ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

10 years, 2 months ago - Kays Alatrakchi

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking if you should tell your cast and crew (I assume you're producing or directing also) that the film isn't financed yet and you're planning a crowdfunding campaign to get your production money. Well, be prepared for a lot of "Sure, let me know when you get your money" type of responses. Everyone is interested in potential work, so the crowdfunding nature of your film will not put people off, but don't expect anyone to really truly sign on to your film until the money actually materializes. The unpredictable nature of crowdfunding means that everyone assumes that you will not get your money....until you do. So just be prepared for a lot of smiles and nods, but no actual commitment until you have a successful campaign.

10 years, 2 months ago - Dan Selakovich

I think the mistake most people make with these, and why most film crowdfunding fails, is they try to grow a crowd with a crowdfunding campaign. You need the fans FIRST, then launch a campaign. Grow the crowd before you start anything like this.

10 years, 2 months ago - Richard Connew

Why not try and do it on a low budget funded by yourself. It really doesn't cost that much to make a film as many will help for the experience IF they think the film has legs. It astounds me the amount of people who don't ever make a film because they think they need 10k or even more to make it. Don't get so caught up with your own or the films importance too much or it will never be made. A film can be made on any budget if you put your mind to it and beg borrow etc. Surely better to be made on a shoe string than not at all? You could always use the budget version when its finished or even part done to convince people to give you the funds to make a bigger and better version as they will then see and know exactly what they are investing in.

10 years, 2 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Also, crowdfund donors won't be impressed by a bunch of crew names (actually if you've a couple of IMDB feature credit principal crew on there it may reassure a little, but nobody really cares who your electrician is).

One thing that will help enormously is being upfront with your budget. Many (most??) crowdfund projects say something along the lines of 'give me £50000 and I'll make a movie' without any indication of how that figure was arrived at. Is it a made-up figure, or is it based on real numbers? Does it include platform fees, 'rewards', etc? What's the VAT position? Are you claiming a tax credit? If you can show a budget that's realistic, people will feel reassured that the project (if financed) may not be just another dreamer!!

Get money, and you'll have your pick of crew.

10 years, 2 months ago - afia nkrumah

Hi Matthew,

I agree with Dan, CROWD funding needs a crowd before you start and Paddy's point about knowing how much you need and how to ask for it is crucial to your success. It is best to have some money on the table before you consider crowd funding. We did a crowd funding campaign for my short film Shadow Man to top up the budget. Here are the lessons I learnt from the experience.

1. PLAN AS IF YOU ARE GOING TO WAR
You need to plan from 6 months before the start of the campaign. It will help if you have a website with lots of visuals about your film, like a professional looking poster, properly drawn story boards that you can use and release during your crowd funding campaign.

Who is your audience for this film? Where are they? How can you get their email addresses? Who are the people you know who might like your movie? Ask them where they hangout online. What blogs, forums, do they read? Start getting on those places online and commenting or taking part in that community before you start your crowd funding.

2. WHO CAN HELP YOU TELL MORE PEOPLE?
You need to get in touch/ personally email at least 1000 people and create a database not including your friends and family. Trawl through your email account from day one and contact every one you have ever emailed or received an email from including the bulk emails and accidental emails.

Do you have any mates who are very active on social media or have a lot of interests and knows a lot of people? If so get in touch with them and ask them to pass your campaign onto their friends and followers. get in touch with people through email, direct messages on facebook and twitter. Find partners who have a built in interest in your film. My short was about migration so we got in touch with a few charities who work with migrants and they sent our campaign to their database. This way we got contributors who we didn't know from all over the world, which was really nice. Also promote other filmmakers work and help out when you can and they will pay it forward.

3. BEGGING AND SELLING
VIDEO: You need to spend a good bit of time getting your pitch video right. Spend time on kickstarter, indiegogo or any crowd funding platform you want to go on and study the campaigns that get the money? What are they doing right? The first 15 seconds are crucial, we got this horribly wrong on our campaign. make sure your video is in the same tone as your film. If your script is a comedy, make your video funny, if you are making a thriller, make it thrilling, if a horror make your video scary. Using story boards really helped us because the contributors could see what the film would be like.I would say 90 secs to 3mins is long enough. You don't want to put people off by boring them. Make sure you have any copyright clearances for any music or images you use.

EMAIL: Spend time writing the begging email. If you can test it on a few friends and ask them which one would make them give money. Personalise as many of them as you can, don't send them in a bulk email, send each one individually if you can. For our campaign we asked contributors to give £10 or whatever they could afford and it was really nice when people contributed more.

REWARDS: What can you offer that isn't going to cost you money to make? Try and make sure your rewards tie into the film. Sometimes the most simple rewards can prove popular. On our campaign the most popular reward was a hand written letter from me, the director. I was a bit resistant to the idea when it was suggested, as you can imagine! Don't forget, the process of filmmaking is interesting to people who don't do it for a living and love to watch movies.

4. UPDATE WITHOUT BOASTING
These are very important to the success of your campaign. Plan them in advance and make them as visual as you can especially about the preparation of your film. For example, recce photos and videos, rehearsals, interviews with cast and crew, or experts if your film is about an issue etc. You can also plan fundraising events that can feed into your crowd funding campaign, contests, and later on in production behind- the-scenes interviews, footage, teasers, outtakes (don't forget to ask the actors permission for this) and trailers.

On social media thank everyone who contributes in whatever way publicly. Make announcement and promote other people's work. After your crowd funding campaign has closed, you are not done. You need to get your EPK, and all the things I have mentioned together to sell and distribute your film. Most importantly you need to send the rewards to your contributors and carry on the social media campaign, yes you have to meet people, shake hands and kiss babies. I hope this is useful. If you want to see our EPK and other visual materials we used and are using for festivals for Shadow Man, click here:
http://bombaxmedia.com/News.html

Cheers Afia