Crowd funding seems to be a big way of indie filmmakers making enough money to get their projects off the ground and make their mark on their industry. But, is it as simple as post your idea and watch the money roll in?
The simple answer is no. You may have the best idea in the world, but without the right approach, plan and delivery mechanism coupled with an audience you have already built support and credibility with – you may well be whizzing in the wind! Despite what you may believe – random people with pockets full of money rarely spend their days going through every one of the 1,657,934 different crowd-funding campaigns to go live today. There’s now that many out there that a good idea can be lost amongst the vast amounts of absolute horse doo doo! You want to be successful – you need to have a plan!
When you get into the depths of putting together your campaign on which ever crowd funding site you deem to be worthy of your next master piece you will eventually be told that you need to put in your email contacts and your Facebook details. Why? Simple. You need to already have an army of people who know you, your project and have a few quid spare to throw in. your initial push will come from these people – and then if it gathers enough momentum the rest of the world may just jump on the band wagon.
Do not go into a crowd funding campaign thinking that your idea is a sure fire hit and the world will want it. They wont. But, if the outside world sees your campaign gaining momentum at a good pace and money coming in fairly quickly they may just have a peak and decide they want to help out.
So, how do you gain that early momentum? You nag, you hassle and you drive your friends, family, supporters, fans and random contacts to go over and throw some money in the pot. And the work starts way before you launch! You need to have all these people prepped and ready to go so that the moment you make it live they’re poised with card details in hand!
Now that anyone who has ever had the pleasure of meeting you has donated, you need the general public to get involved too. This is where your subject matter is key! You’re great Granny Jones may be willing to throw in £20 even though she has no idea what Zombie Monster Pelicans From Mars is actually about, but she missed your last birthday so feels guilty. But, that doesn’t transpire to the man on the street. Or the man sat in his under pants behind his computer monitor more likely!
A subject, story or idea that is universal, emotes or links in news worthy social issues is more likely to gain interest than an original idea that’s so unique no one has ever done it before! Which usually means it makes no sense! And, as with any film, you need to have a clear idea of who your audience are so you can find ways
of reaching them, communicating with them and sharing your campaign with them.
A feature fiction film that deals with abusive relationships may get support from a charity who’s goal is to tackle that subject and bring it to the forefront of the minds of the nation. They could share your campaign on their website, social media pages or mailing list, if you’re lucky! Just make sure your film has the same goals as the charity! A documentary about East African refugees adapting to life in Cornwall may well get the support of Amnesty International, but again make sure your film aligns with their goals. It may even gain press attention due its bold attempt at tackling social issues. Unfortunately, Zombie Monster Pelicans From Mars probably wont. Not without a star actress attached anyway. And if you had money for that, you probably wouldn’t be crowd funding!
My own crowd funding campaign is documenting the history and heritage of Welsh Male Voice Choirs and looking at their place in mining communities of Wales over the last 150 years. Myself and the team at FOCUS SHIFT FILMS will be working with the Blaenavon Male Voice Choir on this project and as well as looking at the choirs history we will be looking at the current choir, their characters and following them as they perform across the UK. We will also be finding out what obstacles they’re facing in trying to bring younger members into the choir and to embrace modern technology such as social media.
The feature length documentary will also be meeting up with other choirs across the UK and beyond to see what success they’ve had with young people and social media, or to find out what obstacles they’ve faced and the difficulties they’re having. The film will include not only the BMVC and their 400 Facebook likes, but Pendyrus MVC and they’re 1600 plus followers and then other choirs such as Morriston Orpheus, Tenby, The Plough Singers, Abercynon, The London Welsh MVC and Australian Welsh MVC. Blaenavon’s World Heritage site committee and the several heritage sites in Blaenavon are supporting us as are BBC Radio Wales and Wales Online. We have also been in contact with choral and Welsh communities across the world.
The last six weeks have been spent filming some initial interviews to feature in our promotional video for the campaign and making contact with all of the above, explaining the project and campaign, prepping them and getting as much publicity for the campaign as possible. Between those supporting the campaign and our own audience we have access to over 150,000 people across the world. But, it’s not enough. When the campaign goes live we will be hammering the local and national press pushing for more and more support. We have built a healthy audience to begin with but as we go forward we need to keep pushing it to new audiences, new areas and outlets to keep up the momentum and to reach as many people as possible. It’s a numbers game!
The biggest obstacle we face with our campaign is that our key audience are of the older generation and aren’t that technically savvy. This means we need to spend a little more time making sure they understand what we are doing, how and why. Now crowd funding campaign is easy and they all have their
difficulties! One thing we are sure of is that our audience is very interested in our film, subject matter and will most definitely watch the final film. There hasn’t been any other film that focuses on their music and brings together their community as one – so we have found a project that has gravitas with them and we hope that will ensure the project’s success!
No matter what your campaign – audience is key. Who is going to watch your film? What issues do your film address? Who is likely to support your project due to its subject nature? All of this needs to have been figured out, planned and prepped way before you go live!
There have been some exception to the above rules, but they have been one in a million as far as statistics for crowd funding campaigns go! Chances are your project isn’t one of them, so think it through, make a plan and when you have a solid structure in place – then hit the go live button!
Fail to plan, and plan to fail.
Daniel J. Harris and FOCUS SHIFT FILMS have just launched their crowd funding campaign on Go Fund Me. Click here to see the campaign page.
https://youtu.be/8HTiU_hrLms?list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
