Another millionaire asking for money on KickStarter

Wow, I saw a short by Troian Bellisario, one of the stars of ABC's hit Pretty Little Liars, recently. It was pretty good.

You can watch it here:
http://vimeo.com/49089299

What I could not believe was that I read she raised the money ($12k) for it on KS!!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/katurian/exiles?ref=search

She gets a few hundred grand per episode for Pretty Little Liars.

She's worth around three million:

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/actors/troian-bellisario-net-worth/

Her Dad's ultra-producer Donald Bellisario and is worth $250 million or so:

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/producers/donald-bellisario-net-worth/

What gives? The $12k would be pocket change for her. Is she so disconnected from reality that she thinks it's cool to ask other (much less fortunate) than her for money? I'm sure lots of her wealthy friends helped out but still - crowd funding should be for those that really need the money and can not get the funds elsewhere.
.
 
If I'm going to play Devil's Advocate (which I tend to do here a lot for some reason) I would say there's more to Kickstarter than just "getting money." You're also getting a built in fan base. There's a reason why internet marketing companies pay thousands of dollars for emails lists, names, addresses, birth dates, ages, etc.

If you get a few hundred people to donate a couple dollars to your Kickstarter campaign, you have a guaranteed fan base and built in audience for your product ready to go when the film is finished.

That being said... the amount, being so little... $12,000... makes it hard to respect her choice.
 
If I'm going to play Devil's Advocate (which I tend to do here a lot for some reason) I would say there's more to Kickstarter than just "getting money." You're also getting a built in fan base. There's a reason why internet marketing companies pay thousands of dollars for emails lists, names, addresses, birth dates, ages, etc.

If you get a few hundred people to donate a couple dollars to your Kickstarter campaign, you have a guaranteed fan base and built in audience for your product ready to go when the film is finished.

That being said... the amount, being so little... $12,000... makes it hard to respect her choice.

This is exactly what is going on. Why worry about marketing your project after it's completed when you can do it beforehand and have that market set in place for the product you've created.

The other thing is that with all these filmmakers using these crowd-funding sites, and seemingly taking away the potential for other, lesser known people to gain money, I think that it's a case of the people who jumped onto these websites in the first place now worried that they won't receive any, or very little funding over professionals who are now utilizing these sites.

Whether you like it or not this is what happens to any website that gains a massive following and then professional people start to take notice. It's happened to places like YouTube.
 
doesn't it depend on what their rewards were?
$10,000 will get you dinner with the cast (including her).

...I'm sure you'll be expected to pay for that too.

We live in strange times... You pay $10,000 for dinner with a multi-millionaire who's dad is in the ultra-high net worth league with 250m+...
 
Last edited:
This is a larger thing, bigger than KS.

The wall between celebrity and fans is become more and more opaque.
In the good ole days, a fan did not really have any basis for feeling that had any level of personal relation ship with the object of fandom.


Now, fans are not just faces in the crowd, they are "face book" friends, and twitter followers etc. Fans now think of the selves, somewhat correctly, as part of the "celebs" life. The celebs foster this, many hire social media workers to maintain the sense of "personal connection."

A KS campaign is a way to connect to more fans on this "personal" level. The fan can legitimately say, I am a part of this show, I am a part of that celebs life.

Everyone wants to be part of an exciting story, even a bit part in the life of "Troian Bellisario" is more interesting then the average life.
 
A KS campaign is a way to connect to more fans on this "personal" level. The fan can legitimately say, I am a part of this show, I am a part of that celebs life.

Everyone wants to be part of an exciting story, even a bit part in the life of "Troian Bellisario" is more interesting then the average life.

My issue is that sure connect with your celebrity via Facebook or Twitter or whatever, but it seriously crosses the line with me when the celebrity (who's a multi-millionaire) asks for money from their fans via KickStarter or other funding site.

The fact that the reward for donating $10,000 to the project was dinner with the cast (including her) really tells me how much she values her fans, and her own time with them.

But I do get some fans do want to help out, and for $x bucks would get a DVD as a result etc.

It's just seems perverse to me that someone of her wealth would ask for money from those hugely less fortunate that herself. How would I do it in her shoes? Fund the project myself and offer some free gifts (DVDs etc) on her website or Facebook page to randomly chosen lucky subscribers. I'm sure that would up her subscriber numbers and would be a really nice gift to her loyal fans.

...Not asking them for money when they earn $40-60k a year and she earns that in 2-3 days work.
 
Many rich people got rich, or richer, by using other people's money. It happens all the time in other businesses. It's no different that asking "the little people" to invest in stock or fund research and development.
Is what she did tacky and tasteless......probably, but that seems to be the norm on the left coast.
 
I addition to all the marketing posts...

It's not a tax, it's asking people to pitch in for your project. Nobody was forced to pay. Was she the producer too? It seems like she's acting in someone else's short. How many actors pay to be in a short?

Regardless, I don't think they did anything wrong or sketchy at all. Shoot, they had a successful kickstarter campaign and made what seems to be a decent short. Kudos to them.

Haha, also, they have a handful of strangers talking about their project on a forum for them. Extra kudos.

EDIT: Read their kickstarter page and she is indeed the writer/producer. Doesn't change my opinion.
 
Last edited:
be realistic. no one that makes 60,000/year is forking out 10k for a dinner with the cast.
 
be realistic. no one that makes 60,000/year is forking out 10k for a dinner with the cast.
^ I know.

The $10k dinner would have to come from an ultra-wealthy (or slightly crazy) fan.

The short was for her own production company.

It's interesting hearing all the opinions on this matter. I agree with some, not others - regardless, it was interesting hearing all the views.
.
 
Back
Top