Is there a such thing as too much ambition?

I ask this because I'm looking to start a very tumultuous year. In an 11 month span starting December 1st, my team and I are planning to have a crowdfunding campaign up and running for $20,000. That $20,000 is going to cover 3 short films (one musical, one love story, one drama,) and the first 6 episodes of a web series that we hope goes beyond that.

Being the writer and creative force at P1P, I'm almost certain I'm gonna lose whatever sanity I may have had left, but do you think that, in the span of time we have, we may be getting in over our heads? (Keep in mind, we're 4 people but will be using, mostly, outside actors and a couple of free-lancers who, depending on the project, may or may not be paid with food in lieu of cash.)

I'd like to hear some opinions on this, what do you guys/gals/in between/daleks think?
 
I don't think there's such thing as "too much ambition"... but there sure can be lack of proper planning & foresight in reaching one's goals.

Fwiw, relying on freelancers who "may or may not be paid with food in lieu of cash" is a pretty terrible idea.

You're welcome.
smiley_tiphat.gif


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$20k for nine projects is a bit over $2,200 per project. From my point of view too ambitious in quantity and no focus on quality. As always my focus is on sound, but I'm sure that it can be applied to any filmmaking craft. An experienced, respectable, ambitious, up-and-coming one-man-band production sound mixer/boom-op with decent gear will set you back about $150 per day. Call it a three day shoot, that would be $450; that's a quarter of your funds. The final product is ten minutes, call it 60 hours of audio post work; at a very modest $20 per hour that's $1,200.

$1,200
+$450
$1,650 total for audio alone.


Take that out of your $2,200 budget you're left with $550 for everything else.

I'm sure that you can apply similar rates for a DP and editor.

As you can guess I much prefer quality over quantity. If you apply the $20k to just your web series if you preproduce the hell out of it you can shoot all six episodes concurrently and save funds; now you will end up with a product of reasonable quality and be able to offer some modest pay most of your principle cast and crew.

Enough meandering from me.
 
I'm in between dales at the time, I think the $20000 will take you less far than you think... and yet is absolutely doable. We've got a dozen plus shorts to show for our decade of efforts and most everyone at this point has donated their time and talents. I've been primarily purchasing equipment over the years (although other members of the group have begun pitching in more frequently of late). Having the equipment allow you to be more flexible with your scheduling, allowing for more experimentation and more access to a variety of people who may not know their availability until right before the shoot. In those cases, preprep everything really well, then dig in when you're able to do so.

I've easily spent that much on hardware over the years, invest in grip equipment and audio equipment... if you have to let something slide, rent the camera -- as that tech changes frequently. The rest is pretty much the same as it was 50 years ago. Get a nice beefy post setup as well that will future proof you for a while. Get the best you can and max it out in terms of RAM and fast storage.
 
It's hard to say without knowing what your team's experience is, what equipment you've got vs. what you need, and what your expectation of finished quality is. I certainly don't think it's out of the question though.

My team (all volunteer cast & crew) did 6 projects this year - 4 narrative shorts, one documentary, and one music video. The doc took 5 days, the rest were all 3 days or less - from concept to completion. Since we're all volunteers our budgets typically run $500 or less per project (primarily food) although we've probably currently got $30k+ worth of equipment. I wouldn't consider our quality to be full broadcast/theatrical, although most of it has been screened successfully for audiences in a theater and some has been broadcast - it's certainly good enough for online delivery though. We've been doing 3-5 projects a year like that for the past 6 years, just hit 30 total projects with our latest one, and we basically just do this for fun in our spare time - we've all got full time careers which are mostly unrelated to the film industry at this point.

So it's certainly possible, assuming you've got the drive and skills to do it, and that your expectations match your capabilities.
 
What are the funds going to cover?

You could easily spend $20,000 on one short, or on your first episodes of your web series. You could just as easily spend <$1,000 on all of them depending on the equipment you have, and how you plan to work it.

I've worked on, and shot music videos that have $10,000+ budgets. I recently shot one that had a $1,000 budget.

So - what do you have? Something? Nothing? An Alexa? A DSLR? A mate with a RED who will do you a cheap deal?

11 months is certainly doable for pre-production and principal photography for 3 short productions and one slightly longer. Post will likely take a bit longer, but you might have completely seperate crews for each production (incl. Director and key creatives) in which case the post for one project could certainly overlap with the pre-prod/photography for the next.

Just as long as you're making quality work, otherwise what's the use in spending any money on it?

What have you got? What don't you have? What's your plan for distribution and marketing etc. What do you want to use them for?
And what sort of quality are we going for here? Another run-of-the-mill YouTube video? Or something with a bit more class/though/effort/production design.
 
Everyone's hit virtually all the nails on the head.

$20k is no mans land really. 9 Projects, bringing it to a little over $2k each.

At $2k each, you're basically asking people to commit to a long term plan without pay.

Why? There are other expenses you need to pay attention to. Insurance, permits, location costs.

Even if you can do without those, there are also props, wardrobe, batteries and any equipment you and your contacts don't have access to. You may also need money to pay for damages to locations and equipment. Who knows, you'll probably need money for expendables. Expenses for your MUA. Hard drives for your data and required backups, data cards and so on.

On top of that, what happens if some of your people drop out for paying gigs? Will you then have some money to pay for a replacement?

Don't forget your post production crew. They are very important part of the whole process. I often hear stories of post production people pulling out of projects and your only choice becomes paying. I was on a project who blew out the budget 600% due to people issues in post production.

If you've built up enough of a solid team of people who's goals all need to be address who don't need money for an extended period of time. It's doable. I can do it with who I have access to, can you?
 
I think you guys certainly can do all of that with 20,000 no problem. But my concern as someone in the general public is I wouldn't donate money to a series of random projects. Only to one project I'm really interested in. It sounds like you guys are throwing spaghetti to the wall to see what sticks which makes the projects seem unimportant.
 
So, just as a heads-up, falling asleep on your keyboard ends with you having 276 pages of nothing but random letters and spaces and responses to get back to. (Well, they had to write the 50 Shades of Grey screenplay somehow, right?)

I don't think there's such thing as "too much ambition"... but there sure can be lack of proper planning & foresight in reaching one's goals.

Fwiw, relying on freelancers who "may or may not be paid with food in lieu of cash" is a pretty terrible idea.

You're welcome.

Terrible idea? Probably. The upside is that most of what is going to be done is one-day shoots. There's actually a lot of planning already involved. The biggest problem we've run into is the lack of equipment. The equipment is 30% of that $20k, plus we always set up a slush fund on the back end, just for any unforeseen circumstances.

$20k for nine projects is a bit over $2,200 per project. From my point of view too ambitious in quantity and no focus on quality. As always my focus is on sound, but I'm sure that it can be applied to any filmmaking craft. An experienced, respectable, ambitious, up-and-coming one-man-band production sound mixer/boom-op with decent gear will set you back about $150 per day. Call it a three day shoot, that would be $450; that's a quarter of your funds. The final product is ten minutes, call it 60 hours of audio post work; at a very modest $20 per hour that's $1,200.

$1,200
+$450
$1,650 total for audio alone.


Take that out of your $2,200 budget you're left with $550 for everything else.

I'm sure that you can apply similar rates for a DP and editor.

As you can guess I much prefer quality over quantity. If you apply the $20k to just your web series if you preproduce the hell out of it you can shoot all six episodes concurrently and save funds; now you will end up with a product of reasonable quality and be able to offer some modest pay most of your principle cast and crew.

Enough meandering from me.

Surprisingly, I've already thought of all this. This is one of the reasons one of my EPs is a musician and sound technician and another is an accountant. What we've managed to do (pretty much inadvertently) is pull together a lot of the resources needed, creative, technical, financial, and scouting. This is all part of the plan, and we're all certain we can get everything we've got, and time is not really an issue, because, minus the web series, everything else is strictly a one-day shoot.

I'm in between dales at the time, I think the $20000 will take you less far than you think... and yet is absolutely doable. We've got a dozen plus shorts to show for our decade of efforts and most everyone at this point has donated their time and talents. I've been primarily purchasing equipment over the years (although other members of the group have begun pitching in more frequently of late). Having the equipment allow you to be more flexible with your scheduling, allowing for more experimentation and more access to a variety of people who may not know their availability until right before the shoot. In those cases, preprep everything really well, then dig in when you're able to do so.

I've easily spent that much on hardware over the years, invest in grip equipment and audio equipment... if you have to let something slide, rent the camera -- as that tech changes frequently. The rest is pretty much the same as it was 50 years ago. Get a nice beefy post setup as well that will future proof you for a while. Get the best you can and max it out in terms of RAM and fast storage.

Like I stated earlier, that's the biggest chunk of the budget. We're making sure that we have camera, tripod, storage, lights, etc, because we're making all of these. The camera is the one thing that we won't be able to avoid buying outright, but we'll probably be using something smaller-scale than a RED (hazard of living in the middle of nowhere.)

Direct-to-YouTube!
YAY!

Seriously though, what are your distribution plans for these?

Note to self: Internet Sarcasm Meter was not a smart investment... fourth time it's broken this week...
Anyway, yes, the current plan is to distribute the films via Youtube, seeing as the genres are really better suited as shorts, as opposed to anything feature-length or even longer than 12-15 minutes. Crucify me, if you must, but, considering we're just starting, we don't have much other choice. If this is all successful, we already have plans in place for a longer short to be sent out to festivals, namely Slamdance.

It's hard to say without knowing what your team's experience is, what equipment you've got vs. what you need, and what your expectation of finished quality is. I certainly don't think it's out of the question though.

My team (all volunteer cast & crew) did 6 projects this year - 4 narrative shorts, one documentary, and one music video. The doc took 5 days, the rest were all 3 days or less - from concept to completion. Since we're all volunteers our budgets typically run $500 or less per project (primarily food) although we've probably currently got $30k+ worth of equipment. I wouldn't consider our quality to be full broadcast/theatrical, although most of it has been screened successfully for audiences in a theater and some has been broadcast - it's certainly good enough for online delivery though. We've been doing 3-5 projects a year like that for the past 6 years, just hit 30 total projects with our latest one, and we basically just do this for fun in our spare time - we've all got full time careers which are mostly unrelated to the film industry at this point.

So it's certainly possible, assuming you've got the drive and skills to do it, and that your expectations match your capabilities.

It's a complex equation, certainly, but we're basically starting from scratch. We all have experience in academic settings with either creative production, sound design, accounting, or location usage. This is one of the big things we're banking on to gel throughout the process. We're hoping our quality will be good enough for some broadcast, possibly some theatrical, but, for now, this will be online-exclusive, which is why one of the Kickstarter perks is the sneak preview. We open up 72 hours before to those at a certain level, and, if there's a major, but easily fixable, problem, we can get it addressed before full debut.

What are the funds going to cover?

You could easily spend $20,000 on one short, or on your first episodes of your web series. You could just as easily spend <$1,000 on all of them depending on the equipment you have, and how you plan to work it.

I've worked on, and shot music videos that have $10,000+ budgets. I recently shot one that had a $1,000 budget.

So - what do you have? Something? Nothing? An Alexa? A DSLR? A mate with a RED who will do you a cheap deal?

11 months is certainly doable for pre-production and principal photography for 3 short productions and one slightly longer. Post will likely take a bit longer, but you might have completely seperate crews for each production (incl. Director and key creatives) in which case the post for one project could certainly overlap with the pre-prod/photography for the next.

Just as long as you're making quality work, otherwise what's the use in spending any money on it?

What have you got? What don't you have? What's your plan for distribution and marketing etc. What do you want to use them for?
And what sort of quality are we going for here? Another run-of-the-mill YouTube video? Or something with a bit more class/though/effort/production design.

We have an idea and a collection of seemingly random skills, which means we're starting from absolute zero. We're looking at a quality which, while it'll be online, goes above and beyond your average run-of-the-mill YouTube video. We're offering distinct projects to show range and to, hopefully, drum up support for our next projects.

Everyone's hit virtually all the nails on the head.

$20k is no mans land really. 9 Projects, bringing it to a little over $2k each.

At $2k each, you're basically asking people to commit to a long term plan without pay.

Why? There are other expenses you need to pay attention to. Insurance, permits, location costs.

Even if you can do without those, there are also props, wardrobe, batteries and any equipment you and your contacts don't have access to. You may also need money to pay for damages to locations and equipment. Who knows, you'll probably need money for expendables. Expenses for your MUA. Hard drives for your data and required backups, data cards and so on.

On top of that, what happens if some of your people drop out for paying gigs? Will you then have some money to pay for a replacement?

Don't forget your post production crew. They are very important part of the whole process. I often hear stories of post production people pulling out of projects and your only choice becomes paying. I was on a project who blew out the budget 600% due to people issues in post production.

If you've built up enough of a solid team of people who's goals all need to be address who don't need money for an extended period of time. It's doable. I can do it with who I have access to, can you?

The basic answer is, what we've got is basically every contingency plan possible. The four of us are going about our every day lives while all this is happening, but, minus the web series, everything is one-day shoot, with post being done completely in-house. Our slush/leftover fund is what's going into the things that happen that aren't planned for. And, as one of the biggest things, one of our shorts is basically a one-person, one-camera affair, which may cost just the amount for the equipment we're buying anyway.

I think you guys certainly can do all of that with 20,000 no problem. But my concern as someone in the general public is I wouldn't donate money to a series of random projects. Only to one project I'm really interested in. It sounds like you guys are throwing spaghetti to the wall to see what sticks which makes the projects seem unimportant.

Now that you mention it, it absolutely does sound like that, but I assure you it's not. Everything we're doing is more us showing that we aren't some exclusive cheap comedy or horror or musical production company. We've decided to run the gambit with projects we've already had in the pipeline for a while and are either already ready for shooting or which has already been started somehow.


EDIT: Just as an update, after talking to my team, we've upped the goal to $25,000. This will ensure that we're ready in case of unforeseen circumstances.
 
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There is a term for too much ambition. It is called dellusional. You need to set realistic goals that are achievable.

$20,000 is way too much for someone without a pre-existing fan base and track record.

Take tiny steps. You may end up self funding your films from your own money before you can get others to believe in you.
 
Do it!

I ask this because I'm looking to start a very tumultuous year. In an 11 month span starting December 1st, my team and I are planning to have a crowdfunding campaign up and running for $20,000. That $20,000 is going to cover 3 short films (one musical, one love story, one drama,) and the first 6 episodes of a web series that we hope goes beyond that.

Being the writer and creative force at P1P, I'm almost certain I'm gonna lose whatever sanity I may have had left, but do you think that, in the span of time we have, we may be getting in over our heads? (Keep in mind, we're 4 people but will be using, mostly, outside actors and a couple of free-lancers who, depending on the project, may or may not be paid with food in lieu of cash.)

I'd like to hear some opinions on this, what do you guys/gals/in between/daleks think?

You will loose a little sanity yes, but all worth it at the end. It took me a year to complete a full feature with no budget and alone. Clearly yes i was out of my mind but the feeling of completing it and filling a theater was well worth it after i mentally crashed. Just organized everything to the T! and block off any negative energy that will surely come during your venture and you will do just fine.
 
you have to start somewhere

There is a term for too much ambition. It is called dellusional. You need to set realistic goals that are achievable.

$20,000 is way too much for someone without a pre-existing fan base and track record.

Take tiny steps. You may end up self funding your films from your own money before you can get others to believe in you.

20k is quite a bit for a newbie. But it is a blessing if you are given that $ without an intention to return it. It means someone does believe in you, no? Can't agree with the tiny steps though. Its big steps that makes us stand out from the rest. Its the decision to even make that first big step for you to realize that you only have 2 choices... to keep moving forward or giving up.
 
Gopherit! ;)

P1P, it seems you already have everything well in hand making me wonder what the purpose of this thread is even for.

Go forth and filmify.
May your feet hurt from kicking so much @ss!

Sincerely honest, I didn't realize exactly how well in hand I had it up until I started answering questions. Lol. But, we will definitely kick some major @ss and other parts of the body that have symbols replacing letters!
 
I ask this because I'm looking to start a very tumultuous year. In an 11 month span starting December 1st, my team and I are planning to have a crowdfunding campaign up and running for $20,000.
I kook forward to following your crowdfunding campaign.

If you can raise $20,000 then I believe you can do everything
you plan do to. What are your plans if you don raise the full
amount?
 
By tiny steps, I should point out small steps like doing test shoots with buddies ahead of time can prevent headaches when you take a big step later with a shoot.

You will be better prepared knowing that a new technique will work the way you hope. Also, with something as tricky as location sound outdoors, you will know if you have to worry about passing air planes, fire trucks, wind, echo, and public interference.
 
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