low goal crowd funding rant!

[wheatgrinder]

I see some of these crowd funding campaigns and I shake my head...

If you need $3000 to make your awesome movie, and your a team of 5 people.. cmon, how hard is it to raise $600 each! A paper route for a month, day labor for a week, your young able bodied men, pick up a freaking shovel for a few hard days and earn the money!

Have you no pride? Have you no shame? Is this some part of the "panhandling is cool" culture that I don't get?

Its freaking lazy is what it is! Get off your butt, make your movie, THEN come ask me to support you to do the things you CANT do.

 

[Sweetie]

So you're saying you'd rather support me asking for $2 mil rather than me asking for $3k?

 

[itarumaa]

Interesting idea that people participating in the movie would actually spend money on it.

I don´t think it will work in the real word, it is the producer who pays, not the actors.

Well, based on my experience anyway.

 

[mad_hatter]

…in the real word, it is the producer who pays, not the actors...

I think Wheat is referring more to the no-budget world, where, quite often, the writer, director, DoP, sound guy and effects guy (and maybe even an actor or two) make up a team and all pull together in order to make the film, essentially making themselves the co-producers. In that instance, they could find the $600 each, instead of begging for it from others.

So you're saying you'd rather support me asking for $2 mil rather than me asking for $3k?

Sounds more like the point is that you don’t need to ask for $3k. Why ask for $3k? Why not just earn it, save up and pay for your film yourself? You couldn’t ever save up $2mil, so sure, one would be more inclined to contribute to that… The flipside is that, when you’re at a level where you really can produce a $2mil movie, real investors with that kind of money are more likely to support you, negating the need to crowdfund at all.


Personally, I’m not too fussed either way. I’ll support low-level campaigns, it they’re run by somebody who I really do want to support and that I trust will spend the cash wisely. If somebody needs $500k, I might help (again, if I know/like/trust the person), but still only for maybe $25. They’re going to have to put in a lot of work to get enough people like me to fund them up to $500k. And if they manage to do that, I’d have no doubt that they could make their film.

 

[Sweetie]

Sounds more like the point is that you don’t need to ask for $3k. Why ask for $3k? Why not just earn it, save up and pay for your film yourself?

Why not both? Put in the $3k yourself and $3k from elsewhere. Get double the budget that way right?

But really, if you can get $3k donated for your film to be made, why not?

You couldn’t ever save up $2mil, so sure, one would be more inclined to contribute to that… The flipside is that, when you’re at a level where you really can produce a $2mil movie, real investors with that kind of money are more likely to support you, negating the need to crowdfund at all.

Maybe if a producer got decent amounts crowd funded, he'd need to give less equity to the investors or investors may be more willing to invest with smaller risk.... so I don't see a good reason not to crowd fund anyway if you could get some reasonable success.

Maybe an indietalk gogo campaign to raise 2 mil... just so long as we don't let APE convince us to spend half of it on Audio... you know... it's half the movie right?

 

[mad_hatter]

...if you can get $3k donated for your film to be made, why not?

I don't disagree. If you can and you want to, feel free to try. I'd never hold it against anyone.

But, what is a $3k movie? For most people, it's nothing more than a hobby. $3k wont get you very far in the real filmmaking world. So why ask for people to invest in your hobby? "My hobby is playing poker... How would you like to give me some money?"

I'm just playing devils advocate here, I'm kind-of indifferent myself. Investors on crowdfunding sites get something for their money and if they're investing in the film, they obviously want the filmmaker to succeed. So, nobody loses out really...


(Except when people use "flexible funding", taking $500 of peoples money, when their initial goal was $10,000, clearly making them unable to produced the movie to the standard, or within the time scale, that they promised when the investors decided to donate to the project...)

 

[Will Vincent]

I see some of these crowd funding campaigns and I shake my head...

If you need $3000 to make your awesome movie, and your a team of 5 people.. cmon, how hard is it to raise $600 each! A paper route for a month, day labor for a week, your young able bodied men, pick up a freaking shovel for a few hard days and earn the money!

Have you no pride? Have you no shame? Is this some part of the "panhandling is cool" culture that I don't get?

Its freaking lazy is what it is! Get off your butt, make your movie, THEN come ask me to support you to do the things you CANT do.

This is my feeling almost exactly.

Now maybe that's because I have a good paying day job and make a pretty decent living, but I think even if I didn't I wouldn't immediately turn to 'crowdfunding' when I had a project I wanted to produce.. Especially something with a budget in the couple thousands. Postpone and save.

Maybe it's because I was raised to work for what I have, not to seek out handouts. I dunno.. I'm sure it has its place, but 90% of the time I hear about these things they just rub me wrong.

 

[8salacious9]

I see some of these crowd funding campaigns and I shake my head...

If you need $3000 to make your awesome movie, and your a team of 5 people.. cmon, how hard is it to raise $600 each! A paper route for a month, day labor for a week, your young able bodied men, pick up a freaking shovel for a few hard days and earn the money!

Have you no pride? Have you no shame? Is this some part of the "panhandling is cool" culture that I don't get?

Its freaking lazy is what it is! Get off your butt, make your movie, THEN come ask me to support you to do the things you CANT do.

well i invested over £3000 in equipment, that with 2 children under 5, I then lost my job because i stood up for myself (sob story), I want to make a film now on a no budget, im doing that now on no budget, however im not earning any money and living off state benefits but am in a work trial, still no expenses to me.

I plan to do a crowdfunder to raise £1,000 this is to speed up production *pay for travel costs of crew and cast who are doing it when they can for free* none of them are rich? they want to be in this film because its an opportunity and already are paying around £120 in total travel costs for the film, with the crowdfunder if it is in anyway successful, i can then add that to the promotion details of it, i can then afford another lens that i need badly for improved quality and artistic reasons.

but i dont need it, its just a nice to have and give others an opportunity to be involved in a project that could be something big, or giving them an something to be involved in that they might not have been able to had I just decided to fund it myself.

sure if i had the money i would have purchased the extras and paid for everything myself, but change of circumstances lead to that being impossible, so should i let my dream die? no? can i do my film without the campaign money? yes, is it necessary for me to do the campaign? yes, I want people to have the chance to be involved, this is a relatively new way forward for films to get funding publicly with ease, it generates publicity, you are then able to also tell how interested people are in your film.

What are your thoughts on this essay to read? i neither agree or disagree with your opinion

 

[mad_hatter]

I plan to do a crowdfunder to raise £1,000 .... i can then afford another lens that i need badly for improved quality and artistic reasons...

Correct me if I'm wrong, you're not specific, but I'm guessing you want to buy a lens with the money? That is a problem I do have with crowdfunding... The money you ask for should be what you absolutely need to make your film. You don't need to buy that lens. You could rent it for the duration of the shoot at a tenth of the cost.

 

[jax_rox]

I have worked on films in the past that have been crowdfunded with 'low goals'. However, the reason they've asked for 'only' $1-3k is because the creative team have already put in $2-6k+ of their own money.

I completely understand it if someone's looking for finishing funds, post funds, or extra cash to supplement what they're already putting in.

A lot of people also lower their 'asking price' as it's more likely that the goal will be reached, and then hope that people will continue to donate. If you're making a film and you ideally need $5k, if you place your goal at $3500 and make it - not only will you have $3500 that you can probably stretch, but also (potentially) people donating over that. If you set your goal at $5k and only make $4999, you won't see a single penny of it. I think that's a big reason why people lower their goals. I saw a short recently funded locally for $20k. It just managed to reach their goal. In the description, however, they mentioned that ideally[/i] they need $40k, so people should 'continue to donate' even if they reach their goal. As it was, they only just made $20k; however it means they can stretch that $20k and still make a great film (and they did). If they'd set their goal at the $40k they were looking for, they'd have ended up with no money, and no film would have been made.

 

[Sweetie]

I'll agree with you that using a funding campaign to purchase equipment seems wrong, unless of course that renting would turn out to be more expensive in the end, but for this kind of budget, I don't think the filming time would have this happen.

"My hobby is playing poker... How would you like to give me some money?"

Tell you what, I'll play you for it. Who knows, maybe you'll fund my film, maybe I'll fund yours

 

[rayw]

Well, you know the first thing I wanna do is a little homework, so my primary complaint are the rudimentary database filters.

KickStarter's 'Staff Picks' and 'Most Popular' are hardly useful for getting a casual gauge on para-average.
I'll settle for 'Recently Successful.' http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/narrative film/successful?ref=more#p1

PERCENT			
FUNDED	RAISED		GOAL
315%	$630		$200
102%	$1,025		$1,000
110%	$1,101		$1,000
104%	$1,560		$1,500
100%	$1,500		$1,500
149%	$2,236		$1,500
124%	$3,110		$2,500
104%	$3,672		$3,500
149%	$5,244		$3,500
110%	$4,413		$4,000
102%	$5,115		$5,000
130%	$6,524		$5,000
116%	$5,841		$5,000
107%	$6,449		$6,000
201%	$12,100		$6,000
144%	$10,818		$7,500
108%	$8,718		$8,000
130%	$11,065		$8,500
138%	$13,835		$10,000
131%	$13,157		$10,000
106%	$10,657		$10,000
104%	$15,732		$15,000
107%	$16,066		$15,000
126%	$18,950		$15,000
105%	$15,830		$15,000
100%	$15,066		$15,000
107%	$21,550		$20,000
101%	$20,300		$20,000
110%	$27,733		$25,000
111%	$33,508		$30,000
105%	$52,614		$50,000
100%	$50,300		$50,000
100%	$50,000		$50,000
109%	$60,483		$55,000
100%	$55,480		$55,500
			
			
AVGs	$16,639		$15,191

Samples taken from the first few dozen (minus one outlier screwing up the data), pounds converted to dollars for simplicity's sake.


First, it's apparent goal success can come at any level.
However, since there's no 'most recently expired' campaigns filter in sector specific (film) categories there's no real way to determine the "goal to success" ratio.

Second, the frequency of sub-$10K campaigns is obvious.

Third, my pet peeve is that there's rarely a mention in campaigns of A) the minute duration of the expected final film, or B) WTH are we gonna do with it when we're finished.

Honestly, I don't wanna donate $10 to your $3,000 five minute short. I don't wanna donate $10 to your twenty minute short.
I MIGHT consider donating $10 to your $3,000 feature, but not your $3,000 short.
There's just no way that blowing $3,000 on a short is going to render anything all that great. That's just retarded.
I can watch thousand dollar shorts for free all day long, no pigs in pokes.
And I'll freely acknowledge that a $3,000 feature is kinduva stretch.
What is that... $27 - 33 per screen minute?
Yeah. I routinely pass over Hollywood >$100,000 per screen minute full-length feature films + extra features in the $3 DVD bin at the local pharmacy.
What on earth makes you think I wanna give $10 to your $3,000 short?
Is it REEEEEALLY that compelling of a story? For $10? For four or five or eight minutes? Reeeeally?
Really.

And WTH are you gonna do with it?
Have you expressed how passionate you are about this project in this campaign - or - that you know WTH you're going to do with it?
"Oh, uh... We're all VERY, very committed to this project."
W. T. F.
Whogiveszash!t.
I don't care how much you're "committed." STFU.
WTH are you gonna do with it?
Spend $3,000 on a short you really have no idea WTH you're going to do with?
"Oh, uh... Submit it to film festivals. I guess. Yeah."
Okay.
Fine.
Tell me the film festivals you're submitting to and indicate that you have a clue that you A) even know when their submission deadlines are, and B) that you feel confident that you can get this fat bastard bagged and tagged before then.
Without those little tid-bits I'm inclined to believe this is just going to be more YouTube fodder. Piss off, panhandlers.

%#&$ you and your "to pay for better equipment for a better film."
Dumb@sses.

I will add, to what other people have said, that crowdfunding is a big job in itself. Crowdfunding a few thousand dollars isn't 'lazy' because it's actually very difficult, and requires a lot of time spent networking, promoting, marketing...etc. It's really several hours of work a day...

H3LL.
YES.

Honestly, it is a lot of work.
It's so much work for a few thousand dollars that Wheat's original point is completely valid - JUST GET A JOB! It will be faster and easier and more likely to be successful.
Now, if you wanna raise a significant amount in a relatively brief period of time, say >$10K, then crowdfunding's the way to go.
Otherwise...

 

[NickClapper]

I will add, to what other people have said, that crowdfunding is a big job in itself. Crowdfunding a few thousand dollars isn't 'lazy' because it's actually very difficult, and requires a lot of time spent networking, promoting, marketing...etc. It's really several hours of work a day and a lot of people will be doing that on top of a full-time job they have to make ends meet (or, like me, being a full-time student). If you have the savings then that's great, use them, but people shouldn't bankrupt themselves when there is a chance that the creative community will support them.

 

[wheatgrinder]

Some interesting counter thoughts, in all a good thread, very enjoyable. I can now see SOME situation that a low goal crowd-funding campaign might be acceptable...

I saw a few folks use the word investment, lets be clear you can NOT invest in any project on any crowd funding site, thats a big NO NO legal wise. Your donating, philanthropy is the name of the game. You are prohibited from any return on your donation. Perks are interesting, and seems to me amounts to a form of pre-sales, again not a return on an investment.

Historically artist have always been benefactors of charity.
Id like to see a crowd-funding campaign to COMMISSION a film be made.

Say a group of gaming enthusiasts put together a crowd funding campaign to pay someone to make a fan film... Rayw anything like that come up in your home work?

 

[rayw]

Historically artist have always been benefactors of charity.
Id like to see a crowd-funding campaign to COMMISSION a film be made.

Say a group of gaming enthusiasts put together a crowd funding campaign to pay someone to make a fan film... Rayw anything like that come up in your home work?

No, sir.

I've run across several YouTubers putting together films, but not a group of enthusiasts in anything putting together a campaign to essentially build a coffer to offer a director/producer to make a film.
It's an interesting idea, though.

 

[The Lone Banana]

What is a "legitimate" amount of money to seek from a crowd-funding campaign? If $3,000 is too small-potatoes, what about $10,000? You can make a feature for $10,000, but most people would have a hard time coming up with a spare ten grand, especially if they have to support themselves on their savings during production. $15,000? $50,000?

By the time you get into the millions, you're not going to find benefactors who'll give you the money; you're going to find investors who'll become your partner. The the pressure is on to produce something that will generate a profit, which means crafting your movie for greater audience appeal. One strength of crowd-funding is that it permits the production of movies that won't return a profit, or that will take a long time to do so. These will necessarily be smaller movies. So what's the budge-point for a successful and legitimate campaign?

 

[mus]

Honestly, I don't wanna donate $10 to your $3,000 five minute short. I don't wanna donate $10 to your twenty minute short.
I MIGHT consider donating $10 to your $3,000 feature, but not your $3,000 short.
There's just no way that blowing $3,000 on a short is going to render anything all that great. That's just retarded.
I can watch thousand dollar shorts for free all day long, no pigs in pokes.

And WTH are you gonna do with it?
Have you expressed how passionate you are about this project in this campaign - or - that you know WTH you're going to do with it?
"Oh, uh... We're all VERY, very committed to this project."
W. T. F.
Whogiveszash!t.
I don't care how much you're "committed." STFU.
WTH are you gonna do with it?
Spend $3,000 on a short you really have no idea WTH you're going to do with?
"Oh, uh... Submit it to film festivals. I guess. Yeah."
Okay.
Fine.
Tell me the film festivals you're submitting to and indicate that you have a clue that you A) even know when their submission deadlines are, and B) that you feel confident that you can get this fat bastard bagged and tagged before then.
Without those little tid-bits I'm inclined to believe this is just going to be more YouTube fodder. Piss off, panhandlers.

%#&$ you and your "to pay for better equipment for a better film."

This is my thoughts on crowd-funders exactly (Not the BIG goals)

It's like none of them ever heard the advice "Write within your limitations."



"I'm gonna write a massive action sequence with zombies, ghosts, bombs, and car chases!"

"But you're just a 15 year old with almost no friends and no car."

"Shit, you're right.... I'm gonna need to raise some money..."

And for what? Some short film that isn't going to achieve anything more than 400 views on youtube, 5 on Vimeo, and ignored threads on forums like these.

 

[TanadrineStudios]

The problem with low goal crowdfunding is that the producer often doesn't get much help but is still left with all of the obligations associated with the funding efforts. Below a certain point, one may as well just save the Kickstarter/indiegogo fees along with the cost of developing perks and do the fundraising with an existing audience or through conventional means for more bang for the effort expended.

 

[JoeBloom]

I feel that the topic of discussion disregards the fact that fundraising is difficult, no matter what the amount, you have to have a proven audience that might back you and support you, your family and friends only goes so far, and often you are possibly trying to raise funds from those who aren't interested in what you are doing, some people don't care for the arts in its entirety at all.

The benefit of crowdfunding via websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo specifically, is that you are displaying your project somewhere where the target audience is already there, and an enthusiastic one at that, looking for projects such as film via a nifty sorting function to help along its way.

I am a relatively fresh filmmaker, and I see myself concentrating on practically non-budget projects but if an idea strikes, in a years time or so, I will look to using a crowdfunding in order to get the budget I might need which will most likely be a couple or a few thousand.

I do understand where you are coming from, I would of course do everything I could to raise funds from people who genuinely support me as a filmmaker, after that then I might look to the rest of the public via crowdfunding. I think I will always make it obvious that "I have raised X amount on my own, but now I need your help!".

My two cents, you pick and choose what you want to fund, if you don't think good things can be made from such a low budget then don't put your money on it.

 

[Ernest Worthing]

Interesting and informative stats. However, I do understand and somewhat share wheat's view. If you think of crowdfunding as entering a new level which you could not reach yourself then a couple of thousand does not make a lot of sense. You can find a job and earn that in a couple of months.

I'm working on spending a few grand on crowdfunding itself to, hopefully, get a six figure budget.