Another blow to the little man?

Should an established name use crowd-funding websites?

You only need to glance over most movie blogs to notice a hell of a lot of fuss surrounding Kickstarter. Since it began in 2009, Kickstarter has brought a democratised funding platform to audiences who can now scroll through page after page, picking and donating the projects that take their interest. From video games, to publishing, to technology, Kickstarter has successfully been helping the business-minded little guy satisfy their audience with treats dependent on the amount they contribute. Kickstarter isn’t turning the average joe into executive producers, instead Kickstarter is allowing fans to endorse something they admire and become a vital donor in the success of a project. So far so good, right?

Inevitably with newspapers, blogs, and online banter all praising sites including and similar to Kickstarter (Crowdrise is another popular American crowd funding website with other sites like IndieGoGo proving popular in Europe), it would be only a matter of time before anyone with a slight noteworthy name would utilize a crowd funding scheme sending the internet into a frenzy of hate.

One particular celebrity has been the focus of news headlines with his recent Kickstarter project success, sparking the debate about who should be the appropriate people to use crowd-funding sites. As the press commented on indie-comic actor turned director Zach Braff’s recently launched Kickstarter page to fund his follow up to the sickly-sweet debut Garden State, the internet was alive with the e-bitterness we’ve come to expect. Towards the end of his breakout show Scrubs, Braff was reported to be earning a tidy sum, you only need look at pictures of his ‘urban rustic’ New York apartment to see that Braff is hardly strapped for cash, which leaves the question, should an artist fund a project straight out of his or her pocket if they are in a position to do so? And who are we to judge?

When can someone be considered too fortunate to not be allowed to use crowd-sourcing sites? A privileged individual living in upstate New York might have more luck with funding using their industry connections, than say, a small time filmmaker in Eastern Europe. Yet you couldn’t stop Braff for a picky reason like that, I’m sure plenty of wealthy individuals have used Kickstarter when they could have funded projects themselves, it seems that without the name recognition they are left un-judged.

So with this in mind lets take a brief look at some of the ‘famous’ names that have jumped to crowd sourcing.

Arguably one of the biggest names to join with a project was director David Fincher who became a producer on the comic to movie adaptation of The Goon. The project received its pledge of $400K allowing it to go ahead with its full development plan. Was it fans of the comics that helped get the project made? Or was is David Fincher’s name? I’d argue the former over the latter. Another creative who’s looking for full authorship is kooky scribe Charlie Kaufman for his latest project Anomalisa. Kaufman has partnered up with Starburns Studios (a cute stop-motion company out of Burbank) – together they also raised $400K, which was double the funding they had been looking for. Arguably one of the most successful projects to date (that also grabbed media attention) has been Rob Thomas’ reboot adaptation for Veronica Mars as the producers made over £5m to shoot the feature film.

So is there serious money in crowd sourcing? Of course there is. Despite critics, bloggers, and general naysayers all expecting the downfall of these websites, they (crowd-sourcing websites) are truly helping the little man. I can hear you asking yourselves- if celebrities are stealing the limelight, then won’t the funding go with them too? Actually that’s not the case. It’s quite the opposite as Kickstarter posted a blog entitled Blockbuster Effects noting examples from big projects in video gaming and comic books, that saw a rise in overall fund raising due to the celebrities involvement. For example when video game cult legend Tim Schafer recently began a pledge to fund the game he and his company Double Fine wanted to make, 71% (a total of 61,692) of the investors were first time backers who later went on to fund other smaller projects in the video game category. You only need to look at the figures to see a rise in video game funding after Schafer’s project was announced. The same thing happened with Rob Thomas’ Veronica Mars, as well as the Order of the Stick webcomic as 76% of the funding once again arrived from first-time backers (that’s 11,343 new potential investors brought to the site).

If big named stars are indeed ‘poaching potential funders’ from the little guy, at the very least an established name can bring in more of a crowd to spread the wealth and fund other projects. That very same crowd is not only aiding their celebrity heroes but are also helping the independents in their quest for coppers. Sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo have been helping bring art to its audience. It is contrived and extremely easy to point the finger of blame at the rich for a small projects failing. To be honest, most projects fail due to their own poorly conceived business plans. If you can give your backers something truly special or practical then you’ll find some form of crowd-finance.

Luckily for Zach Braff he managed to get funding based on his comic lifestyle and heart on his sleeve approach, but take a few seconds out of your day to see just how terrible his donation rewards are: At $10 you’ll get a few behind the scenes videos and a PDF of the script, for $20 you’ll get the soundtrack for the movie and a couple of Spotify Playlists (a sum total of $10 in worth), with the third option of $30 including a online screening of the movie. They’re only the first three options but I’d guess that most potential funders wouldn’t go above a certain margin if they are frequent donators. This means that your first couple of rewards must be very important and make the potential backer feel as if they’re getting a real privilege out of what they are backing. In Braff’s case, for someone who made $350,000 per episode of Scrubs (in the later seasons) to have such an awful rewards system (seriously he could have thrown in a digital copy of the movie in the mix) it does take the sheen off of the project a little.

All in all, it does make you question why some star-named people are using Kickstarter, David Fincher probably doesn’t need the site because he’s a powerhouse in Hollywood with a CV larger than those letters glaring over Los Angeles. It all comes back to the little guy looking up, hoping he doesn’t get squashed.

Celebrities are known for opening doors and in this case, they have allowed audiences to discover new projects, authors, artists – and contribute to their success. I’m not defending celebrities, nor am I condemning them for their choices in raising finance. I’d hope if you haven’t already, that you will go and discover Kickstarter – take a look around and maybe even pledge.

News came recently that Spike Lee has been putting together his own Kickstarter Campaign for a movie allegedly to do with vampires. When asked to donate, he’s not asking for blood, he’s asking for money in return for blood – it goes around in circles, we like that here at Cannes in a Van.

Here are several articles and web resources regarding crowd funding.

1. guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/28/zach-braff-kickstarter-campaign-closes

2. guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/16/zach-braff-kickstarter-controversy-deepens

3. guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/apr/26/zack-braff-panhandle-money-kickstarter

4. economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/05/economist-explains-unfair-fair-famous-people-kickstarter

5. wired.com/underwire/2013/04/zach-braff-kickstarter/

6. kickstarter.com/blog/blockbuster-effecte

7. kickstarter.com/projects/1869987317/wish-i-was-here-1

 Oliver Hunt