ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

8 years, 4 months ago - John Lubran

It's not a big audience Nicolas is it. Not sure that there'd be much in it for a 'successful pitcher'? We get a thousand or more following these strands here on SP most days. The chatter about crowd funding as it's referred to in this context is mostly misconstrued. Crowd funding websites such as Kickstarter and Indigogo are not the magic ticket for projects that are of little interest to strangers, such as low budget shorts and fiction features that have no virtues or other compelling elements beyond being vanity exercises. There's always exceptions to the generality, but that's what they are, exceptions.

There are some very good ideas for gathering a crowd. These ideas are comeracially valuable. The tip is that one ought to look for crowds that already exist im other places and that have directly contactable access. Typically such crowds share common ethical, social, cultural, political and/or charitable goals and aspirations. One still needs to create an appropriate online presence that may include a crowd funding facilitator but that as broad spectrum campaigns don't rely wholly upon them.

I can't emphasise just how valuable is the methodology for success or the conflict between the disclosure of intellectual enterprise assets and giving it away to the detriment of ones purpose. This community is largely made up of hobbiest, Walter Mitty enthusiasts, aspirant beginners and working professionals for whom this is the day job. Having said all that it ought not take the brains of a rocket scientist to research and learn from the few broad spectrum campaigns that already provide useful templates.

8 years, 4 months ago - Holly Jacobson

If it is for any kind of indie film then it isn't likely to be extremely targeted though is it? Even if it's just for horror, there are very few people who want to just support a horror film for no reason.

I do think there is some value in this though - it's a bit like when I was running my crowd funding campaigns and went on local radio and had articles about it in the local press. Probably it didn't lead to any direct contributions, but it was something for me to talk about on social media and that is very valuable mid campaign. Also, I'm sure I heard or read somewhere that on average someone has to hear about these things from three sources before putting their hand in their pocket. This could be one of those. Lastly, it's always a good thing to practice justifying why someone should back your project.

8 years, 4 months ago - John Lubran

Depends somewhat on whether we're talking about raising a couple of grand or so for a vanity project with no prospect of a significant audience or for a serious budget for a viably distributable project. It's apples and oranges on entirely different planets; planets so different that chatting about one has little basis for chatting about the other on the same platform.

8 years, 4 months ago - John Lubran

It's not about demeaning and I can't help it if calling a spade a spade is deemed offensive. I have to say though Holly that raising £10,000 for a short film that has no purpose other than to exercise the art is impressive. I'd be interested to learn the reasons that the funders had for doing so. Were they complete strangers or people you knew? The imperitives driving an art or training exercise are entirely different to those essential for sustainable professional purposes. Any approach towards crowd funding by the later will need to manifest differently to that of the former and yet within these lists the distinction is never made. It really ought to be. Shooting People is not only for amateurs and beginners. Some have real businesses to maintain.

It's not improper to define the differences between purposes and intents. It's also not improper to note the differences between privaledge and struggle. When I started making factual films as an indipendent producer in the early 80's it was necessary to hit the ground running. A minimum viability was essential just for survival. Since then the only thing that's changed is that the Internet has created new business models capable of freeing us from the iron grip of the previous closed shops and cartels.

As with vanity publishing a vanity film is a production privately funded (in effect) that otherwise has no hope of commercial or general distribution. It's a well established term that is technically neutral and factual. One need only be offended if ones own project has a purpose other than its mere existence for which such a description negatively harms that purpose. If such a production is truly educational for those involved and provides a launch platform leading to professionalism then it's more than only a vanity project. All art is vanity but some art is more than that. There's often a blurry line between the two but the proof of the pudding is not the accolade of minor awards but the accolade of sustainable offers.

But this strand is about crowd funding which I've perhaps extrapolated to include a discussion about realities and fantasies. We had a strand recently where a book about how to make a Hollywood film was being plugged. It was observed by commentators that the numbers of individuals and businesses offering stepping stones and advice were disproportionate to the vacuum of reality and potential. So many red herrings and no through roads for the innocent to navigate. Sadly the truism that entry into our industry disproportionately favours rich young toffs is an evident fact. The odds are against beginners but money is a hard reality and knowing how to get it is usually the difference between just passing through or staying the course.

8 years, 4 months ago - John Lubran

Yes Mark you're absolutely right and to Holly I apologise for my over cynical post. You're doing great. One thing does lead to another and producing a short film on scrapped together money is the best skills development process there is.

My rude cynicism flared up only because I'm aware of a few short film projects sporting banal action or underwhelming aspiration that imagine crowd funders.

The most successful of these have benefited from an inner starter crowd made up of family and friends; and a good enough pitch.

The term crowd funding references a growing spectrum of projects, literally from a few hundred to a few million. I'm just throwing a squib into the conversation in order to expand it's remit beyond what I percieved to be a narrower one.

For every one who manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat, you're a wizard and ought do well by any criteria.

8 years, 4 months ago - Nicholas Vince

I'm away filming on location at the moment, so have only just now had a chance to login at my laptop.

Holly makes an excellent case for the way I see this working. My YouTube show is automatically recorded, so anyone who takes part will have a resource which they can tweet and post about on Facebook etc.

Mark's point about producer skills, is also one I find astute, as effectively crowdfunding is 'pre-selling' your product and rather than having a few investors, you're now dealing with dozens or more.

I certainly didn't mean to imply my audience would automatically be interested in pledging to any campaign featured.

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to respond. There are some interesting ideas, and prejudices, raised here which will make interesting talking points during the show.

8 years, 4 months ago - Holly Jacobson

I've not checked in for a couple of days and I see you've had quite a lot to say John!

Firstly I realise you ask how much of the money I raised came from people I already knew because you have anticipated that most of it probably did. Actually 90% of it came from people I didn't know. I worked very hard to get my campaign out there and believe passionately in the project and people responded to that - three strangers contributed over £500 each in fact.

I think the reasons people contributed varied. Mainly I worked very hard on it. One person really wanted her two children to have a days experience on set and so paid to be an executive producer. A feature film I had a lead role in is out in America (it's just an idie film but is out on a red box thing to hire) and a few people who are fans of my acting in that gave generously. Neil Gaiman and Duncan Jones both tweeted about and that definitely led to contributions. A lot of friends of friends plugged away on social media too and that led to donations. I'm only 14 (13 at the time) and so my friends don't have a lot of money to donate.

Thank you for apologising for your cynicism. You say that calling shorts etc vanity project is calling a spade a spade, but I'd disagree. It has negative connotations and is said to make them seem of less value than projects that are intended to be commercially viable. My ultimate aim is to be wildly successful and make films that smash the box office - but I wouldn't want that unless I just loved films for their own sake. It's hard to express exactly what I mean - I think there are plenty of big budget feature films that have made money that have less worth in my eyes than some brilliant shorts. Those shorts weren't made to be money makers, but they are beautiful and they have inherent worth imo.

You later say that a project isn't a vanity project if it is really educational for those making it or is intended to launch someone to the next stage. I don't think many short filmmakers are neither learning or hoping to launch themselves into a career in filmmaking. I'd be very interested if anyone here is making films that they plan to neither learn from or market as self promotion.

I'm not meaning to be argumentative with you Jonn and I feel we may have gotten off on the wrong foot. I feel that what you may find so irritating is people thinking crowd funding is a magic solution to fund badly thought out films when they could be doing their learning on a shoe string. With that I wouldn't disagree at all.

8 years, 4 months ago - John Lubran

I'll just have to keep on apologising then. I had a bad day at the office as it were, being recently asked to put energy and resources into what I would still call a vanity project. Where I have erred is to generalise to a fault. As I said, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and getting a production completed with funding from strangers is a wizard achievment by any criteria. I've looked at your campaign on Indigogo Holly and can appreciate your excellent effort. I imagine that there are very few children capable of putting together all of the elements you've put together in funding, acting and creating a whole project.

Holly and Mark are right and I was wrong. I'm not the Messiah I'm a very naughty boy.