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Crowd Funding

Take a f'ing chance....

People are giving you the reasons your crowd funding campaign isn't working and pointing you in the direction to make it a success.

No one is saying don't do it. You don't have to accept or follow any advice given on this thread, especially if you don't need your crowd funding campaign to work. Go do it. We all encourage you to make your movie!
 
Sweetie said:
Take a f'ing chance....

People are giving you the reasons your crowd funding campaign isn't working and pointing you in the direction to make it a success.

No one is saying don't do it. You don't have to accept or follow any advice given on this thread, especially if you don't need your crowd funding campaign to work. Go do it. We all encourage you to make your movie!
Click to expand...

Woah, chill mate...calm down. I have taken pretty much all of the advice here on board, considered it, and decided to go with a lot of it.

Thats what I am finding so bizarre. I have accepted the need for footage etc, the only parts I didn't decide to go with was making shorts, putting up pages for my actors as my actors are new and have no pages to be put up, and sending my film to a film festival.

The George Carlin vid was pretty much an attempt to lighten the mood, so please just calm down.

As for my crowd funding not working...Its raised $105 bucks in just a few short days, from two pledgers...thats a great start and more then I could have hoped for. Someone else here has promised $100 US if I show them some footage that impresses...I would say that is also pretty damn cool. So for me, in my eyes at least, my crowd funding campaign is working, and I haven't even approached local newspapers yet...
 
FantasyFilmProductions said:
Indie

Its my first film that I am making for the PUBLIC.

I have been playing with film privately for over 5 years.

I don't do shorts. I cannot write or imagine shorts. They annoy me as they are so tiny. In short, I kind of hate shorts.
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My girlfriend once said:
"Why don't you make a long movie?
In fact a feature is just a collection of short movies."

With a short you can show your funders you know how to tell a story.
Every scene in a feature can be seen as a short.

This will not change your mind, so I'd say: good luck :)
I hope you will succeed :)
 
FantasyFilmProductions said:
..... I haven't even approached local newspapers yet...
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You should have on day 1.
And again on day 7.

Day 1 to make the start easier.
People like winners: if you raise a lot the first few days, more people are likely to join in.
"It must be good if so many people believe in it..."

Day 7: just in case they ignored you. Or to tell about the progress.

In general one should have all their media ammunition ready before starting the campaign.
Actually: I think one should start poking around before it even starts.
 
On the 10/02 you wrote “It's raised $105 bucks in just a few short days”, but that’s not true. You started the project on 26/01, so it actually took 13 days for you to get one pledge! Then one the next day. 2 days later, no more pledges.

You’ve got 78 days left, in order to raise $9,895. That’s an average of $127 per day. At your current rate of $105 per 17 days, you might get another $525. That’s a total $630. That’s not enough.

If this is going to work, you really need to pull out all the stops. You’re video probably wants to be a combination of your reel, as well as you talking to you potential pledgers. That 2-page novel you didn’t want to write; write it. 2 pages is nothing; if they’re interested, people will read it. Give a thorough breakdown of where you plan to spend this money. 20 days in, and you haven't contacted the local media? You need to do that sooner rather than later. Promote your campaign everywhere.

What you’ve said about learning as you go along… You shouldn’t be doing that. Potential pledgers aren’t there to help you learn. They want to help you create a product. You talk as if you’re already planning on doing re-shoots, working under the assumption that you won’t get everything right first time. But that’s what you should be aiming to do. Of course, things don’t always go to plan, but you shouldn’t be counting on it. That’s like saying you intend on wasting everybody’s money.

Tidy it all up, or I have a feeling that your campaign won’t make it.
 
FantasyFilmProductions said:
Fair point. I did think of a video, but my gripe with it is that I don't want to be like every other pledge desiring person that puts up a video of themselves talking about what they want or need. Those videos are generally quite boring.
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For me, nothing is worse than a "quite boring" video.

You need complete strangers to donate money. If you had NZ $50 to
donate to someone who wanted to make their first film would you
chose a campaign with no video at all?
 
Yea fair point people. So basically what I am getting here is that I have done almost none of the things I needed to do to do a successful crowd funding campaign. I will go back to the drawing board on this one.

Thanks for all of the feedback and suggestions. I am sure they will help not only myself but others.

I'm sorry if I came across as a bit pissy at points, I got a bit disheartened for a bit there but I do appreciate you all trying to help with this.
 
As I read what I wrote I think I wrote it wrong.

I would rather see a "quite boring" video than nothing.
 
I'm sorry if I came across as a bit pissy at points, I got a bit disheartened for a bit there but I do appreciate you all trying to help with this.
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I can imagine how it feels to have your ideas torn apart. Actually, I don't need to imagine, it happens to me all the time.

The truth of the matter is it's going to be harder to create and run a successful crowd funding campaign than it will be to get your film made, unless you've already done the hard yards and built up your fan base already.

The next truth is, all this is nothing compared to the work it takes to get distribution. Without distribution, making your movie means naught.

Once again, good luck.
 
Sweetie said:
The truth of the matter is it's going to be harder to create and run a successful crowd funding campaign than it will be to get your film made, unless you've already done the hard yards and built up your fan base already.

The next truth is, all this is nothing compared to the work it takes to get distribution. Without distribution, making your movie means naught.
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+10

Aaaaaaaaamen.


Making the film is "the fun part" of filmmaking sausage.
Financing, marketing, and distro... not so much fun.

deserving-beating-o.gif
 
Let's make a short list of what one needs for a successful campaign without going to deep into the details:

- pervious work to show you can do it
- an engaging video to persuade people to share or donate
- an engaging text that's clear about the project and expenses
- clarity about cast, crew, script, etc
- a fanbase and/or mailinglist of people to contact directly or even before the campaign
- news articles to send to (local) newspapers at the start and later during the campaign
- a seeding strategy to reach out to your target audience on internet(fora) and drive traffic to the campaign
- social media profiles on facebook & twitter to get the news out and to make sharing easy
- plans to send out more news and updates during the campaign
- good ROI and / or rewards for funders with a healthy margin to use for the project
- stamina

Feel free to copy and add things to it. :)
 
https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/1777#_=

Looks like FFP's campaign has a few days left to go with some pretty discouraging results at the moment.

$10,000 Target
2 Pledgers
$105 Pledged
3 days Remaining

Crowd funding is some seriously unpleasant business.
It's work.
It's real work.
It demands just as much work as actually "making" the film.
And the entire skill set used for crowd funding BEFORE the film is shot and edited can be applied toward its marketing AFTERWARD.

Consider it a preview of what's gonna happen when the film is done.



Pixelate said:
We have some amazing ideas but are struggling to reach our target and are not sure how to engage people... Any advice would be greatly appreciated
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Hi, Nicole
Ordinarily I would discourage shoe-horning in on someone else's thread, but...
Probably no need to start a new thread.

Okay, specifically who IS your festival's target?
When you first sat down and started seriously organizing this film festival who did you and your collaborators think was going to attend?
What demographic? What population?
Do they have discretionary income?
Are they aggregated physically or socially?
When they're not going to YOUR film festival what are they doing instead?
What are they doing his weekend?
 
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