I was delighted to moderate not one but two panels about crowdfunding recently – starting with Ain’t Too Proud To Beg at Sheffield Doc/Fest, followed swiftly by another one at CPH:DOX.

The Sheffield panel was interesting because it was divided into three sections – first I spoke to people running crowdfunding platforms like IndieGoGo and BuzzBank; next I spoke to filmmakers who were experimenting with this mode of fundraising, like Emily James who is currently hard at work raising money for Just Do It; and finally I spoke to a social psychologist, Stephen Reicher, who talked about the psychology behind giving to projects and about what it means to create real community. Stephen used an interesting analogy to talk about how people can come together to form a community of sorts: Imagine you are on a train traveling from London to Sheffield. Half way through the journey the train grinds to a halt. Nobody really looks at each other at this point. The people sitting in a carriage are strangers, individuals who share space but nothing more. After about an hour, with very little explanation from the conductor about what is wrong with the train, the passengers begin to talk to each other, venting their frustration about the delay. As time progresses and the train still does not budge, these strangers continue to chat, perhaps they even share their sandwiches with each other.

How do we go from sharing “space” online to sharing our proverbial sandwiches?

One of the best ways to ensure success is to bring your ready-built community to your campaign. Franny Armstrong was in the audience at the Sheffield panel and said that she had raised all the money for The Age of Stupid from their very large mailing list.

There are a few best-practices, however, that can really help you if you are building a campaign from scratch.

One is to make a fundraising video and put yourself in it. The CPH:DOX panel was with Yancey Strickler from Kickstarter and Simon Klose who raised $51,424 for his film about The Pirate Bay on Kickstarter. Simon’s video is clear and engaging:

Simon’s three tips for success were: a great topic, a strong community and heavy traffic. He was helped in the achieving the last two points by having a link to his Kickstarter page on the Pirate Bay site during the first three days of his campaign. Pirate Bay is among the top 100 sites in the world so this was a pretty big deal. Within three days he had reached his goal of $25,000. Yancey talked about the importance of being realistic about the amount you are hoping to raise. He also mentioned that 30 days is generally an ideal length of time. You need to create a sense of momentum so it’s important not to give yourself too much time. It’s also a really good idea to get friends and family to give you money right at the beginning because people are much more likely to give if others are already on board. You’ll generally find that you get a spike at the beginning that then tails off and then spikes up again right at the end as the deadline looms so create your strategy with this in mind. In terms of promotion, Yancey listed the most important tools as email, Facebook and Twitter, in that order. Your email list is important so make sure you build it and use it wisely! Only 45% of projects reach their fundraising goals on Kickstarter and if you do not reach your goal nobody gets charged so it’s really important to plan your campaign well: set clear goals, personalize your campaign and work hard on audience engagement. Get everyone sharing their sandwiches!

Kickstarter is currently only available to creators with access to a U.S. bank account so bear this in mind if you are not based in the USA. This will change soon and in the meantime there are other platforms that you can use, IndieGoGo for example.

In an unexpected surprise, Simon received his Kickstarter check in the middle of the panel. Which made us all very happy, Simon most of all!

Simon Klose opens his Kickstarter check while I ask him endless questions and Yancey Strickler captures the moment on his phone.

Simon with his check!

Make sure you check out the other opportunities from Discovery Campus. I know people who really benefited from attending their Discovery Masterschool (unfortunately applications are now closed for 2009 but you can put it on your to do list to apply next year for 2010!).

Here’s the skinny from them:

Do you have new projects on the slate and are looking for broadcasters and additional money? Your recent films are going on air? You are interested in financing new and innovative projects?

JOIN www.reelisor.com

This is the best way to show and tell, or to find projects for your slot. Upload your trailers, project details, build your community!

At Discovery Campus events, thousands of documentary film professionals have been trained by hundreds of experts and decision makers from around the world. Discovery Campus is very well connected with all relevant European training institutions, film schools, major documentary festivals, markets and national documentary associations.

Supported by the MEDIA Programme and together with its partners BRITDOC, EDN, Sunny Side of the Doc, IDF (Institute of Documentary Film, Prague), The D-Word, ZeLIG, DOK Leipzig, dragon forum and documentor, Discovery Campus has now launched the new online cooperation platform for European doc film professionals: reelisor.

reelisor is a navigator for existing platforms and websites. It offers guidance and information throughout the whole year. Its mission is to encourage training, education and the exchange of knowledge within the international film market and its related fields.

reelisor is a freely accessible tool for networking with user-generated content and projects from all over Europe and the world. It connects documentary film professionals, commissioning editors, festivals, markets and all other iniatives active in the industry.

reelisor – YOUR ONLINE ACCESS TO THE WORLD OF NON-FICTION

No need to hesitate, register now, it takes two minutes!
We are looking forward to having you on board,
Your reelisor team

FILMMAKING 2.0
Show Me the New Money
Where do you begin when navigating the wide variety of traditional and new media services, sites and opportunities being promoted to assist filmmakers in raising money? How do these tools and services differ from traditional private equity and film financing models? How can the right mix of all three help you access new sources while getting you that much closer to production?

Monday, September 15th, 10am – 11am

Panelists:
Miles Beckett, CEO, EQAL
Ryan Harrington, Indiepix Studios
Slava Rubin, CEO, IndieGoGo
Joel Wright, VP Interactive Media, Paradigm

Sunday 14 September, at BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London. Shooting People and BAFTA members pay only £15; everyone else pays £30. The price also includes a little black book of useful contacts and websites.

shootingpeople.org/shortsighted

This is a whole day event of sessions, workshops, surgeries and networking opportunities aimed at people who have made a short film, and want to know what to do next. Already confirmed are MySpace, YouTube, Shorts International, Encounters, British Council, Film London, Filmaka, Cinelan, Daily Motion and BT Vision to name a few of many.

Sessions will cover every step in the process of getting your film out to an audience and the people who might fund future work, from maximising your film’s festival life to knowing the inside story on traditional short film sales to TV and DVD. We’ll also help you judge when and where to put your film online, and look to where short film exhibition in headed in this digital age and ask if it just might start to generate revenue for filmmakers.

There are a number of websites out there now offering filmmakers the ability to raise money for their films online. I can see lots of great opportunites for crowd-sourced financing if you postition your film strategically and market it accordingly. But these are not easy things to do in a crowded marketplace when you are competing with lots of other films seeking funding. It would be great to get comments from you about the sites you have found useful.

Applying for ITVS? Want to avoid some of the pitfalls? Starting today at The D-Word, ITVS leading executives Joy-Marie Scott, Cynthia Kane, Karim Ahmad and Kathryn Washington join us online to take us through the complexities of applying for ITVS funds. This moderated “ITVS Special Conference” runs from 17th to 22nd December.

The D-Word, co-hosted by founder Doug Block in New York, Ben Kempas in Munich and John Burgan in Denmark has been hosting documentary discussion forums online since 1999. Membership consists of more than 2000 professional documentary filmmakers from some 80 countries  around the world.

As well as the regular discussion boards, The D-Word holds a series of moderated online conferences with guest experts in the field. These week-long discussions cover the art, craft, business and social impact of documentary film.

For more information, join us at www.d-word.com