Raising money is the most nerve-wracking step for filmmakers. Larry Jaffee explains the Kickstarter crowdfunding approach and how films get funded.
For filmmakers, perhaps the most nerve-wracking step in the long, arduous process is coming up with enough money to complete their films. This is true for even established Hollywood directors, let alone first-time neophytes.
Nearly everyone aspiring to put their cinematic vision on the big (or small) screen has tapped out credit cards, friends and family.
Thanks to the Internet, there’s an alternative place to find funding. A year-old website called Kickstarter.com allows all kinds of artists to find benefactors for their creative projects. Not surprisingly, filmmakers, alongside artists, designers, musicians, journalists, inventors and explorers, are raising money through this means.
There is one major catch, though. The person asking for the money must raise all the money within a particular period of time, or he or she risks not getting a cent. As if a filmmaker doesn’t have enough problems. About half of the projects coming through Kickstarter fail to raise the needed funds.
Currently, there are dozens of film projects seeking funding through Kickstarter – part of a relatively recent Internet phenomenon known as “crowdfunding,” which Wikipedia describes as: “the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money together, usually via the Internet, in order to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowdfunding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns.” As it pertains to film financing, the folks at Kickstarter stress that money seekers rely on their own networks of contacts to raise the required funds, and then funnel all their fundraising and marketing efforts through Kickstarter, thus better providing an opportunity for success. Facebook and Twitter figure prominently in most campaigns to publicize the filmmakers’ plight.
True, visitors to the Kickstarter website who are there to support another project might feel benevolent, and throw some money the way of an aspiring auteur or if they like a concept. It’s often artists supporting artists, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Despite the considerable risk factor in such an endeavor, coming up with the dollars this way could very well mean whether a movie gets finished or not.
The way the system works, contributors are directed to an Amazon payment system, but the financial amount is not charged to the payer’s credit card account until the project poster hits their total.
StudentFilmmakers magazine spoke with two filmmakers (one animated short, one feature) who both hit their targets on April 22.
Caldera, Animated Short
Within two weeks of posting his project on Kickstarter, 27-year-old writer/director/producer Evan Viera, of Northampton, Massachusetts, exceeded the $10,000 he sought to finish production on a 10-minute animated short called Caldera. The Kickstarter video about the film offers a work-in-progress about individuals struggling with psychotic disorders, and venerates the brilliant minds forged in the haunted depths of psychosis.
Viera has worked on several short films as sound designer, composer, and visual artist. Evan graduated from Hampshire College in 2006, his Division III Sycamore Eve was a short animated film that won “Best Animated Film” in the Scene First Student Film Festival.
“We originally thought about asking only for $5,000,” says Viera, who explains on the Kickstarter site why the project needs the money: “In the past several months the crew has grown and managing the project has happily taken over our lives. This critical mass is forcing us to leave our part time work and focus on the film until it is done. Your financial support will make this a reality.” In an interview with StudentFilm-makers, Viera explains that the Kickstarter proceeds will be used mainly to cover the two years of time he’s put into the film, which is still only about half way completed. He explains that animation is tedious work. “Where it gets expensive is the labor,” he says.
On April 22, Viera went over the top of his Kickstarter goal of $10,000 (covering only a third what’s really needed to subsidize his plans for hitting the festivals) with 74 days to go, which means he won’t receive the funds until July 6. “We sort of planned for that [but the upside is] we might have far more money by then.”
Caldera has utilized student interns from the University of Massachussetts at Amherst, where he teaches animation. The film’s chief animator and writer, Chris Bishop, teaches animation at his alma mater (class of 2004), Hampshire College, from which Viera also graduated in 2006.
Once completed, Viera plans to work Caldera through the festival circuit, in hopes of getting enough attention that will help him eventually mount an animated feature.
All Kickstarter participants are urged to come up with creative ways to involve their donors.
Ten people have already donated $20 or more to the Caldera cause, and in exchange they’ll receive exclusive access to high quality digital stills. Another 18 donors of $50 or more will also receive a DVD including bonus materials. Eight people have given $100 or more, and will receive in addition a high quality print of artwork from the film. Nine people have been assured of a “special thanks” line in the credits for contributing $250 or more. One person has become an executive producer in exchange for $2,000. To date, no one has taken up Viera’s offer for “an all-inclusive trip” to the premiere and after-party for $5,000.
Goodbye Promise, Feature
For Los Angeles filmmaker David Branin, it was touch and go whether he was going to get the $15,000 target by April 22 at 11 p.m. With 14 hours to go, Goodbye Promise, his feature film about an actor’s dream to make it in Hollywood within seven years, was still about $4,000 short in coming up with the required post-production money. Like the fictional story he was trying to tell, time was running out, but writer/director Branin wasn’t exactly freaking out because he had one Kickstarter backer who indicated that he would make up a shortfall, if necessary. “We had a backup plan,” Branin says, referring to the production team’s principals who figured they could come up with a few thousand dollars themselves in an emergency situation so that they wouldn’t lose the rest of the Kickstarter money, but he’s extremely thankful that wasn’t necessary. The end total was $16,203.
“The first 50-60% of the people who gave [through Kickstarter] we know, utilizing our own network who were connected to us in some way. In the final hours we reached people we didn’t know,” says Branin, who when not working on Goodbye Promise works as a bartender and a care-giver to an elderly woman.
“The crew has already been paid,” says Branin, who has a laundry list of other people he’s going to pay from the Kickstarter proceeds, including the film’s editor, social media producer, and its web designer, as well pay back the loan he took out to pay equity actors. Some of the money will be used for color correction and sound design.
Goodbye Promise is his second feature, the first being Night Before the Wedding, which he directed, wrote and produced for $40,000, and was finished largely due to deferred payments.
Branin co-hosts a weekly Internet show on L.A. Talk Radio’s “Film Courage” about making it in Hollywood with Karen Worden, who appears in Goodbye Promise. He admits the show was helpful in getting out the word about their Kickstarter campaign, but they couldn’t be so obvious on-the-air about asking for money.
Larry Jaffee is a New York-based journalist focused on the entertainment industry. He has been published in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Hollywood Reporter, among many publications. Jaffee is also the author of “Albert Square & Me: The Actors of EastEnders” and the publisher of the Walford Gazette (www.wgazette.com).
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