I can finally reply to this threat with my experience... WE MADE IT! A big chunk of that was from support from this forum too, so I want to start this post by thanking you all! Part of the final film will be for you guys. Now, on to the questions:
Project: Bid For My Life (Feature Comedy Documentary)
Campaign goal: £6,000
Success (Yes or No?): Yes
Link to Campaign: (Indiegogo) --
http://www.indiegogo.com/bidformylife
Date: February 2013
- Overall expectations going into the "Yes/Pursue" decision
Stupidly, that we could succeed on the strength of the idea, and the low price point (we offered the entire final film digitally for £1/$1.60), through the discovery of the project. I didn't think it would take as much time as it did, or that it would be so hard to get people to give even £1.
- Pre planning
Again, stupidly, not enough. I planned the project itself fully, but the campaign was very simple, in my eyes. I'd made my campaign page, and thought I could drum up support through an ever growing web of people excited by the project. Not so. Getting your friends to share the info was easy. Getting the friends of friends to was incredibly difficult.
Now that it's over, I see how many opportunities I missed. I offered a T-Shirt as a reward, and only now when the campaign is over have I got round to designing it. It's come out a lot better than I was hoping, and now I have a lot more people saying they want one of the T-Shirts. If I'd designed it beforehand and put it on the campaign page, arguably we would have gained higher donations. Even visualising the DVD with an image would have helped us.
- What you received advice and were warned about before or during the campaign
I didn't get a lot of advice beforehand. I knew the producers of 'The Fitzroy' who were running a campaign themselves just beforehand, and watched what they had done, and thought I could wing it. About a week in, our contributions dried up and I started panicing. I contacted one of 'The Fitzroy' crew about it and they did an amazing job of reassuring me and explaining their own campaign (a little like this). Apparently the middle couple of weeks are normally very difficult, as the people that act early have acted, and the people that act late haven't acted yet. Having a period of complete discouragement is apparently quite normal, and knowing that helped me realise that I had to keep up the momentum and enthusiasm, otherwise anyone that was on the fence about supporting, or 'waiting to see' what would happen, wouldn't.
- Campaign architecture
I decided that the strength of the concept would encourage lots of small contributors, who just wanted to see what would happen when I undertook the social experiment, hence offering a digital copy of the final feature documentary film for just £1. Bargain. Then there was the upsell of the weblog, a daily video update about the progress of the month, as it happened. A way of finding out what I was actually asked to do each day, capitalising on people's desire to see what would actually happen, rather than just the end film. Producer credits as you went higher up, and I even offered a 'day of my life' to the highest level contributors, which no-one took me up on. It turns out though that the medium level contribution was the most usual one. People not just looking to buy a dvd at retail price, but 'help out' a project, even if the amount asked for was above what they would normally pay.
- What you were trying to (and not to) convey in the campaign?
The documentary itself was originally meant to be about all of the different types of work that I might be asked to do, and whether the amount I was being paid for each one affected my attitude towards the worst and best of them. Then the campaign not only changed the way I was expecting to spend the 30 days, but it has altered the way the final project will be perceived. I figured that a good way of keeping the content and updates coming, and encouraging my friends to keep sharing was to provide regular content that they would WANT to share. I offered my high contributors (£100 and over) the chance to have '5 Minutes of My Life'. They could request me to do anything, and I would do it for 5 mins, film it and release it. Someone suggested I serenade shoppers at a supermarket. I did it. That video was shared far and wide. Every new video convinced more of my friends to contribute, purely on the strength of enjoying the most recent short video. Every new video also pushed the project towards the climax which was a 17 hour live stream (highlights here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80GUHk3YYDk ) where I could be controlled live, and basically asked to do more and more ridiculous and embarrassing things. Now I reckon my biggest bidders will not end up hiring me to do their gardening, or work in a bakery, to get the bakery some extra publicity, but simply to do crazy stuff, and see how far they can push me.
- Nuances in the donor premium/reward structure
Oops, kind of covered that above!
- Financial and attitude observations of family, immediate friends, long distance extended e-friends, strangers
Probably down to the fact that getting strangers to watch all of my videos and get to know 'me' was very difficult, I received very few donations from people completely unconnected to me. Those that spent the time to watch these videos, and even get involved in the Live Stream that saw more of my personality become great contributors, and evangelists for the project and campaign. My friends and family were incredibly generous. More so than I was expecting, and it was basically down to them showing their friends specific videos and content that made other people interested in it. Sharing on facebook, tweeting the link to hundreds of thousands of people all did very little. The vast VAST majority of contributors were people I had interacted in some form over the course of the campaign. The others put in perhaps £1.
- Donation expectations and observations
I was expecting lots and lots of people who thought 'this is a cool idea, I want to see what will happen, especially for just £1'. I did not get many. My biggest surprise was the repeat donations. I had a few £1 donators who after watching the update videos massively increased their pledges. The live stream also seemed to drain the people watching of their own funds, which I still feel quite guilty about. '£50 and I'll put on women's clothes'. £50 turned up. It was an extroordinary experience. Watch the highlights video (above) if you're intrigued, it shows the surprise of the whole thing.
- Take aways
Crowd funding is brilliant. I thought that yesterday when I wasn't sure we'd even make our goal - we made it very much last minute. The low price point rewards are NOT a waste of time. They give you more followers and more people interested in your final product, and willing to evangelise for you. The more people that feel like they are a part of your project, the better. That said, if you run a good campaign, and your project is worthwhile, with a lot of hard work, people will be drawn to it. Just do a lot more planning than I did. I got lucky!
- What did people seem to "miss"?
The concept of the project was complicated, and originally I submitted it to Kickstarter, who rejected it (and rejected my appeal) because they didn't understand that I was making a documentary. They thought it was a 'fund my life' model. I'm sure many others were confused at the concept, and that may have turned them off.
- Surprises, good and bad
The communities, and projects I discovered by getting stuck in to trying to get my message out to as many people as possible. So many awesome projects going on that I wouldn't have had any clue about had I not throw myself in to it all. There are so many people out there that are just happy to help because they are generous with their time and their influence. Some people genuinely believe in the model so much that they support you and make you feel worthwhile, even if you're not entirely sure about it yourself. I like to think that I played my part too. Happened across a completely unknown band, who I loved the music of. Made them a new campaign video, because theirs was absolutely shocking beforehand. Hopefully I helped. With the exception of one person I met, it's a phenomenally supportive community.
Also, maybe this is just me, but when it's someone I didn't know, and they put in a large donation, I assumed they could afford it, and felt great. When it's someone I know, I felt so guilty that they were giving so much. I'm very confident that the end product will be something everyone can be proud of, but when people you know don't have much money put so much trust in you, it's both humbling and scary. When people were just paying £1 to see the final film, it wasn't a big deal
- Next time what would you repeat and what would you do differently?
Having things going on throughout the campaign really helped propel the sharing forward, and to more people. I would however have a lot more preparation. If I'm honest, I launched into the campaign far too fast because I wanted to see what happened. A little more planning, pre production, and content for people to see from the get go would have made the whole thing successful quicker, I believe.
- Would you try crowdfunding again?
Definitely. I believe that as creators, we are always growing our audience, and they are the biggest supporters of us. They will pay to be a part of something they are sure they are going to love, and so, I think each campaign will get a little bit easier for us. I strongly believe in this funding method as a genuinely exciting alternative for the indie community, and I also believe that the amount of time you'll spend analysing your project during the campaign, combined with the response that putting your pre production in front of the public gains, allows you to have a much better judgement of whether or not there is value to your project and whether or not it is worth pursuing, whether or not it reaches funding.
- Alternatives
To crowd funding? For me it was making this project at a much lower quality, with no knowledge of whether or not there would be an audience at the end. Even faced with the possibility of campaign failure, I'd take crowd funding any day.
