Crowd Funding

J

jamesgwall

hey.

Any help with crowd funding? I have setup a IndieGoGo page for my next short. I've tweeted about it, sent the link around, Raindance even put the project in their weekly news letter, but still no luck.

Any tips?
 
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It looks like a good idea. I hope you get the 800, but I think most people expect young filmmakers to fund their own shorts. You could do it in style for 800, but I'm sure with a bit of ingenuity and social skills, you could blag most of what you're looking for:

The $800 will be spend on the location, hiring equipment, cast and crew, wardrobe, art direction, catering and anything else in the middle.
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Come on man, you can weasel a lot of that for free!

I would shoot 2 minutes of it on a zero budget to show people you've got skills. People have nothing to go on right now...

My guess is you'll get hardly any of the money, but end up shooting it yourself and do fine...

See you in the screening room.
 
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You're correct, I could make it on a zero budget. However, the budget would give me so much breathing space. Being able to choose my location rather than taking the one I get for free.

Either way the short will get made, money or no money. cheers.
 
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I get the impression that most of your fellow filmmakers are
just like you. You don't fund the films of others - neither do
most filmmakers. You don't donate much to filmmaker you
don't know personally - neither do I.

I wish I had tips for you because that would mean I have
successfully funded a film using crowd funding. Some get it
done. But I can't figure out how they do it.
 
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You don't donate much to filmmaker you
don't know personally - neither do I.
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I'd want to see evidence that any project was already well underway before I gave any money... \So far, I haven't seen anything that really inspires me. But I hope that might change.

Some get it done. But I can't figure out how they do it.
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On the front page of Kickstarter there are a lot of people getting fairly decent sums, sometimes for just a trailer and a pitch. For every success, there might be 10 or 100 unfunded pitches. I don't know the odds.
 
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Crowd funding is, as far as I can see, a great way of getting lots of people you know either really well or just a little to donate to your film. In that sense I see it as being like Just Giving for sponsorship. I don't think very many people raise money by 'casual investors' who read the pitch and decide to donate. I think if that's what you're relying on then you should rethink it...

Some people can do it that way (check out A.D.Lane and Indywood films) but I recommend sending that link out on Facebook and Twitter and email and just telling friends and family what you're doing and ask them to give you 10, 20, 30 bucks or whatever you need.

The crucial point is that you can't expect people to stumble upon it and invest. I've invested twice via Kickstarter; once from Indietalk and once to someone who helped with my website. I think this sort of supportr happens, but not the way you're expecting it to.
 
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I had an email conversation this week with a producer who did 2 successful campaigns in a row with kickstarter.

Three good pieces of advice:

1.) Look around the crowd funding sites for successful fund raisers, find their blogs, and read them.

2.) Update your progress constantly about how the fund raising is going. And, have a skilled writer write your updates for you.

3.) Be realistic with what you ask people to contribute. $5, $10, $15, and $20 donations in these hard times are more affordable than asking for $100, $1,000 and $10,000 donations. That also means don't think you can raise $150,000 in a month. Consider raising $10,000 in 3 months and make due with that.
 
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As some of you know, I am fascinated by crowd funding so I
tend to ask a lot of questions.

TheBuck said:
Promote that link like mad on every social site you can find. It will take some time but you should be able to raise some money.
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Has this worked for you, Buck? Have you donated to a filmmaker
you don't know because you have seen links on social sites? My
assumption is this would work, but it doesn't seem to. At least for
most projects.
 
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directorik said:
Has this worked for you, Buck? Have you donated to a filmmaker
you don't know because you have seen links on social sites? My
assumption is this would work, but it doesn't seem to. At least for
most projects.
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I donated to Buck's, if that restores your faith in humanity ;)

On the whole though I would agree that Crowdfunding is a desperate inefficient way of raising money (and inefficient to the point of redundant for raising money from strangers).

Still some people obviously do manage to raise tens of thousands of dollars on Kickstarter but I've yet to hear any of those filmmakers talking about how they did it...
 
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NickClapper said:
I donated to Buck's, if that restores your faith in humanity ;)
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I know you're kidding, but my curiosity isn't about faith in humanity.
I know that people will donate a little to people they know (even
virtually) or who have helped them. I actually have a lot of faith in
humanity and believe people are willing to help each other out. Which
is why crowd funding interests me. It "should" work.

If promoting like mad on social sites worked I would understand the
advice. But we all hear from filmmakers who have promoted (like
jamesgwall has) and still got nothing. I suspect Buck has been promoting
like mad for his project.

Not only am I very curious to know how a successful project is funded,
I am curious about people who DO donate.
 
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I have donated to friends projects before. I've never donated to a random project, although I do look on IndieGoGo to see what's out there. I imagine if a project caught my eye I would donate a small amount.

There is a guy from Leeds called Danny Lacey, google him, he raised 10 grand for his short film. He had some interesting ways to gain the donations. There is those Buy A Credit boys too.

I tried the 'go mad and message everyone on facebook' on a previous project, most of my friends and family offered to donate a pound or so. It does feel like begging.
 
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Promote that link like mad on every social site you can find. It will take some time but you should be able to raise some money.
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Fair enough. Say that took 5-10 hours. I think that time would be better spent doing some test shots with the 5D, and making a 30 second mini-trailer. That's a massive step up from having nothing to show.
 
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Hey guys,
I am crowdfunding for the first time on feature film project of mine on IndieGogo - http://www.indiegogo.com/sunrise-film since 8 days now have raised $3785 which is just past 10% of the goal and it is hard work. I can tell you, its a very quick and tough learning curve. I have been promoting like mad on Twitter and Facebook. Sending emails to people. I hope I can make it to the goal... Long way to go and 94 days left. But it's great fun and very exciting. But if you think you can just put something out there and money will just drop in you are wrong. You have to work very hard to drive the referrals. I think I'm going to write a book after this. Crowdfunding for dummies and make a lot of bucks. LOL
 
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partho said:
Hey guys,
I am crowdfunding for the first time on feature film project of mine on IndieGogo - http://www.indiegogo.com/sunrise-film since 8 days now have raised $3785 which is just past 10% of the goal and it is hard work. I can tell you, its a very quick and tough learning curve. I have been promoting like mad on Twitter and Facebook. Sending emails to people. I hope I can make it to the goal... Long way to go and 94 days left. But it's great fun and very exciting. But if you think you can just put something out there and money will just drop in you are wrong. You have to work very hard to drive the referrals. I think I'm going to write a book after this. Crowdfunding for dummies and make a lot of bucks. LOL
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The teaser looks fantastic and it looks like you've made a strong start to the funding.

It's frustrating for us Brits that Kickstarter is US only because that seems to have a lot more casual investors (the possibility of not having to pay anything being a big attraction) but you're doing a great job.

I'm from Crawley so we're practically neighbours as well! Keep us updated on this. When do you plan to shoot?
 
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NickClapper said:
The teaser looks fantastic and it looks like you've made a strong start to the funding.

It's frustrating for us Brits that Kickstarter is US only because that seems to have a lot more casual investors (the possibility of not having to pay anything being a big attraction) but you're doing a great job.

I'm from Crawley so we're practically neighbours as well! Keep us updated on this. When do you plan to shoot?
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Thanks bro! I shot it on my hacked Lumix GH1 HDSLR and was tough to do all (shoot, light, direct and produce)
I have made a strong start but they are all people I know who have donated so far excepting 20% of friends of friends or of fans of my first movie, who saw their friends donate. Still waiting for the straggler or Sean Penn :lol: to give me an anonymous donation. Its been tough last two days. But keeping my head up.
You can become a member on indiegogo (free) and favourite 'Sunrise' and you'll get all the updates. I'll be posting them here too. I hope to shoot in September if all goes well.

I am also working with a Festival in Brighton (Legacy Film Festival) and we've just announced a shorts submission. Check out the site and if you have anything send it in. Spread the word to your friends.

:)
 
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I'm trying to figure out which one to choose....Indiegogo or Kickstarter.

Looking at the number of pages of film successes, it's 19(indiegogo) vs. 121(kickstarter). But at the same time, if the project isn't a success, no dice. Hmmm...

What's the verdict there?
 
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