Most of the time when I see the phrase "crowdfunding"... I cringe.
-I know, it's not the positive response many in the indie film world want to hear. For many people who are not in the indie film world the term "crowdfunding" was relatively knew until Spike Lee, Zac Braff and those people with the Veronica Mars movie rolled out their kickstarter campaigns. Before then, and still with many people I talk with, the term "crowdfunding" still puzzles people. I get the response, "you can actually do that?", or "people actually support that". Yes crowdfunding has turned into a millions (yes plural use of the world "million") of dollars business.
The concept of crowdfunding had a major appeal to me when I heard the term in 2010. -The reason is the idea that an artist or an entrepreneur could go to the crowd, the masses, and get those people to back something that the crowd wants instead of trying to convince a rich investor to bank roll their risk venture. Today's economy means that investors are very hesitant about backing anything that isn't a sure bet... and nothing is a sure bet. With film it's even worse. The big studios only want to back $200 million dollar franchise movies that sell easily overseas (primarily in China!). But research shows that the audience desires more diverse content.- That's why I like the concept of crowdfunding... The audience's backing of a crowdfunded project proves demand.
One of the things that many film audience members don't know is the bulk of the films now showing at festivals were either partially or completely crowdfunded. Investors are also more apt to invest in a film that has raised some support through crowdfunding because it shows the demand and creates a less risky venture.
But here's my major issue. Crowdfunding should really be about One Major Thing: pursuing audience interaction. I should, as a filmmaker, try to connect with you, the audience, on a storytelling or emotional level where you feel compelled to support the campaign, and not feel pressured to donate.
In the book, "Good in a Room" by former MGM Executive Stephanie Palmer, she talks about building rapport before going into the meat of a pitch meeting with a studio exec who could greenlight a film or TV show project. If the audience is the group that can essentially "greenlights" a project by supporitng a crowdfunding campaign, shouldn't the filmmaker start out the campaign by building rapport? Start out introducing the story, focusing on the "why", introducing the characters, the key participants?... Then after the introductions are made start talking about reaching a financial goal.
As you can tell we're doing a crowdfunding campaign for the AMNESIA TV show coming up. No one, to my knowledge, has attempted to do a crowdfunding campaign for a TV show concept. As I've stated before I'm not pursuing produce a TV pilot, we're going after all 6 of the episodes of the first season. We're breaking it down into phases since the story is told in 3 timelines (saves big $$ going this route). So what we're going after is a big deal! No one has done this before. If we reach our goal we'll make history. Sept 6 is the launch day.
If you like what we're trying to do, then on Sept 6 when we post the link to our kickstarter campaign please post the link with the following statement "I want to watch this TV show!"
Later this week will be some blogs posts that describe some of the interactive perks/rewards we came up with for our campaign. We tried to brainstorm about how we could kick back to our backers things that make the experience more than just watching a show. We're open to suggestions if you have any ideas?
J.W.B.
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