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GIVE ME THE POWER TO MAKE SOMETHING EPIC! LOW BUDGET WITH A BIG PAYOUT!

EDIT: I had no idea how old/long this thread was. Seems like you're doing well! I'll keep my advice below anyway...

Alrighty - So, Rik has already hit the nail on the head - This isn't the best place to advertise to get money towards your project - because he's right, we're filmmakers with our own financial woes!

Furthermore, NickClapper made the pivitol point here - Your pitch isn't ready. Your pitch can't be 'It's like Blair Witch. But it's not. It has a twist.'

Another thing to keep in mind: Blair Witch had a budget a bit over $500,000. It's a common misconception that you can take a GoPro out into the woods and get the same result. Sort of like how many people buy a tape-deck and then expect their songs to sound like Springsteen's 'Nebraska.' Nebraska was recorded on a tape deck, yes, but also had an incredible amount of post-production to make it sound halfway decent.

Since you haven't yet made a film... I'd suggest ditching this project entirely, or go out and make it on your own microbudget. Get experience. You're making a whole lot of promises I think you'll have trouble keeping. (Literally, you actually do 'promise' things. Careful with that!)
 
I'm glad they finished the film, but have to say the trailer doesn't make a very compelling pitch for watching the film. It feels like a no-budget copy of BWP. The reviews on google play and amazon don't inspire much confidence either - either 5-star glowing reviews that often sound like friends or people involved with the film, or 1-star reviews from people shocked and horrified at the fact they spent money on it.

SpiritInTheWoodsFilm said:
You may doubt me once, but never twice.
Click to expand...

Well, from what I've seen so far of the first film I'm even less confident in the planned sequel, so...
 
Will Vincent said:
For the record.. despite it probably looking like I was cutting him down, my entire point was one shouldn't be seeking funding for their first project, especially if the amount they're looking for is pretty easy to come by on their own with a little side job, or from friends/family.
Click to expand...
But he did get the money. He got more than he asked for.

Not sure how much he got from anyone at indietalk other then $10
from welsh_gambit but this pitch clearly worked. It's too bad he never
returned here. That happens all too often.
 
But he DID get the money. Your entire point was one shouldn't be seeking
funding for their first project like he did. Perhaps your point is incorrect.

I was wrong. His pitch worked.
 
My point was that one shouldn't go seeking funding for their first project, yes. Secondarily my point was that the amount he was seeking would be easier to raise on his own without asking for handouts -- er sorry, 'contributions'

Whether it worked or not doesn't invalidate my point. :)
 
Everyone has their own way of going about things.
I personally don't want to cash in all my favors from people until I know that I have a solid foundation of experience. Which is just about now :yes:

Otherwise I fear they would not support me in my future endeavors.
I want to make great films and people see that their support really paid off.
 
sfoster said:
Everyone has their own way of going about things.
Click to expand...

I agree. Clearly, in this case, funding for their first project worked.
And it seems it was easier to ask for handouts than other methods.
There are many different ways to seek funding. It's foolish to say one
shouldn't use a specific method; especially when that method works.
 
I think people are being a little too hasty in declaring this a crowd funding success story.If you look at how the donations break down, the vast majority of it was a $750 OR MORE donation.That means the other 8 contributors account for unto $170 of donations.

For all we know the big donation could have been $900 dollars from his Dad and rest just the odd bit of change thrown in from family members. I could be being cynical but I find it hard to believe somebody has paid upwards of $750 dollars because they want to see yet another cheap BWP knock off.
 
It helped that they kept their goals modest - it doesn't take a lot of donors to hit $1000. I'd say that let them succeed despite the fact that their campaign clearly wasn't really ready.

As for the amount - I get the argument that they shouldn't be asking for an amount that they could easily raise elsewhere. I'm just not sure that really makes sense - if you can easily raise $1000, wouldn't it still be a good idea to raise another $1000 by other means (i.e. crowdfunding)? It seems like it makes sense to combine as many sources of funding as possible, and personally I'd rather see people supplementing other funding with modest crowdfunding campaigns then relying solely on large crowdfunding campaigns for their entire budget.

I do agree with Will's concern about doing this for their first project though. In my mind crowdfunding comes with a certain responsibility to deliver what you claim you will - or at minimum, be capable of delivering what you promise. Stuff happens, of course, and some projects will fail despite the best efforts of the people behind them. That's very different than promising way more than you're capable of, which is what I think happened here (at least based on the apparent results).

Their pitch exhibited all the characteristics of the "first time filmmaker syndrome" that we keep seeing pop up here - an absolute confidence in how amazing their project is, combined with a blindness to or an unwillingness to recognize their own shortcomings. FTFS is primarily a manifestation of one side of the Dunning-Kruger effect - a lack of experience makes someone unable to accurately gauge their skills & abilities (and, in this case, the merits of their project) and leads them to overestimate their abilities.

I'm not really sure how best to respond to these kinds of things going forward, as they seem to always follow the same pattern - new member shows up with the greatest film project ever conceived, long time members here respond with advice that is generally grounded in experience and reality but seems critical because they don't share the new member's blind enthusiasm for the project, new member responds defensively, people end up arguing about whether we were too harsh or not harsh enough, new member is never heard from again after some point.

How do we break this pattern? Is there a cure for FTFS that doesn't involve chasing people away, but also doesn't just feed the disease? The difficulty is that a certain level of irrational confidence is almost necessary in order to pursue indie filmmaking at all, given the long odds of success. How do you balance the irrational with the rational approaches necessary to improve the odds?
 
ItDonnedOnMe said:
I'm not really sure how best to respond to these kinds of things going forward, as they seem to always follow the same pattern - new member shows up with the greatest film project ever conceived, long time members here respond with advice that is generally grounded in experience and reality but seems critical because they don't share the new member's blind enthusiasm for the project, new member responds defensively, people end up arguing about whether we were too harsh or not harsh enough, new member is never heard from again after some point.

How do we break this pattern? Is there a cure for FTFS that doesn't involve chasing people away, but also doesn't just feed the disease? The difficulty is that a certain level of irrational confidence is almost necessary in order to pursue indie filmmaking at all, given the long odds of success. How do you balance the irrational with the rational approaches necessary to improve the odds?
Click to expand...

The only real solution is for these things to not get funded, and people to eventually realize that trying to get money to make crap, when you have no prior experience, etc.. isn't a good way to do business. Sadly, the internet doesn't seem to care, so people will just continue to get funded, I guess that's fine. I just get tired of seeing all these people begging for money, all the damn time.

In this case, at least he made it clear that he didn't need this money to make the film, it was just extra to take better care of his cast/crew. But there are so many others where they've done not a damned thing, ever, yet are trying to get a bunch of strangers online to give them money to buy a nice camera, lights, audio gear, etc so they can make a movie, or several movies.

I get that it's tough to save up the cash to do things on your own, but at some point you've gotta put some of your own skin in the game. At least when you're starting out.

I dunno.. I guess it's a mentality I'll never understand.

Too many people want a free ride these days. It's completely soured my view of crowdfunding. I may, at some point in the future, pursue a crowdfunded project, but you can be sure it's not until I've got plenty more work under my belt that I've paid for, and have the project totally squared away, etc.
 
Not sure if anyone posted this yet, but his film is up on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Woods-.../ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top/187-9956292-2048203

I think everyone will find the reviews very amusing. Some people attacked the director with anger and disgust, utterly baffled by the horrible quality. Other people "INTERESTINGLY" raving about how amazing and artistic it is, a true cinematic gem.

Even though people hated it, I have to give credit to the director for making a somewhat successful film. He raised some money, and somehow got his film watched by a good amount of people.

http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Woods-Adrian-Denze/product-reviews/B00IGS2YGG
 
ChimpPhobiaFilms said:
Not sure if anyone posted this yet, but his film is up on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Woods-.../ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top/187-9956292-2048203

I think everyone will find the reviews very amusing. Some people attacked the director with anger and disgust, utterly baffled by the horrible quality. Other people "INTERESTINGLY" raving about how amazing and artistic it is, a true cinematic gem.

Even though people hated it, I have to give credit to the director for making a somewhat successful film. He raised some money, and somehow got his film watched by a good amount of people.

http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Woods-Adrian-Denze/product-reviews/B00IGS2YGG
Click to expand...

Ouch. Those are some brutal reviews.
 
Seeing the amount of reviews this has been given this guy must be turning a profit on this POS?

If anything that just gives me hope...
 
sfoster said:
well apparently he is part of some group with 25,000 people
I am not
Click to expand...

Of which a maximum or 9 people contributed. Im sorry but I'm calling BS on this, I honestly think the one big donation was a family member and the other 8 just pittance.Surely amazon instant have SOME form of quality control?
 
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