Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Jul 27, 2015 9:27:14 GMT -6
www.capitalc-movie.com/
www.indiewire.com/article/how-two-first-time-filmmakers-crowdfunded-a-documentary-on-crowdfunding-20150724
How Two First-Time Filmmakers Crowdfunded a Documentary on Crowdfunding
By Timon Birkhofer and Jørg Kundinger | Indiewire
July 24, 2015 at 1:32PM
Crowdfunding isn't for the faint-hearted. Here's the brutally honest lowdown on how it really works.
Folks are always surprised when they hear how hard it was to get people involved in the "CAPITAL C" campaign as we were crowdfunding for a movie about crowdfunding. Considering this, "CAPITAL C" is the textbook example of the fact that people will not give money just because they like the idea of crowdfunding, people give money because they like what you have to offer. If they choose to go down the road of crowdfunding with you to finally get what they want – they will support you – as long as your project is worth the money you are asking for.
It is for this reason that you have to show your supporters what you have instead of just telling them about it. While film is a visual art-form, it is quite astounding how many filmmakers ignore this simple fact when it comes to crowdfunding. We were no exception - even if our final movie turned out to be pretty emotional, our Kickstarter trailer didn't show a thing about it. We were so focused on our topic that nothing in our pitch video showed how our final movie would look and, most importantly, feel.
It's difficult for any first time filmmaker to receive press large enough to move the needle during a crowdfunding campaign, even the biggest blog feature or radio interview didn't do much for us to get the campaign off the ground. Our funding would have failed terribly if it wasn't for legendary game developer Brian Fargo and "Wasteland," the classic video game he created in the '80s. His cult hit game, widely ignored by publishers ever since its inception, was resurrected directly by the fans via a crowdfunding campaign 20 years later. We loved Brian's story and passion so much we asked him to become involved as one of the protagonists in our film. He agreed and shared the news of his upcoming appearance in "CAPITAL C" on his social media channels. Because of this new relationship, his 60,000 personal and emotional "Wasteland" supporters were now pointed in our direction. It was Brian' involvement that gave us the boost we needed - regardless of when he joined the campaign.
All in all, we closed our funding campaign with the support of 586 backers from 24 countries and raised a total of $84,298.
The fulfillment
We launched the "CAPITAL C" Kickstarter campaign in 2012 and it took us more than THREE years to get this movie made. During that time, we've received a lot of great support from our crowd: people allowed us to crash on their couches when we were filming in their city, they gave us legal counseling when things got messy and they helped shape the sound, style and rhythm of the movie when we invited them for test screenings.
As of today, we have met nearly half of our backers in person and we've created long-term relationships with the films followers. There is really nothing better than meeting one of your supporters for the first time. There is this instant connection and so many things to discuss right away.
On the flip side, there are supporters we definitely lost over time. Some of them lost faith in the project, some of them grew tired and some of them got mad as we fell two years behind schedule with our finished product. Of course, we don't blame them. They have every right in the world to be angry and it's our obligation to make it up to them, so we invited our backers to festival screenings, booked theaters for local supporters in our hometown and granted them free stuff. We even offered our backers a refund if they didn't like the film. Thankfully, only one person took us up on that offer.
The distribution
We hope international film festivals, distributors, broadcasters and platforms like Netflix picked up our movie because of its quality. However, in an overcrowded marketplace where only 1 out of 250 films gets distribution (that is 0.4% of all films that are getting made), there has to be more to why an independent film by two guys with no connections in the industry got noticed in the first place. The reason for that is undoubtedly the crowd.
If we had known the power of the crowd right from the start, we would have better utilized its strength. The companies we are working with today are actively looking for films like ours. They found our project because of our crowdfunding campaign and the attention surrounding it made us visible very early on.
"We even offered our backers a refund if they didn't like the film."
We made a film under the least commercial and most independent conditions possible. With no broadcaster or investor involved, no one could influence us to follow certain demographics or local or political sensitivities. This freedom made "CAPITAL C" a very subjective movie that an intellectual arthouse community can hate wholeheartedly - the beauty of it is we can allow ourselves to give a F about it. As long as "CAPITAL C" is a movie that we are proud of, as long as our backers love it, as long as it gets worldwide distribution and as long as it gets invited to international festivals and wins audience awards, we are all good.
Looking back on all the highs and lows we had, we only have one major regret – that we did not start our crowdfunding campaign midway through completion of our film. By starting with a crowdfunding campaign in the very beginning, we put the patience of our backers to the test.
Crowdfunding is not the easiest way to raise money, but we can't think of any other way that a film like "CAPITAL C" would have been made. And we also never expected to work on this project for three years. But, in all honesty, it's been the best three years of our lives.
"CAPITAL C" is available beginning on Friday, July 24, 2015 in select theaters and via iTunes, Xbox and Amazon. Find out more here:
www.capitalc-movie.com/#trailer
www.indiewire.com/article/how-two-first-time-filmmakers-crowdfunded-a-documentary-on-crowdfunding-20150724
How Two First-Time Filmmakers Crowdfunded a Documentary on Crowdfunding
By Timon Birkhofer and Jørg Kundinger | Indiewire
July 24, 2015 at 1:32PM
Crowdfunding isn't for the faint-hearted. Here's the brutally honest lowdown on how it really works.
Folks are always surprised when they hear how hard it was to get people involved in the "CAPITAL C" campaign as we were crowdfunding for a movie about crowdfunding. Considering this, "CAPITAL C" is the textbook example of the fact that people will not give money just because they like the idea of crowdfunding, people give money because they like what you have to offer. If they choose to go down the road of crowdfunding with you to finally get what they want – they will support you – as long as your project is worth the money you are asking for.
It is for this reason that you have to show your supporters what you have instead of just telling them about it. While film is a visual art-form, it is quite astounding how many filmmakers ignore this simple fact when it comes to crowdfunding. We were no exception - even if our final movie turned out to be pretty emotional, our Kickstarter trailer didn't show a thing about it. We were so focused on our topic that nothing in our pitch video showed how our final movie would look and, most importantly, feel.
It's difficult for any first time filmmaker to receive press large enough to move the needle during a crowdfunding campaign, even the biggest blog feature or radio interview didn't do much for us to get the campaign off the ground. Our funding would have failed terribly if it wasn't for legendary game developer Brian Fargo and "Wasteland," the classic video game he created in the '80s. His cult hit game, widely ignored by publishers ever since its inception, was resurrected directly by the fans via a crowdfunding campaign 20 years later. We loved Brian's story and passion so much we asked him to become involved as one of the protagonists in our film. He agreed and shared the news of his upcoming appearance in "CAPITAL C" on his social media channels. Because of this new relationship, his 60,000 personal and emotional "Wasteland" supporters were now pointed in our direction. It was Brian' involvement that gave us the boost we needed - regardless of when he joined the campaign.
All in all, we closed our funding campaign with the support of 586 backers from 24 countries and raised a total of $84,298.
The fulfillment
We launched the "CAPITAL C" Kickstarter campaign in 2012 and it took us more than THREE years to get this movie made. During that time, we've received a lot of great support from our crowd: people allowed us to crash on their couches when we were filming in their city, they gave us legal counseling when things got messy and they helped shape the sound, style and rhythm of the movie when we invited them for test screenings.
As of today, we have met nearly half of our backers in person and we've created long-term relationships with the films followers. There is really nothing better than meeting one of your supporters for the first time. There is this instant connection and so many things to discuss right away.
On the flip side, there are supporters we definitely lost over time. Some of them lost faith in the project, some of them grew tired and some of them got mad as we fell two years behind schedule with our finished product. Of course, we don't blame them. They have every right in the world to be angry and it's our obligation to make it up to them, so we invited our backers to festival screenings, booked theaters for local supporters in our hometown and granted them free stuff. We even offered our backers a refund if they didn't like the film. Thankfully, only one person took us up on that offer.
The distribution
We hope international film festivals, distributors, broadcasters and platforms like Netflix picked up our movie because of its quality. However, in an overcrowded marketplace where only 1 out of 250 films gets distribution (that is 0.4% of all films that are getting made), there has to be more to why an independent film by two guys with no connections in the industry got noticed in the first place. The reason for that is undoubtedly the crowd.
If we had known the power of the crowd right from the start, we would have better utilized its strength. The companies we are working with today are actively looking for films like ours. They found our project because of our crowdfunding campaign and the attention surrounding it made us visible very early on.
"We even offered our backers a refund if they didn't like the film."
We made a film under the least commercial and most independent conditions possible. With no broadcaster or investor involved, no one could influence us to follow certain demographics or local or political sensitivities. This freedom made "CAPITAL C" a very subjective movie that an intellectual arthouse community can hate wholeheartedly - the beauty of it is we can allow ourselves to give a F about it. As long as "CAPITAL C" is a movie that we are proud of, as long as our backers love it, as long as it gets worldwide distribution and as long as it gets invited to international festivals and wins audience awards, we are all good.
Looking back on all the highs and lows we had, we only have one major regret – that we did not start our crowdfunding campaign midway through completion of our film. By starting with a crowdfunding campaign in the very beginning, we put the patience of our backers to the test.
Crowdfunding is not the easiest way to raise money, but we can't think of any other way that a film like "CAPITAL C" would have been made. And we also never expected to work on this project for three years. But, in all honesty, it's been the best three years of our lives.
"CAPITAL C" is available beginning on Friday, July 24, 2015 in select theaters and via iTunes, Xbox and Amazon. Find out more here:
www.capitalc-movie.com/#trailer