Building a Kickstarter Project

I am working on a short film with a few friends and planning a kickstarter project to fund it. We tried to go camping a few weeks ago to give it a go, but we were only able to do some tests. Right now I am working on a budget for the project and trying to consider all possible costs that are out of my own budget (which are most of costs).

I have also been doing some research on successful and unsuccessful kickstarter projects. The successful ones don’t really help, because it still seems a little crazy that some of these things get funded. The proposal video seems essential, and it begins to make sense why after looking at a lot of projects. It can be the most direct and personal way to communicate with your audience. Establishing that audience is also essential, and something that I had not considered prior to this project.

Who wants to see what you make? I’m sure every film studio has big marketing teams dedicated to this, but what can you do by yourself? There is actually an interesting article that I recently read about Stanley Kubrick researching the right market for A Clockwork Orange, which led to the publishing of box office revenues. I imagine that assessing this information is still fairly difficult, which is why having films on the internet is so cool.

With a video on Vimeo or Youtube, you can see how many people view your films/videos on a daily basis and how many people “like” them. You can even see what countries these people are from with Vimeo Plus. One person has watched one of my films in Latvia! While I was really excited about that, part of me didn’t know what to do with that information until now. That one Latvian is now part of my audience, and I should consider that person when spreading information about a new project or film that I have posted.

I have never been interested in the “business side” of anything, but it really can’t be ignored if you want to do things yourself. I’m just skimming the surface of things with this kickstarter project, but I’ll continue to post my findings and eventually the project as I get things together.

Links:

Kubrick Article: http://news.moviefone.com/mike-kaplan/stanley-kubrick-box-office_b_1195323.html

Kickstarter Article: http://www.filmindependent.org/resources/7-things-we-did-to-ensure-a-successful-crowd-funding-experience-part-i/