To date $90.74 million has been raised on Kickstarter in the film & video category, making it the largest category in terms of funds raised. Projects in this category have had a 39% success rate and comprise 21.8% market share of the 13 categories listed on their website. Many people have begun to ask why film & video is so popular for project backers.
When polled, the majority of my readers associate games and cool products like the Pebble Watch with the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform. Several didn’t know that Film projects existed on the website. This is conflicting data with the rise of the Film & Video category, so I decided to sit down with a director and get his thoughts on crowdfunding for films.
Tim Webb is a first-time director working on the short film Nightmare. Nightmare started when Tim was approached about writing an episode for a local horror group, Demented Dane County. He had previously considered writing a horror film centered around a character suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. Demented Dane County was collecting episodes for their first season and this offer to contribute to the project brought the story back to life in Tim’s mind.
He soon settled on a storyline: “Aaron is a young man, plagued with recurring nightmares of traumatic events from his childhood. He must fight his own guilt, coupled by the presence of a dark creature who now inhabits his nightmares. Can he overcome his own demons, or will reality and the nightmare become one and the same?”
The main character’s affliction of PTSD and dissociative identity disorder were rooted in a traumatic past that left him scarred since he was 14 years old. Although therapy and medication proved useful for a time, the nightmares slowly began to arise again, only this time this time they took on an unexpected force of reality.
Tim, the director of the short film, also suffers from from PTSD and shares a similar backstory to the protagonist. He has drawn on his personal experience to create an eerie psychological horror film that puts you on the edge of your seat. Tim has already finished shooting 85% of the movie with a great cast and is now turning to Kickstarter to finance the remaining production costs. He plans to finish the film in May/June and begin entering horror festivals in New England, California, and Atlanta.
Tim was nice enough to do an interview with me so that we could gain some insight into directors’ views of crowdfunding and some lessons that any director should take into account before beginning a campaign.
The Film and Video Category is one of the most successful in terms of total successful funds raised ($90 M). Why do you think this is? Have you heard of crowdfunding for films before Kickstarter?
I knew of crowd funding from my days back when I was in bands, but not to the extent of Kickstarter. Places like Pledgie where very geared towards music. One of the reasons why I stayed away from movies for so long was because I knew how hard it was to raise money, and there weren’t many platforms like Kickstarter out there. That’s the reason why Kickstarter is so successful. It allows people who, previously, couldn’t take their vision and put it on screen due to lack of resources. But now, we have this amazing platform to raise the funds we need, and get other people buying in to our vision.
What made you turn to Kickstarter to finance the completion of Nightmare as opposed to other platforms or methods of raising funds.
We looked at Kickstarter to finish the movie and raise the funds to get the dvds made and get into festivals because, quite simply, it’s the best tool I have seen to do so. Now, keep in mind, it is just that, a tool. If not used properly, don’t expect great results. But we have seen the type of magic that can happen through Kickstarter. We chose it over other forms of crowd sourcing simply due to the way the money is raised.
It is nice that with Indiegogo, if you don’t hit your goal, you still get the money. But with what we are looking to do, if 15 people chose to receive a dvd, and we only raised that amount of money, we wouldn’t have enough to fulfill the smallest order available for dvds, let alone get the professional editing and dvd authoring that is required to have a package dvd available. So, we had the mindset of, it’s all, or it’s nothing. Might as well shoot for the stars!
Kickstarter is a game changer for the film & video industry. What other platforms or services are disrupting this industry? How do you see it changing over the next few years?
I see a huge shift coming in the next few years. With multiple crowd sourcing options out there, it’s now easier than ever to get funding for your movie without having to rely on a studio or a company coming in and telling you how to make your movie. We’re going to get a wave of movies that aren’t afraid to push boundaries or tread in areas we have never thought of just due to the fact that so many more ideas are getting out there that don’t have a studio trying to be safe. With the advent of the DSLR filmmaking, and you have cinema cameras that are affordable, the Black Magic Cinema and the Red and the C300….all these things added together are really paving the way for the future of film making, and it’s a really exciting time to be in this industry.
Do you have any advice for other first-time film directors who are thinking about using Kickstarter?
As a first time director on Kickstarter, it’s a learning experience. Advice? Make sure you spend as MUCH time as possible getting the campaign perfect. Write out your story, erase it, write it again, add pictures. For a movie, if you have filmed some of it or have test footage, storyboards, ANYTHING you can share, put it out there. It helps people know how serious you are about this, and it helps break up that wall of text. Also, and you will see this everywhere, the video is SO important. Now is not the time to break out the webcam or the iphone. Talk to your friends, get a camera, write an outline of what you want to say, and be you. This is your ONLY face time and your ONLY chance to make a first impression.
Check out the trailer and gallery of Nightmare at www.nightmarebegins.com and like them on facebook or follow them on twitter for updates.
