Crowdfunding Case Study: ThanksKilling Sequel
Although the first '
ThanksKilling' was shot in 2007 for a
purported $3,500 production budget then edited by and
released November 2009 a year and a half later the writer & director/co-producers
Kevin Stewart and Jordan Downey, 2008 LMU alumni of the School of Film and Television, managed to pull down well over $100,000 in 90 days in crowdfunding donations for it's sequel: 'ThanksKilling 3'.
466 backers
$112,248 pledged of $100,000 goal
Funding period
May 8, 2011 - Aug 6, 2011 (90 days)
Lettuce examine at how they did it.
19,069
For those of you both non-cult members not intimately familiar with these two films - and - sharp enough to pay attention you'll notice the sequel to 'ThanksKilling' is 'ThanksKilling 3'.
Why?
Straight from the turkey's mouth:
What happened to ThanksKilling 2?
ThanksKilling 2 only exists as a fictional plot device in ThanksKilling 3, which is the direct sequel to ThanksKilling. The idea to skip part two is a marketing ploy and joke by filmmakers Jordan Downey and Kevin Stewart.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2106675/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
And so the marketing games begin.
Nice, eh?
The KickStarter (KS) campaign launched "Funding period May 8, 2011 - Aug 6, 2011 (90 days)"
This article is dated Posted: Thursday, November 17, 2011 1:00 am
http://www.laloyolan.com/arts_and_e...cle_0f07a57c-0ff8-11e1-879a-001a4bcf6878.html
"The reason the first one cost so little is because we didn't pay the cast, we didn't pay the crew, we didn't have permits. We just went out and pointed a camera and clicked record," Downey said. "Because Kevin and I have been working in the industry in different positions since graduation, you realize going through that that you can't not pay the people around you who are going to be working really hard," Downey continued.
Downey and Jordan raised the entire $100,000 budget over three months on Kickstarter, an online threshold pledge system that has found popularity among independent filmmakers. Stewart said they tried "literally a different strategy every single day" to raise awareness about the Kickstarter campaign. Among their do-it-yourself marketing tactics were updating an active Facebook page, offering perks like merchandise and props from the first movie to those who pledged money to the campaign and creating "Lost Turkey" fliers for fans across the country to post around their hometowns.
"We said [the turkey] abandoned the project, that he was pissed off that there was no money to make the sequel," Stewart said. "It was a good idea but it didn't really work out. I think it just kind of went over people's heads for the most part."
Other ideas were enough to earn the needed funds and then some with fans coming together in the final days of the campaign to pour in funds.
Many fans of the first film - which was released on DVD, on demand and is streaming on Netflix - were initially wary of the significantly increased budget, worrying that the "so bad it's good" quality of the first movie would be lost.
"We're still with the script maintaining the cheese and B-movie humor of the whole thing. No matter how nice of a lens you have, it is still going to keep that tone of the first movie," Downey said.
Two "press release" examples of that unsuccessful marketing approach dated Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:00am EDT & Thursday, June 23, 2011 9:13 AM:
Turkey Actor Dumps ThanksKilling Sequel -- Film's Creators Use Fans to Hunt Him Down
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/23/idUS129746+23-Jun-2011+MW20110623
http://www.istockanalyst.com/busine...uel-film-s-creators-use-fans-to-hunt-him-down
So, it's not like they were press releasing to the small local penny paper.
Reuters isn't some two-bit hack rag, you know?
But from the "press release" itself we can see at the bottom:
About ThanksKilling
Shot for $3,500 in 2007 by then-21 year old college
students Kevin Stewart and Jordan Downey, ThanksKilling obtained cult
fame after a do-it-yourself marketing campaign landed distribution with
Gravitas Ventures (and subsequently Warner Bros.). ThanksKilling was
released in over 100 million households via platforms such as iTunes,
Hulu, Time Warner, and Amazon. The film tells the story of a group of
stereotypical college kids
Well.
That certainly must've put the campaign for 'TK3' on the radar for a lotta folks.
And maybe this is a good as any point in the story where I should draw attention to a side route to point out that there are no substantiating numbers available on 'TK3's production or production + marketing budget.
No mention of money made from 'TK' that was rolled over into 'TK3'.
We're all familiar that many films use more funds from outside of the stated crowdfunding donations, primarily equity.
Surely @ a purported production budget of $3,500 'TK' made "some" money (Rev - Exp = Eng/Pft), but there's no mention of it.
Black hole. Deal with it.
Alright, back to the crowdfunding...
Further in the above cited LMU article:
Downey and Stewart encouraged [LMU] students take the opportunity to work on a film that's guaranteed distribution, that has some fun special effects and where "nobody isn't going to be laughing and smiling at some point throughout the day" on set, Stewart said.
The duo plans to release the film theatrically in November 2012 and has hopes it will screen at genre-related film festivals. Gravitas Ventures has guaranteed the film some type of distribution.
>> Guaranteed distribution in any shape or form is a BIG BIG BIG film donor magnet. <<
Especially if it's a non-DIY, industry recognized third party.
From this article dated July 5, 2013 – 12:32 pm we again see the benefit that guaranteed distribution brings:
After years of marketing it themselves, and with the help of distributor Gravitas Ventures, the film went on to gain a massive cult following for its purposeful “so bad it’s good” vibe. It quickly rose to over 170,000 ratings on Netflix and was featured in Maxim Magazine, Fangoria, and on TMZ. The movie’s Facebook page, with over 10,300 likes, features fan made puppets and artwork, theme song remixes, and even pictures of ThanksKilling related fan tattoos.
Using the fan-base to their advantage, Downey and Stewart were able to raise over $100,000 on Kickstarter to make their ambitious follow up, ThanksKilling 3 – the first movie ever to skip it’s own sequel! Currently the highest funded horror film on Kickstarter, this ridiculous concept is something you have to see to believe.
http://innocentwords.com/thankskill...killer-turkey-movie-debuts-on-dvd-october-15/
But note the
"After years of marketing it themselves" part.
Lotta elbow grease there I suspect.
And a point out to the all importance of social media:
"The movie’s Facebook page, with over 10,300 likes, features fan made puppets and artwork, theme song remixes, and even pictures of ThanksKilling related fan tattoos."
More elbow grease.
And the web page:
http://thankskillingmovie.com/about/the-ultimate-low-budget-experience/
No telling how strong this development package was in place before the KS campaign, but I suspect both there was already a lot there and that it has been added a fair bit to since.
Filmmaking is not a meritocracy ~ Andrew S Allen
And from 'TK3's own KS page:
Guaranteed Distribution
100 million homes... here we come! Because of the success of the first ThanksKilling and our relationship with the wonderful guys at Gravitas Ventures, we're fortunate enough to have already secured what most indie movies have to fight for down the road: DISTRIBUTION. Gravitas will release ThanksKilling on VOD (Video-On-Demand) in the fall of 2012 around that special holiday we're parodying. Platforms you'll see the sequel on?
- Netflix
- Hulu
- iTunes
- On Demand: Time Warner, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV, & more!
We're aiming for a limited theatrical run as well. There's a chance the exclusive Kickstarter DVD (which you get by pledging just 20 smackers) will be the only hard copy version released... Making it potentially very rare!
Goes a verrrrry long way.
Also, not too shabby is that they collected and showcased a rather nice group of people with marketable name recognition and fan bases themselves.
And there are twelve pages of these guys blabbin' to their audience:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...quel-horror-comedy-feature-film/posts?page=12
Planning the 'TK3' KS campaign:
Kevin Stewart (KS): We started talking about this in January 2011, and wanted to make a sequel. I believe it was one of our mutual friends who came up with the idea that we should make a sequel. We kind of liked that at the time, and in 2011, we said, let’s try to do this thing.
We wrote the story where we skipped the sequel, and we got involved in having to put that into the movie. We asked how do we skip the sequel, and make that clear to everybody, that ‘ThanksKilling 2′ was burned? So we started talking in 2011, and wrote an outline together. I think it was in March or so that we launched the Kickstarter.
Jordan Downey (JD): Yeah, we started working on the Kickstarter page to raise money before there was even a script. We did the outline with my older brother Mike (Will Downey), who wrote it with us. While we were working on the Kickstarter campaign, Mike was working on the first draft.
http://www.shockya.com/news/2013/01/07/interview-jordan-downey-kevin-stewart-thankskilling-3/
It was actually two months later in May when the KS campaign was launched, but the four months from January to May is a rather rapid time frame to organize and launch a campaign.
Fortunately, they already had a lot of their production resources lined up and ready to go.
Experience and industry contacts go a long way.
SY: ... why do you think fans responded so well to the Kickstarter campaign?
JD: I think there’s something about our fan demographic. When we made the first one, we were both in college, so we were young people making a film for young people. We had supporters among our friends and family who felt like they were part of the ‘ThanksKilling’ family, so I think that was a big reason why people supported us through Kickstarter.
Other than that, I think we got lucky with becoming popular on Netflix. But it’s hard to pin-point why people supported us so much. On the website, we do try to reach out to the fans.
Indeed.
Especially since there were only 466 backers of the 'TK3' KS campaign.
Hmmm... something ain't right here.
And I'm already suspect of that last $32,000.
I wonder WTH is the difference between KS headlined "$112,248" and the relatively measly $47,335 (with $32k of that suspect).
Donor/backer totals don't even reconcile: 466 headlined (an astonishingly low number for the total raised, $240 average) vs. 438 according to that pledge chart on right.
Those last 28 mystery donor/backers sure made a helluva difference!
Hmm...
I gotta go now.
I'll get back to this later.
