Kickstarter to Make the Teaser First?

[kjones]

Greetings, All-

My partner and I want to raise funds to make a teaser, then use the completed teaser to hopefully attract funding and make the feature film (on kickstarter or indiegogo). It's a period piece, and our initial budget deems the feature too expensive for kickstarter and our own bank accounts. Backers would all get perks, etc. for their contribution to the teaser. High dollar backers would get something if the feature gets funded and made.

Do you think it has any chance of success as a kickstarter-type campaign? I don't mean in terms of the teaser quality, but regarding the actual fundraising for a marketing teaser. Kickstarter doesn't allow multi-level marketing, but we would still be completing a film project if funded (the teaser).

Hope this made sense, thanks for any thoughts or sharing your experience-

 

[DeJager]

It depends on a variety of things such as your experience, your connections, your marketing skills, your budget, luck, and did I say marketing skills? Oh.. and filmmaking skills. I think Kickstarter and IGG are too saturated. The majority of people who will back your project will be backing the project because of you; typically individuals you already know and friends of the cast/crew. Only a small percentage of backers will be "casual pledgers" or people that come across your project by browsing. It can happen but it's difficult unless you truly have a unique project and market it well.

 

[PaulGriffith]

What about the teaser to raise money for the teaser to raise money for the feature?

Rewrite your teaser to make it something you can shoot. Make a killer teaser for $10 and you'll prove to the world you can make a killer feature for a little more. Like Dejager said, most of your funding will likely come from people who know you. Can you really ask them to give twice, and can you really offer feature perks to the teaser funders when statistically the feature won't get made?

 

[MileCreations]

Sometimes I feel you need to put money into something before you get anything back. Of course sometimes you won't get anything back. But if you put some of your own money in up front to the teaser then make the campaign for the feature. As DeJager said though, a lot of the time it's people who know you or know of you who will back and project so it helps to have a lot of friends or already a fan base on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter

 

[kjones]

Thanks for your thoughts, folks.

Sounds like you are saying that kickstarter should be called "The Family & Friends Funding Channel!" I'm not trying to be as sarcastic as "interesting, is that the norm?" Would assume kickstarter wouldn't divulge the statistics even if they could find them out. Will do some more research, and rayw provided some good info on kickstarter on another thread.

But it would also seem that if the project has some pre-qualified elements (name actor, recognizable funding source, name "he's so great" quote, etc.) attached, that the campaign might have reach beyond family, friends, and film pals. Then indeed, it becomes marketing on maybe a higher level.

@MileCreations, I wondered about that (if we aren't willing/able to finance the teaser ourselves)-- will people be as willing to back the teaser project?... Should we mention the amount we *can* put in?

 

[MileCreations]

Kickstarter succes rate right here. Interesting to note that 12% of campaigns never receive any funds whatsoever.

http://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats

Indiegogo don't seem to have their success rate anywhere, no doubt it would be similar, but they do offer some tips.
http://www.indiegogo.com/blog/2011/...rst-contribution-can-double-your-success.html

It's definitely worth spending some time getting 'approval' or actual support from some one well known in the form of a quote or even in your teaser video. If its a quote make sure you find a way to prove that it is legit, by getting them to tweet out about it from their verified account or similar because I often see quotes from celebrities and question if its real.

I've only ever considered backing about three projects on IGG/KS. (For various reasons I still have not funded any except one that I was somewhat involved in). The reasons I considered funding were because I followed them on YouTube and already loved their work and wanted to see what they could do with money. The other is IGG send out a weekly newsletter of the top campaigns and I've seen some cool innovative ideas advertised here. The thing with these campaigns are they often have a really large following already before IGG started advertising them

 

[NickClapper]

Kickstarter succes rate right here. Interesting to note that 12% of campaigns never receive any funds whatsoever.

With Kicksarter the majority of projects never receive any funds whatsoever.

I agree with what's being said here. No casual investor will contribute to a project in order to fund a teaser trailer. People contribute to crowdfunding campaigns because they want to be part of the movie, and be able to be onboard with it from inception to creation. The creation of a teaser trailer for a feature film leaves them half way.

You've got to be willing to put in some of your own money if you want to get other people's money.

 

[MileCreations]

You've got to be willing to put in some of your own money if you want to get other people's money.

This is pretty much what I was saying. You can't just expect to be given everything

 

[Zensteve]

Sounds like you are saying that kickstarter should be called "The Family & Friends Funding Channel!"

For pretty much every film fundraiser, by people I know, that's exactly how it's been. The last one was for $3000. The campaign raised $815; every last single dollar was from their friends & relatives who were giving money anyway. The campaign website ended up keeping 12% of that money for handling the failed campaign. That's money flushed straight down the loo.

Just sharin' my experiences.

My group shot our own last weekend, fwiw. Not a teaser, but actual scenes from the movie. We'll see how that turns out. We have the bare-bones funds to finish the film anyway, but any kind of bux on top are gravy.

 

[kjones]

It's definitely worth spending some time getting 'approval' or actual support from some one well known in the form of a quote or even in your teaser video. If its a quote make sure you find a way to prove that it is legit, by getting them to tweet out about it from their verified account or similar because I often see quotes from celebrities and question if its real.
...
The thing with these campaigns are they often have a really large following already before IGG started advertising them

Good point-- I'm a straight-shooter, wouldn't even dream of using a quote that wasn't legit.

I think your last sentence is a big hammer put to the nail. Our plan is to get the word out in venues early and often.

 

[kjones]

This is pretty much what I was saying. You can't just expect to be given everything

No, we're not asking to be given everything. But I think you're also right in that we need to put anything and everything we can into the teaser-- dollars as well as our contacts, access to crew and equipment, etc. If we're serious, then we need to show it and not let it look like we'd take others' good will and money for granted.

 

[MileCreations]

No, we're not asking to be given everything. But I think you're also right in that we need to put anything and everything we can into the teaser-- dollars as well as our contacts, access to crew and equipment, etc. If we're serious, then we need to show it and not let it look like we'd take others' good will and money for granted.

I wasn't saying that you specifically are. Just you can tell from some campaigns that little effort has been put into the page and/or video and that they are just expecting help from others. You can still make an incredible film with no budget but some people think they need the money to do that and do little effort in order to achieve this because they "don't have enough money, please help me I can't do this by myself"

 

[rayw]

For my 2¢: Five bucks says the project needs to be shelved and move on to a more out-of-pocket cost effective story.

Teaser = 30secs to 2min.
Short = 2min to 20min.
Feature = 90min to 120min.

How's the math going to work out on a feature when just scraping together the clams for a teaser requires crowdfunding from... who?
Family?
Friends?
Where's the feature going to be shown?
Who's the built-in audience for it?
Are they aware of the project in it's nascent state?
Does this broad audience have enough givadam that they'll not only fund a crowdsource teaser campaign for $XXX to $XXXX but will then yell "H3LLS, YEAH!" - and then - step up to donate... ten, twenty, fifty times that amount when you hit 'em up again for the feature?

Shelve it.
Move on.
Or start building a following.

 

[mus]

No, we're not asking to be given everything. But I think you're also right in that we need to put anything and everything we can into the teaser-- dollars as well as our contacts, access to crew and equipment, etc. If we're serious, then we need to show it and not let it look like we'd take others' good will and money for granted.

Yes, it does sound like you need to be given everything. If it's difficult for you to make a teaser, why would anyone want to watch your film? Why not fund the MOVIE, and then a make a teaser out of the footage? That's usually how these things work.

 

[kjones]

Thanks MileCreations, rayw, mussonman, everybody-

This is what I was looking for in addition to advice, thoughts-- finger jabs into my ribs about this fundraising concept, the pros and cons. My partner and I meet this week, and we'll be hashing this out, your points included.

 

[kjones]

Yes, it does sound like you need to be given everything. If it's difficult for you to make a teaser, why would anyone want to watch your film? Why not fund the MOVIE, and then a make a teaser out of the footage? That's usually how these things work.

Would agree we're going backwards from the norm (part of the reason I like the approach, frankly). But if I understand your comment correctly, I have to say that a teaser being difficult to make shouldn't preclude it from being an eventual good movie. Extra funding would help us get our story, production values, etc. to a high level. Admittedly, we're keeping the project quiet for now and I've only given you microscopic amounts of information on the film subject itself, wondering now if it might be too ambitious.

Essentially, like our previous efforts, our goal is to make a "short film" but this time with different, possibly further-reaching goals than the festival circuit, experience, etc. In other words, using the short film/teaser as marketing material to fund the feature.

I also think it's possible we're blowing a lot of sunshine up our own skirts!

 

[kjones]

After thinking about all of your comments and sleeping on this a bit, I wonder if our biggest hurdle (after getting the teaser made) will be to convince people to invest/risk in us to make the feature. Especially at our experience level (fairly low). For regardless of our enthusiasm, belief in the project and a feature script in our hands, we'd be asking folks to risk their money on the marketability of the project and us.

Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to consider this idea, will keep you posted.

 

[ItDonnedOnMe]

Sounds like you are saying that kickstarter should be called "The Family & Friends Funding Channel!"

For most projects this is probably true. The trick of a successful campaign is to expand the "Friends" part of the equation substantially - which takes a good deal of time and work, generally put in before the kickstarter ever begins.

You have to do the math based on your current reach to determine what's feasible. Take all your cast/crew and total up their facebook friends - lets say you have 10 people directly involved, and each one has 250 fb friends, for a total reach of 2500 people (actually probably less, since there's likely to be a lot of overlap in friends among your crew if they know each other). So you all put it out there and at best you're likely to get a 1-2% response rate - that's 25-50 people. Most kickstarter contributions fall in the $11-50 range, so that gives you an upper limit of $2500 (50 people give $50) and a lower level of $275 (25 people give $11). Realistically you're likely to fall somewhere in the lower-mid range, so that would give you an achievable goal of about $1000.

So you can reverse that process and start with your goal - say you want to raise $5000. Divide that by an average donation of something like $20, now you need 250 donors. If that's 1% of the people you reach you'll need to get your campaign out to at least 25,000 people. Now you need to start putting in some work to build up a base of 25,000 people you can reach out to - that's where doing things like a web series to build up that fan base comes into play.

So the truth is you need to put a lot of work in first just to get to a point where a kickstarter is even feasible for any worthwhile amount. The people behind most of the substantial campaigns that are successful have literally put in several years of work beforehand to get there.

 

[8salacious9]

You want money for a trailer? Oh boy.....

 

[kjones]

For most projects this is probably true. The trick of a successful campaign is to expand the "Friends" part of the equation substantially - which takes a good deal of time and work, generally put in before the kickstarter ever begins.

+1, this does sound like what we have to do.

You have to do the math based on your current reach to determine what's feasible. Take all your cast/crew and total up their facebook friends - lets say you have 10 people directly involved, and each one has 250 fb friends, for a total reach of 2500 people (actually probably less, since there's likely to be a lot of overlap in friends among your crew if they know each other). So you all put it out there and at best you're likely to get a 1-2% response rate - that's 25-50 people. Most kickstarter contributions fall in the $11-50 range, so that gives you an upper limit of $2500 (50 people give $50) and a lower level of $275 (25 people give $11). Realistically you're likely to fall somewhere in the lower-mid range, so that would give you an achievable goal of about $1000.

So you can reverse that process and start with your goal - say you want to raise $5000. Divide that by an average donation of something like $20, now you need 250 donors. If that's 1% of the people you reach you'll need to get your campaign out to at least 25,000 people. Now you need to start putting in some work to build up a base of 25,000 people you can reach out to - that's where doing things like a web series to build up that fan base comes into play.

So the truth is you need to put a lot of work in first just to get to a point where a kickstarter is even feasible for any worthwhile amount. The people behind most of the substantial campaigns that are successful have literally put in several years of work beforehand to get there.

Thanks for running those numbers. Wouldn't doubt you're right, but "1% of the people you reach" is a sobering statistic-- is that based on some stats somewhere or considered marketing "common knowledge?"

Good points, appreciate it.