The goal is not only achieving our monetary goal by a certain date, but also - and equally important if not more important - the goal has to be to deliver on your pledge promises.  The dates for delivery have to be realistic and the goods or services to be delivered have to be realistic. And in the interim: communicate! (No, not a mistake – I just want to make that point again).  Shit happens, if it does: communicate.  Things get delayed:  communicate.  The creative process is a slippery one:  if it takes a lovely detour: communicate. 

I give you the three examples of the projects I have supported.  I did re-read and watch each of their pitches and here’s what works and what doesn’t.

Although I have waited the longest for Clouse’s Houses, the author Carol Clouse did a fine job managing expectations, explaining plan B upfront and keeping her backers up to date throughout the year she said it would take to finish her book.  Her fundraising goal was $5,000 which she reached June 22, 2011 with $5,055.  I pledged $25 to receive the book and an art card and to support (most importantly) the editor of the book for whose professional services the fundraiser took place. Needless to say, the editor, Barbara Fischkin is a friend of mine.  It’s a bit over a year, but the last communication to backers was six days ago and I’m apparently getting a 2^nd edition (after mistakes where discovered in the first) and it will be shipped to me by August 1^st.  

Good job: A. Why: Communication throughout the process.

The feature film Mulligan set out to raise $10,000, which it did by December 31, 2011 with $11,528. I pledged $50 to receive a golf ball and tee, both branded with the Mulligan logo, which I received promptly, but I am waiting on the digital download of the film and the score (both promised for May 2012).  

I just mailed with David Mandel who wrote on this blog about the behind the scenes launch a Kickstarter campaign and he says “they’re on it”.  Last Kickstarter communication: April 9, 2012. 

This would seem to be a quick and easy fix. You’re finishing a feature film, you don’t have a professional staff and you’re probably juggling a few new projects to keep paying the rent.  Make sure you make one person responsible of posting updates on a regular basis and everybody is going to be happy.  But you NEED to update.  And: if you think you’ll be done by May 2012 – add three months to be safe.  

Fair job: B+. Why: they did a partial delivery early on, but then got sloppy on their communication and delivery.

Now, on to the outfit that will make a Kickstarter success harder for the rest of us who come after.  Last summer I supported the cultural center Park51 (NYChildren Exhibit: Let’s open Park 51’s doors to the world!) for many reasons, one being that I was going to show my film there in conjunction with the exhibit NYChildren which ties in nicely with my film Abraham’s Children and the cultural center itself.  Park51 reached their fundraising goal of $70,000 on August 10^th, 2011.  

I pledged $25 to receive the book of the NYChildren exhibit, which was available for purchase at Park51.  This was September 2011. The last communication to backers on Kickstarter was posted on October 4^th, 2011. No book, no explanation and this organization has professional staff.  

Failure: F. Why: no delivery, no communication AND the book exists. Double boo!

This is the moral of the story: if it weren’t for the fact that I was supporting FRIENDS I’d not go back on Kickstarter to support a project.  I think the Kickstarter model is awesome and I hope one day to be one of the successful fundraisers to be added to a list of great creative projects at exceeded fundraising goals, but without delivery of pledges it doesn’t work and will increasingly work less, if potential backers, other than your parents, siblings and spouses, shy away after being ‘burned’.  Set realistic delivery goals and keep on communicating – it takes so little to do so, so do it!

Crowd Funding – There Already! – Part 8

Part eight of our Crowd Funding Series co-producer David Mandel talks about reaching the Kickstarter goal - early in this case - and what's next and what could have been done differently (if anything). 

1. You past the all-important 30% threshold in less than two days of your campaign AND reached your goal in 12 days. Did you wish you had set your funding goal higher?

I think there’s been a mix of emotions since hitting our goal. Obviously there’s a ton of joy and relief at how successful it is, and how quickly we accomplished it. But your question gets to the heart of those little nagging doubts we now have in the back of our heads - should we have set a higher goal? Will wrote me on Dec. 9th, at which point we had raised $8,030, or 80% of our goal: “If I may, I think we couldn't have picked a better goal. We definitely don’t want to already have passed it, but we're in no danger of not getting it.”

I think that hits it on the head. We’re really happy that we hit our goal, and although it’s the minimum we needed in order to finish the project, we’re still able to raise more via Kickstarter. As Kickstarter points out on their website: “94% of successful projects raise more than their funding goal.” (source: http://www.kickstarter.com/start.

We’re now trying to do everything we can to keep getting the word out and continue to raise as much as we can. By reaching our minimum, we’re guaranteed to receive the money, and that is a huge win for us.

2. Did you find that there were peaks and lows in the funding cycle? I.e. a lot of backers in the first day or two and then a leveling off?

You can see for yourself the ‘slope’ the donations took in the attached screenshot, which is of the project’s Dashboard - or central control for your Kickstarter project. This user backend of Kickstarter was actually just recently given a major overhaul, and is filled with incredibly useful information - including the various sources of donors (e.g. Google, Twitter, Facebook), and what percentages they make up of the total pledged.

Getting back to your question, we hit a bit of a plateau on Day 5, where we hovered around the $7,500 mark for a few days. On Days 7-8 we had only a couple of small donations. Then things picked back up again on Day 9, and by Day 12 we broke the $10,000 mark!

I suspect that a lot of Kickstarter campaigns have similar-looking graphs. Maybe they’re not quite as steep at the beginning, but I have heard about the plateau and about the sudden rush towards that goal-line as people notice how close you are and want to help you break through. To be honest, this all happened much faster than expected, and so we were still in the planning stages of some of our next steps when we realized they might not be necessary.

3. What is your strategy to keep the momentum going?

We’ve always considered this Kickstarter campaign to have two goals: one is the money, obviously, which is pretty important; the other is to start getting the word out about Mulligan, and now that we’ve hit the financial goal, we can start to focus on this. So we’ve begun to reach out to blogs and other media that cover independent film in the hopes of getting some press coverage for the movie. That would be a big win for us. We’ve also continued to proselytize on Facebook and have focused a bit more on catching up in the ‘Likes’ department.

Aside from that there’s our wonderfully original idea of releasing clips of the film on Kickstarter - I think/hope that this is part of the secret of our success. Every backer who pledges any amount gets access to several scenes from the film that we’ll be releasing over the next two months - that’s right, long after the whole Kickstarter campaign is over we’re going to keep sending out these clips. But the only way to access them is if you donate before the deadline. We hope that this, both encourages more people to donate between now and Dec. 31 - and that it allows us to keep in touch with our supporters and build momentum for our festival release(s).

4. How do you feel about over reaching your goal (other than the fact that “it feels good”)? Any reservations about the justification, let’s say?

If anything, it’s a relief that we can focus our energies on the other tasks we need to do for Mulligan. We’ve started submitting to festivals, which is a crazy process because once again we’re trying to meet deadlines and get out DVDs of a rough cut of the film - this was sort of the issue that caused the Kickstarter campaign to delay launching. We’re also starting to coordinate the post processes that the Kickstarter campaign is for: color-correction and sound.

But it’s great to be worrying about this stuff and not be ultra-concerned about Kickstarter anymore. I’ve stopped hitting ‘refresh’ on the Kickstarter page 3,982 times a day - I sometimes go entire hours without checking it now!

We do feel as though we can still raise a decent amount more than what we have now - we’ve raised about $500 in the last week, so we’ve definitely hit another plateau. I’m hoping that with a little bit of media coverage we can hit 150% of our goal - $15,000. We’re only $4,000 away from that, that’s a drop in the ocean compared to what we’ve already accomplished!

Crowd Funding – Why Give? – Part 7

After the launch of the Mulligan Kickstarter page last week – I must confess that I did check their progress for a while obsessively. It was just too cool to witness in real time as donations came in. A day after their launch they had met the 30% threshold, which seems to be the point of near guaranteed success to finish the campaign fully funded, which after all is the only way the moneys pledged will be paid to the fundraisers. Now, ten days later they have surpassed their $10,000 amount! (While writing this I’ve had to readjust this paragraph several times to adjust to their fast accent to the $10K mark and now that they’re safely over I can at least stop worrying about being current!) Ha!

I just finished watching the first four minutes of the feature – a privilege reserved for backers! Smart move.

One reason I’m engaged – other than knowing co-producer David – is that the director, Will immediately friended me on Facebook after I ‘liked’ the Mulligan Facebook page. Then, less than 24 hours later I got a nice thank you email with some fun facts and additional information, as well as an attachment of the Mulligan poster. They immediately made me part of their ‘family’; this of course AFTER I donated. So why donate in the first place?

I know virtually nothing about the film. I didn’t know Will’s work until I watched the pledge video. So, first and foremost I’m a backer, because of David. I abused him for a few years at Clock Wise Productions, first as intern and then as assistant editor and editor (the abuse was fully mutual, by the way, including my favorite David story – more on that some other time). Secondly, David ASKED for my support in a private email.

The thinking goes, I guess, that if we all support the project with a relatively small amount, say $25 which is what we might spend on an evening going to the movies and having a drink (ok, half a drink in New York), we do some good and support independent art. As my mother always says (this in German: auch Kleinvieh macht Mist): Also small farm animals produce shit. This is to say – much small shit also piles up to a big pile of dung.

In other words: prepare your lists of people to ask for support – personally - and give them something to get excited about. And we’re back to the all important preparation. The selling points are: ask, great video, decent backer give a-way’s. As for the give-a-way’s: I think they are quasi inconsequential to friends and family, but super important if the video should go viral and attract an outside your inner circle following – these are now people who don’t know you personally and will support on the basis of, ‘cool’ and ‘passion’ factor, or ‘activism’ factor (more for docs) AND who really want a piece of the pie. I.e. get to see advance footage, get an advance peek at the final project, or get a DVD at a good price break, etc.

Bye, bye, I’m back to their website to watch them go over 100% - follow me! Mulligan Kickstarter.

Crowd Funding – Kicking off the Process – Part 6

In our Crowd Funding series we've now - finally - have had lift off.  David and his team on Mulligan launched their Kickstarter Campaign yesterday and they're doing great!  And you can help them do even better by going to their Kickstarter page.

I'm as a tough an audience as it gets and I loved - absolutely loved - the video they put together.  Special mention to the music - what I heard was outstanding.  The animations are very cool and the video does a great job in telling what they need the funds for AND getting you excited about wanting to see the movie.  (The only thing in need of improvement: for a non-film person is, that it might be hard to understand the muffled voice of the director when he explains some technical terms).

Clearly the team put a LOT of effort into this and it seems to be paying off handsomely. I expect them to totally exceed their goal! They did their homework and I give it an A+.

Here a few questions I asked David:

1. What was your to-do list for the kick off day?  Lead-up was mostly about getting the video done. There were a few last-minute changes to the ‘Story’ section - basically the main part of the Kickstarter page where you describe the project, explain what you’re trying to raise money for, and other details. So we added some extra info to that section and once we had the video in its final format, we launched - at approx. 11am EST yesterday.

Will, the director, also launched the Facebook page late last night. There wasn’t much setup involved, and he’s fairly active on there (he frequently chides me for not being on Facebook). Our strategy is to treat the Kickstarter page as our biggest face/front for the movie right now, with Facebook a close second. The thinking is that we don’t want to bog people down with a website, Twitter, etc. Just get them to the Kickstarter page and let them learn about the movie through there.

2. How many emails/letters/solicitations did you ‘save’ for the kickoff?  It’s hard to count, because between the three main people involved, I’d guess close to 1,000 emails were sent yesterday. Some were based on lists of people who are fans of the web series ‘Reception’ that Will and and Graham, the producer have been working on for a year. That has a sizable following, and those fans had been getting emails in the lead-up to today because a new episode of ‘Reception’ gets sent out every week.

I’m sending out personal emails one-by-one, so I’ll probably be doing that whenever I have time for the next four weeks. I think it helps to do it that way if you have the time and resolve. Getting a Facebook poke or whatever wouldn’t necessarily get me to a website and to fork over dollars, so I’m hoping to seduce people the way I’d want to be seduced. :)

3. Where did Kickstarter make your life easy and what drove you nuts?  Kickstarter’s interface is very slick and easy to navigate. Uploading photos and videos and making text changes and descriptions is very easy, and done in a way that allows you to make changes without the fear that everything will blow up. They really nailed that, and I think it’s probably a big key to their success. Only have one minor gripe about Kickstarter - they don’t give you much direction in terms of what’s the proper format/specs for the video, so I think we were a little concerned we’d upload it and it wouldn’t look/sound right. Fortunately it’s not the case, and I think it’s hard to just blame Kickstarter for lack of guidance - there are just too many damn video formats floating around nowadays.

What really drove us nuts was making the video, which I’ve discussed in the previous post and which is in no way Kickstarter’s fault. They actually have really great suggestions and guidelines for making a video and - wisely - encourage every project to make one as a way of increasing the chances of a successful campaign.

4. What was the unexpected?  Nothing was unexpected, which I suspect is a result of lots of planning and agonizing over every last detail. :)

5. What was the ‘this sucks’?  Nothing really sucked. OK, so one small thing. Apparently, shortly after launching, a stranger came and made a comment on the Facebook page about the pricing of our rewards. Not a disaster or anything, and I guess someone else came along and deleted the comment. Whatever, it’s part of being on the internet. “Haters gonna hate,” as they say. We spent a lot of time thinking about our rewards and our pricing, and for someone to just come along and make some idiotic remark… alright, I’m over it.

6. And what was the “this is awesome” moment?  Well, that first donation felt pretty good. So did the 22 after it. It’s been less than 12 hours, and we’ve raised over 1/8th of our total goal! (Note: by now, 36 hours later they are nearly 1/3 there). That’s pretty exhilarating. I’ve had to resist staring at the page and clicking ‘refresh’ every 30 seconds. We’re really proud of the video (me especially, since I edited it). It took weeks and weeks and lots of starting from square one. But when I try to step back and be objective about it, I’m pretty convinced it’s a great pitch video. I wish there was a way to quantify the effect it has on people - friends, strangers - when they see it and decide whether or not to donate. I can’t, but I can semi-confidently tell myself that that video is a big reason they choose to give us money.

7. What was the first contribution? How does it feel?  Haha, the first donation was from my brother, Jon, who was one of the first people I emailed. The next two came from very close friends of mine and Will’s. The most wonderful feeling is to see a donation come in, and immediately Will or I email one another (and Graham) and ask “Who is this? Is this someone you know?” and then finding out it’s a stranger. It’s a lot more validating to see someone who has no ties to you and is therefore much more objective about making a gift. That’s a real confidence-booster, and definitely makes you feel as though someday that same effect is going to happen when a random person sees a trailer or a poster for the movie at a movie theater. We’re so grateful for all the friends and family who have come out so far to support it, but at the end of the day you can’t pack a movie theater with them. Unless you’re a polygamist.

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.

A Kickstarter Campaign Followed in Real Time

Our next Crowd Funding post will be on November 9th.

A filmmaker friend of mine and his team behind the film Mulligan is starting a Kickstarter campaign on Friday, November 18th, 2011. We will be looking over his shoulder during the preparation and then during the month of crowd funding and get a behind the scenes look at the mechanics of a campaign. But more importantly we will get a real time peek and a blow-by-blow account of the different phases of crowd sourcing: the successes and the maybe not so smart decisions he and his team made. With, of course, a running commentary from me.

It should be great fun and we can at the same time help him spread the good word (see earlier post from today)…..

Crowd Funding - Your Backers - Part 3

"Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted." — attributed to Albert Einstein

There is much talk about Social Return on Investment, which in a way works brilliantly in tandem with Documentary filmmaking which more often than not comes with a cause attached. Narrative Films have a harder standing here.

If you look at the history of crowd sourcing and funding  you see that the platforms that pioneered before Kickstarter where mostly attractive to investors because they put a personal story and a face to their investments. But still: they were straight money investments. It’s easy to say: you give me $250 now and in 18 months I will return $300 to you: it’s a clean, clear-cut deal, no emotions involved, no room for interpretation. Only: we, as independent filmmakers, know that, but in the rarest cases, we cannot promise a principal plus interest in return on investment.

So we look elsewhere. When you crowd fund a project you engage backers on a totally different level, they do not only support you financially, they also provide encouragement, support, and public validation. Backing through crowd funding creates a stronger bond for better and for worse as the backer supports not only our work, but also you (or your team).

Let’s say our levels of support are:

1. for $1 you get a thank you credit on the film’s website
2. for $10 you get a thank you credit on the film’s website and in the film’s credit roll  
3. for $25 you get all of the above plus a DVD copy of the yet unreleased film and a poster
4. for $250 you are now an associate producer of the film (and get all of the afore mentioned benefits)
5. for $2,500 you get all of the above and a cameo in the film 

As of level 2 you are heavily invested. Your name is now not only on the website (where it can be removed in a flash) – it’s now in the credits of the film and stays there for all eternity. It better be a brilliantly good film – otherwise your backers are going to be embarrassed to see their (potentially) good name associated with a project of dubious creativity (or worse: content). Choose your benefits carefully – give a backer the option of anonymity. Public acknowledgement might be more than backers bargained for.

The more your film is on message and is cause related the easier it will be to reach out and find people willing to back your film. In finding your audience and you might be surprised to find that your audience is not who you thought it was. One group might not like the slant on your message, another might not be ready to ‘hear’ your message, and support might come from a group you would have never thought of.

At the IFP week a filmmaker spoke about a documentary she had produced about a young marine coming back from Iraq. Naturally she thought that the marines would be her first audience. She invited them to a screening with a discussion after to find out how they could help support the film. The scene after the screening must have been very awkward. There were quick good-bye’s and the vaguest promises of support. The marines who saw the film where still on active duty; they were not ready to see the documentary, nor able to acknowledge what happens after deployment. The filmmaker later found great support for her message in the war veteran’s and mental health communities.

What I learned:  the crowds don’t come to you – you need to find them, be it for a Kickstarter campaign or an outreach effort to show and share your film and ideas.   It’s hard work and endless contacts made, but if you are passionate about your film (documentary or fiction) and you have a strong message you will get there (whatever your “there” is) and you will find alliances in the most unlikely places – mark my words.

Crowd Funding - Outreach - Part 2

Backers are invested in your project, both figuratively and where it hurts, they are the peels of the onion around your project core and they help you reach out further. Treat them well. But before you can treat them well you have to reach them and you have to have a plan on how to do that and how to SUSTAIN the outreach. Especially on a documentary which can take years to complete.

My guestimate is that for every one in 1,000 social media online backer you get an action; unless you’re a superstar (which if we were we would most likely not be dabbling in crowd sourcing to begin with, or at least hire someone to do it for us – but what would be the fun in that?

A nice episodic anecdote about the film I am I is on Peter Broderick’s blog, the maverick independent distribution consultant. Kickstarter has a hall of fame. The most successful film funded was Blue Like Jazz. Click on the link and see how they set up their project. It’s succinct and funny and it had of course a great head start because it was based on a bestselling book with the same title by Donald Miller who had a big and loyal on line following.

Roughly what you need to get your outreach going is:

Proposal:

• Think about your pitch: 20 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minute versions
• USP – why YOU - what is your unique selling point?
• Think about financing beyond crowd funding
• Prepare several budgets (calculate for different scenarios)
• Time line

Pre-campaign things that you need to have lined up:

• Basic website 
• Graphic element you can use for on-line presence, mass emails, postcards, announcements, etc.
• Teaser video (not a trailer) – talk to your audience directly and get them to donate with urgency

Pre-campaign outreach:

• Align yourself with non-profits and interested groups that can lend you their support to give you credibility and their network of fans, friends, followers and members to help you reach out
• Bolster your twitter following (remember the 1 per mille rule) as well as your FB friends and fans (and if you have good business contacts on LinkedIn and have built your Google+ circles – it won’t hurt either)
• Email outreach list with a distribution channel like Constant Contact with a layout/design that mirrors your website
• Relevant blog
• Having a follow up video for a final push might help too
• Letters and contacts lined up to hit big sponsors the moment you are ready to launch your project on line
• outline of what you will be giving backers in return for their investment (set realistic goals and be original without embarrassment)
• Lots of coffee and RedBull
• Help
• And: give your kids up for adoption and find a loving home for your dog

Before you set a deadline and upload your project:

• You need a firm grasp on what your goals are financially and time wise
• How much are you asking for?
• How much can you expect?
• Do you have a matching/gap donor in the wings should you be close but not at your goal an hour before the deadline?
• How are you sustaining a respectful follow up and communication with your backers after deadline and until you can deliver on Your promised goods?

What did I forget?

Enjoy and let me know how it went….

Crowd Funding - The Basics - Part 1

For a few months now I’ve been saving links (in the not so old days it would have been news clipping slowly yellowing in a folder) about crowd funding and on Kickstarter in particular. I have enough material (and opinions) at this point to start a series. And you guessed right: here’s a (mini) series on the general topic of crowd funding. I’ve known about Kickstarter and its counterpart IndieGoGo since 2009 and I have used IndieGoGo for a distribution outreach for my film Abraham’s Children with mixed results. 

Both online platforms have gotten press of late with new investors for IndieGoGo and the announcement that Kickstarter was chosen by the World Economic Forum as one of the technology pioneers of 2012. For the WEF report click here.

To set crowd funding into context, Bill Clark (@austinbillc) wrote a recap of the history of crowd funding on Mashable‘s, September 15th, 2011 issue. I highly recommend reading this short article.

Yesterday Kickstarter announced on their blog that they have as of last week 1 million backers and Mashable announced today that Kickstarter surpassed $100 million in pledges. To put this into context the fiscal year 2011 budget for the National Endowment of the Arts is $154 million. At the current pace of more than $2 million in pledges each week, Kickstarter backers are pledging more than $100 million a year!

Let me give an example for those who are not following and are about to bounce off: on either website you can choose to support any project you like. Most likely you’re there because someone sent you a heart throbbing email asking for your support. Let’s say you choose to support an independent documentary with $25 that gives you in return a DVD of the film once it’s finished. The film (project) is looking to raise $10,000 to pay for music licensing rights and has a fundraising deadline of January 24th, 2012. Your credit card only gets charged after the deadline passes and if the project has raised at least its proclaimed goal of $10K by the deadline. Otherwise your pledge goes uncollected (and the project does not get made and you do not get the DVD). Each project has different levels of support. It can be $1 for your name to be listed as a supporter on the project’s website, to $5,000 for a cameo in the film or a singing part on a music album. The sky is the limit. 

The statistics that Kickstarter put out yesterday are very interesting: most notably that the biggest contributions happen in the $11 -$25 range (nearly half of the 100 million raised to date – 30 months since inception). The number that really interested me however is how many projects were successful. Note: on Kickstarter (unlike IndieGoGo of the old days) your fundraising has a time limit set to it, which seemed counterintuitive to me at first and was the reason why I chose IndieGoGo over Kickstarter in 2009 for Abrahams’ Children – but, the urgency that a time limit creates is of great value when raising funds (this for all the procrastinators out there). Of $100 million pledged, about $84 million where successful and about $12 million failed and $5 million where given “live” meaning off line. Unfortunately there are no stats on how many actual projects that translates into.

This fund raising model does two things, it a creates the above mentioned urgency and secondly protects a supporter from giving money to a project that will never happen for lack of having reached a fundraising goal. The challenge for the filmmaker in our example is to make sure that the limit set for the raising of funds is realistic but not so low that several campaigns are needed to deliver on the goods promised to backers. And this is the biggest challenge with films; documentary or fiction: our budgets are not in the single digit “K” range, but mostly in the 100K plus range. How much do we rely or have to rely on crowd funding?

Do we fundraise in many different steps and run the risk of stressing our welcome with friends, fans and followers, or do we run the risk of setting our goal too high and not reaching it by the deadline? Not to speak of the fact, that these campaigns are a huge amount of work. Uploading your project on either Kickstarter or IndieGoGo does not mean anybody is going to support it. There are entire social media outreach strategies behind these campaigns in conjunction with old fashioned ways of communicating, like email, and – yikes - phone calling. You need to produce at least one pledge video and a plethora of ancillary graphic, writing and other creative materials – which are all fun to create but can cost money and definitely will add the ‘time sink’ called independent movie making.

What is your experience? Care to share?

Next: reaching out to those backers of yours.

9 Women can’t Make a Baby in a Month

Techcrunch had this very poignant post yesterday and I had to steal the title. The jest of it is that sometimes too much money is no good. Or that even with all the resources in the world nine women cannot produce a baby in one month – but sometimes it sure feels like we try.

So, even if you DO have your entire budget in the piggy bank, put it into a interest bearing CD and allow yourself to sit on your idea. Of course nobody in the independent film world has their piggy bank stocked.  As you scramble for your budget for the next film remember that the universe is giving you ample time to gestate your next, perfect project. Voila.

Small Moments

Last night I was invited to the North-East Regional fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of America. Thirteen youth competed for a spot to their National competition in DC that day. They had been grilled during the entire day and then spoke for two minutes each before a sell-out crowd of about 150 at the fundraising dinner.

The young lady who won, Dempsey sat after the tables had all cleared and most guests had left, alone at her table with the gigantic mock up check from the Reader's Digest Foundation in her lap. It was a beautiful moment, noticed first by a woman who works for RD. I looked around for a camera and saw the young woman's sister's camera and asked her to take a picture - for herself - of this lovely and intimate moment. At that point another video producer who was at the table with us jumped into action, walked over, pulled the check into the light and made sure it was well visible for the camera. I was shocked.

First for the fact that I had not thought to do that myself and then that I had that reaction to begin with. My instinct was right - and it was a documentarians instinct and not a corporate video producers, it was a beautiful intimate moment, perfect for the camera of Dempsey's family and the checks amount or donor where at that moment irrelevant. But the other producer's instinct was great too - capture this intimate moment but make sure it's relevant for her client RD, even at the risk of losing the magic.

Can one wear both hats as a corporate director and a documentarian? Where are my instincts stronger? Had I reacted differently if RD was my active client? How many hats can we wear effectively, especially in a creative environment?

How many hats do you wear?

Not screening in a Theatre? No problem…

We are at a stage in the distribution of Abraham’s Children were we hold grass-roots semi-theatrical screenings. What that means is we go to non-traditional venues, like school auditoriums and class rooms, mosques, meeting halls and living rooms to show the film. Last weekend I had the good fortune to show Abraham’s Children twice myself. Once at a high school auditorium and once in a 1-12K private school whose auditorium also functions as a prayer room.

Early on, Caitlin Boyle of Film Sprout had warned a bunch of us filmmakers at her (awesome) workshop on grass roots distribution outreach for social change documentaries, to let go of having the film screened in a ‘perfect’ setting. I took that to mean, that the film might be shown in 4:3 format rather than the intended 16:9 (widescreen) or that the sound was not going to be perfect, etc. I also assumed that I would not be there to have to witness it.

SO on Friday and Saturday I made sure we had it all set up perfectly – right aspect ratio, sound as balanced as possible with the sound system available, room darkened, temperature right, etc. Friday: perfect! Saturday? Not so. For reasons beyond my control it was decided stop the film after it was only about 80% done. Whaat?

Reason being, they had simply run out of time and needed the room for something else. I was dumb folded. Why invite me to attend? Why go through the trouble of holding a screening of a film whose length is known? Why schedule a speech and Q&A session with the director? The Q&A turned into a discussion in the hallway with a few interested parties and I was back at my car before I knew it. It was a bizarre experience and something tells me: not the last.

Moral of the story: you can only control so much and then you have to let go. You where right, Caitlin (and Mom).

All I can say: donate $50, get the DVD shipped to your home and FINISH watching it!

When you know too much

Innocence IS bliss. But I knew that already, we all do. Starting a business or a family, shooting a film, or getting involved with that community board: the “had I known” realization. But what about the second time around? What do we hope to do better, different, more efficient, or with more compassion? Or is the first time so daunting that we decide: never again.

I remember my dear brilliant friend in Ireland who is also a filmmaker ask me if I was ready to spend the next two years of my life with my (first) documentary and I bravely said ‘yes’. The conversation in my head was a bit different. That was more along the lines of “yes, BUT…. won’t be full time, have clients, won’t take that long, etc.”

HA! Had I known! But now I DO KNOW. What does that mean for the next project? NEXT PROJECT? Are you kidding me? You’re still knee-deep in this one. Yeah, but this is a chance to get it right this time. Set it up differently from the get go, make sure you align yourself even better with people who do what you don’t do well brilliantly, allocate the budget differently and most of all: PATIENCE. Where does that leave the gut feeling and instincts though? To me, those two are paramount.

So here I am, trying to figure out not only a new awesome topic, angle and story, and something to be passionate about, BUT something where I can align myself NOW with the right people, groups, organizations and causes for three years from now when the film is done. Yikes. But you know me, I have some stuff cooking – I’m just afraid to serve it – pardon the metaphor – the ramifications are now clear beyond finishing the film – that was the easy part, remember. I also have to make sure to get the film OUT into the world. Will the second time be easier, or will it be harder? We shall find out.

The Conversation

Yesterday the Conversation happened. That is, THE CONVERSATION on Social Media, Digital Distribution and the Future of Film (Tweet: #convoNYC) at Columbia University in Manhattan.
Organizers, Scott Kirsner (who wrote one of my all time favorite books: Fans, Friends and Followers), Tiffany Shlain and Lance Weiler and http://www.workbookproject.com/) put together a full day of panels and beak out meetings that kept me focused for 9 hours straight. Really good stuff if you are an independent filmmaker and especially if you are in DIY distro mode with a documentary.

We are at a cross roads of our industry, not only as independent filmmakers but also as producers and conent-providers at large. The web, new technology and new ways of interaction with content of any kind, audience participation, instant access paired with very limited time resources are completely, totally and irrevocably changing how we consume media, how we engage in politics, social lives and just pretty much everything else. The generational divide of participants and non-participants is bigger than ever and has little to do with age, and everything to do with willingness to engage and sadly for many with insufficient access to computers and the internet.

There were so many things yesterday that were of micro interest to an independent filmmaker, but the bigger picture was ever present in the back (and the front) of the room. My head is still spinning with all the awesome possibilities that not necessarily cost much in terms of technology or bells and whistles, but do tend to take a huge amount of engagement, sic. time, sic. labor and sic. cost.

After all that, my two favorites take-aways from the day had nothing to do with being at the cutting edge in terms of knowledge or technical savvy, but just two quotes that would have been equally as pertinent 20 years ago, but do take a whole new meaning in today's environment.

The first, attributed to one of the organizers of this amazing event, Tiffany Shlane - more precisely her father: "If you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much space." And the other, uttered as a throw away sentence summing up the panel he participated in by Richard Lorber: "Everything is possible and nothing is working". Imight ad a resounding "YET" to the last quote. On on we plod....

People

In filming Abraham’s Children and working in film production for over 20 years I met many wonderful people from different cultures, religions, socio-economic backgrounds, and genders – women, men and everything in-between or ‘aside of’.

I met women who cross-dress as drag kings and question their gender identities, families who lead very devout religious lives and teach their children very diligently and carefully about their traditions and beliefs. I’ve met staunch conservatives, ultra-ultra liberals and some very confused people.

Do I agree with their life styles or believe systems. Some yes, some no. Some I can “see where they come from”, others “I don’t get it”, but I don’t think it’s my place to judge them or anybody else, which doesn’t mean I won’t engage in a discussion to make my opinion known and see if they would consider a change.

But these are people I know one-on-one and I’ve laughed and shared meals with them and they ALL are real people with real-life issues and maybe the only thing we agree on is that the Con Edison bill is really way out of control. And we can take it from there, maybe we find out fast that we don’t agree on much more, but you’d be surprised to find where there is common ground in the most unlikely situations.