7 Things to Consider BEFORE you Launch your Kickstarter Project

I get A LOT of requests to help with kickstarter campaigns. Through trial and error on over a dozen kickstarter projects, hours of lectures at Emerson College, and countless meet ups, phone calls and emails with artists and innovators, I’ve refined a “best practices” list that I share when I decide to get involved with a project. I’ve been fortunate to run my own successful campaigns, but also have helped out on over a dozen innovative artistic endeavors all of which have been successful in some way. What you’ll read here, and hopefully in the future, is what I’ve found to work (to the tune of almost $350k and counting). But at the end of the day, two things are really all that’s required: a good idea and A LOT OF HARD WORK. Ok, maybe three – a decent network that supports what you do.

Disclaimer:
This list is not definitive. In fact, it barely scratches the surface, but it’s a start. I don’t claim to be an expert. The word guru makes me throw up in my mouth a little and every project is different and strategy and tweaking are critical depending on audience, budget, content, fanbase, etc. These sections are just a snippet to get you rolling – I could talk for an hour on each – but who’d listen

1. Story: What’s your story? Craft and tell the story of your story.

Story is everything. Let me back up. Your story is everything. People aren’t so much getting behind the idea as they are getting behind your passion to produce it – be it a book, film, album, live event, business, it makes no difference. I’ve been lucky enough (or dumb enough?) to have smart people with means give me money for various projects over the years. I used to think it was all based on the merits of my “great” ideas – but what these folks quickly chastened was that they were investing in me, my spirit and passion, and my drive to make something happen. Of course they were investing in the project, but they’re won over by YOU! In my experience, and my opinion, this is the very heart and soul of an effective kickstarter campaign (or any crowdfunding campaign). It HAS to have heart. Kickstarter isn’t a place people come to make an investment expecting a financial return. They come to engage with other interesting people and to help along artistic projects they believe add value to the world in which we live. I’ll stop there for now (I have an hour long lecture about the role story plays in our lives), but for the record: Story is everything.

So, what does that mean? Well, you must first write a treatment for your project and develop a strong pitch. The treatment is an overview of what you’re trying to do. Feature Film treatments that get shopped around Hollywood might be 60 pages long and include scenes, storyboards, budget figures, and a distribution strategy. Does your pitch need to be this complex? That depends on your personality and what you’re trying to accomplish, but you cannot proceed with your project successfully until you’ve gone through the process of developing your pitch through a treatment. The treatment essentially becomes the “written” portion of your project from which you can cannibalize to write everything down the road.

This also leads into one of the most important visual components of your story, in that you ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE A PITCH VIDEO (and a trailer of your film doesn’t count). The pitch video is your chance to “sell” yourself and your ability to produce what you’re pitching. Does it have to be slick? No, but it shouldn’t be painful to watch either. I really believe that a direct to camera approach is the most effective. Put a bit of your previous work in there, or a clip of your trailer, and sit down and talk to the camera. It works, and it’s your chance to get people to catch the vision and spread the word.

a. The pitch video should be compelling, honest, humble, and decently produced. It can also be funny, clever, and tongue in cheek, just don’t be arrogant. Be you, but remember a little humility goes a long way, and, you NEED as much support as possible so try your best to make it “shareable.” As an aside, I’ve seen some projects that I was willing to back but not willing to share the video as it was so poorly put together (it’s almost a reflection of your ability to deliver). Imagine sauntering in to a hard-to-get investor pitch meeting 20 minutes late, without apology, totally disheveled (not as a style choice), and with an air of expecting them to give you money. That’s what a shoddy pitch video reminds me of. Harsh, but it sends a message that you don’t really care.

b. Ideally the pitch should be direct to camera combined with some trailer/footage/images

c. Keep it brief – attention spans are waning these days! I’d try and keep them under 5 minutes. Here’s one of mine, and some others that I like (embedding them wasn’t working consistently – these are direct links to the videos on kickstarter.com):

The Elders

The Price

Freaker

The Last Cause

2. Fans: We all have them.

We really do. You might not think you do, but you have teachers, colleagues, relatives, co-workers and other associates that actually do care about what you’re up to. This step takes some time and thought (and some research!), so plan for it, but start to assemble a list of these people in excel or google docs. I should clarify: I’m not talking about facebook friends here, I’m talking people that are actually looking forward to your holiday greeting card, or news from you that you were promoted at work etc. We’ll talk about facebook later.

This list should include the names and emails of those in your circle that care about you. These are people that would buy your bestselling book, or a ticket to see you perform at symphony hall, or come to your funeral. Make sense? If you are young (right out of highschool/college), this list might be mostly your parents network and that’s ok because guess what? The AVERAGE donor age is a ripe old 42. Zing!

List building is like brainstorming and you can make many associations based off one name that leads to others. Again, plan for this as it will take some time (but it’s worth it!).

a. Compile an exhaustive professional/personal/family/friends email contact list

b. Edit this list and maybe ask for some objective help (mom/dad/partner) to weed out people that might be annoyed or are put off by these things. When I compiled my first list, I had over 500 names and emails. I cut out 20 or so just based on what I know about those people and how they would respond. Relationships are everything, so take care of them.

c. Plan to email this list a total of 4 times during the ENTIRE fundraise (we’ll get to this in a bit).

3. Evangelists: We all know some.

You’ve likely met someone, or are friends with someone, who is especially talented at sharing the latest thing. To evangelize is the act of converting someone to a cause, traditionally through “preaching.” In the case of social media – we’re all evangelists to some degree. We craft pithy status updates and 140-character tweets that annotate our lives for those that “follow” us, and we appreciate the RT’s and “Liking” that goes on in support of our micro cause. For a successful kickstarter (or any crowdfunding campaign) to really catch fire, you need a handful of committed evangelists.

Take that list you compiled in step 2, and identify several people in your professional network who could aggressively promote and evangelize your project. What you’re attempting to do in this step is identify a few evangelist types that have a circle of influence outside your own, ideally to a group that you’d have no hope of reaching otherwise. Your networks should be quite different. They won’t be of much help if you have too much overlap or identical professional/social networks. For example, assume you find a willing evangelist that has a nearly identical network (family, school, and work) as you do. This type of project promotion will have little chance of going viral because of the overlap – and you run the risk of alienating and annoying friends and family besieged by different people about the same project. They can certainly help promote the project, but they wouldn’t make an ideal crowdfunding evangelist.

The key here is to think carefully about those individuals who can help reach out to those beyond your own network. When I was helping Christopher Salmon raise funds for The Price, we knew we wouldn’t raise $150k or anywhere near that on Christopher’s network alone. Before we launched we reached out to Neil Gaiman through his assistant and they graciously agreed to help spread the word. We weren’t sure exactly what that meant, but because Christopher had spent nearly 5 years nurturing that relationship through occasional correspondence, we knew it was genuine and, well, Neil is a consummate gentleman with an enormous aortic pump.

We reached out to others like Jim Lee, Amanda Palmer, Zoe Keating, and writers at Io9, Wired, Aint it Cool, etc, in order to maximize our reach via social media. Without their help by reaching out to their expansive networks, we would have never raised the funds for Christopher’s project.

This is a dramatic, celebrity-packed example, but the template applies for even the smallest fundraise. It’s also a testament to how important it is to 1) never burn a bridge and 2) do everything you can to nurture and feed your diverse network of relationships.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t “pull the weeds in your relationship garden” from time to time, but do what you can to keep your relationships fresh and up to date.

Find those individuals who are wiling to get on board your project but who don’t have the same friends and relatives as you.

4. Write: And write…and write…and write.

If you don’t like writing, you’d better start. Start liking it or walk away while you still can! If you’re uncomfortable reaching out to friends, family and strangers about your project and about asking them for their financial and social media support, then crowdfunding isn’t for you.

Actually, what this becomes is a great litmus test for how committed you are to your project. You may feel reservations about reaching out regarding your needs – but your passion for completing your work will overcome any intimidation to network.

There are several things you need to write. For starters, you need to reach out to a few groups of people, particularly the two groups I mentioned above: Fans and Evangelists.

a. Draft an “I need your help” email for fans that outlines the project
Here you outline the project and what you’re trying to do. You need to educate your fan base on kickstarter and social media and crowdfunding. They’re not dumb, but don’t expect them to have any idea what you’re talking about and be careful with the vernacular. If you use a buzzword – define it. Be gracious, be humble, and remember you’re nothing without an audience and this email IS your only audience for now.

Also tell them that you’ll be contacting them with updates during the project and that you would be happy to remove anyone from the list. Also BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) your list. It makes the “ask” more personal and keeps people from jamming inboxes with “reply all” responses.

b. Draft another email for Evangelists
This is a version of the above email, but also outlines how you think they could help (via blogs, twitter, email, etc). Take the email you just wrote. Copy it, and paste it into a new email for Evangelists. Double check that your evangelists aren’t on your fan email list – you don’t want to email them the same email twice – it’ll make you look unorganized.

c. Draft your press release
Yes, you need to have a press release for your project no matter how small. Getting your project out beyond your network is critical to getting it funded and to generating buzz about what you’re doing. Remember, you’re building a fan-base through crowdfunding and the more people you can attract the better.

Media outlets, publications and news sites NEED content. A good press release is a way to provide these places with content that they can then redistribute. You want to make it easy to read (8th grade level) and it should contain quotes from those involved. It’s written like a news story and in the third person. There are a lot of examples of press releases online. I’ll attach two examples here:

Nathaniel Hansen Kickstarter Press Release: The Elders
Nathaniel Hansen Kickstarter Press Release: The Price

In the next section we’ll discuss where to send the press release, but you should have already spent some time crafting your project narrative during the pitch/treatment phase. You’ll come back to it again, and again throughout the project.

d. Blog> tweet >(bleet?)> facebook. Rinse and repeat.
If you don’t have social media accounts in place already, get on it. You also should make sure you have a place to distribute and disseminate information about your project. Set up a facebook page, a twitter account (or do it through your personal account), and a blog/website for the project. This helps show fans you’re serious, and gives you a place to archive everything that happens during your fundraise. Think of it as a transmedia diary, where your project narrative has multiple entry points: link on facebook, a retweet, a published article, etc.

I promise this works, but this becomes the ongoing challenge for most crowdfunders as it takes SO MUCH TIME. One project I consulted on (10,000 Trees by Sarah Ginsburg & Sarah Berkovich) did this expertly. They set up a site on wordpress and started funneling people to kickstarter but also documented what was happening on their site for people to learn more. They took their press release and blasted it out – and it was picked up on blogs nationwide including the prestigious Sundance blog.

As this is a Pre-Launch article, I’ll merely state that at this point your job is to “get the barn up” so to speak, and you’ll start filling it soon enough. Also: DON’T SEND ANYTHING OUT UNTIL YOU’VE LAUNCHED YOUR KICKSTARTER PROJECT!

5. Research: It’s mission critical, and ongoing

Hopefully if you’re thinking of crowdfunding, you’re pretty internet savvy. Why? Well, one of the most critical and never-ending components to crowdfunding is research, as you’re constantly needing people and places to distribute information about your work. You’ll encounter a lot of rejection, and a lot of “no thanks.” But don’t let that get you down. Use research as a time to explore where and to whom your press release can be sent and where your story/blog/tweets can be shared. I have a zillion ideas for this section, but here are a few:

a. Identify active bloggers and twitter-ers, facebookers, who can help spread the word (should be germane to your project topic)

b. Identify where the press release could be sent, and to whom at that magazine, blog, program (Wired, NPR, university radio, etc).

c. Create list of minor celebs using social media who might take an interest in the project

d. Draft email/tweet with link to the project, asking for help

e. Identify all possible forums, blogs, and news site to send press release to and could post in comments – or get people to post blogs about

f. Think local and home grown. Identify places who care about you who might release the news (high school paper, college/university alma mater, town newspapers, you get the idea).

You should be doing this every day before and during the launch with the goal of attracting as many potential readers/fans as possible. It’s exhausting, but so rewarding when a link pays off. I remember how giddy I was when my first press release for The Elders was picked up over on DVinfo.net – a filmmaker’s news site and forum I’ve been frequenting for years. It was blasted out to dozens of sites, picked up by a handful, and eventually noticed by a NGO that came on board to match what I had raised on kickstarter. Can you imagine if I had not sent out a press release?

Similarly, I’ll never forget when the press release I wrote for The Price was picked up by Gawker’s io9, then by Wired magazine and a thousand sites in between. You can imagine how giddy we were when Christopher’s interview and parts of that carefully crafted narrative were ultimately featured on CNN.



As fun as the ride was with The Price, I’m grateful I wasn’t the face of that project. Christopher had the arduous task of implementing many of these more mundane tasks to ensure it was personal. Emails, giving interviews, blogging, writing articles, etc. If you have a large project with potential to go internationally viral, be sure you have a support structure in place to help you with the very hard work you’ll have ahead.

6. Reward: It’s better to give than to receive.

A lot has been said about rewards, and I’ll echo some of those things here. Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites are set up to provide a small reward in return for someone’s financial pledge. Figuring out what rewards you should give for your project will take some time so plan for it. Browse the site and see what other successful projects have done, especially projects that are like yours.

Generally speaking:
a. Rewards should be easy and affordable to deliver. On average, rewards will cost you 5-7% to deliver (production, time, postage, etc) – try not to have any rewards that will require intense “production” under the $25 range, and I try not to put anything in the mail for rewards under $50. Not a hard and fast rule, but a good guide.

b. Get Creative! T-shirts and stickers are cheap, digital downloads are appreciated and EASY, postcards from location or a phone call to bigger donors is fun, etc.

c. Have a strategy to get out of “the trough” (the inevitable slump/flatline in your project’s fundraising timeline). But be careful about postage and production costs. You could launch a new reward, or have a giveaway or an auction. It doesn’t matter and the only limit is your imagination, but be sure to have something to jumpstart the project when it flatlines.

d. $25, $50 and $100 are statistically the biggest sellers but under $10 will help it go viral and provides a way for anyone (read ‘starving student’) to get involved. I generally think less is more on the rewards, but there are differing opinions. Get creative, and try and offer something valuable at each price point.

7. Schedule: The first marathon runner died once he had delivered his message

Everyone, without exception, underestimates how much work goes in to running a successful campaign. On average, during my campaign for The Elders (in which I raised $12,519 and then got a match from a non profit that was following the project online), I spent on average 4 hours a day curating the campaign. On The Price, with Christopher Salmon, I was spending 3-4 hours a day easily, as was Christopher, strategizing and tweaking the campaign as things panned out day to day. Every day feels like a month, especially when the stakes are high or you are impassioned about your work.

I really believe that projects should be less than 35 days. Longer might kill you – figuratively speaking of course. But you’ll feel completely worked over at the end of a campaign no matter how much you try and raise. Having just stated that 35 days or less should be the rule, there is a caveat, which is to say that this time-table is contingent on what kind of project you have. Do you have an artistic project and you just need to get cash in hand to get going? 30-35 days. Conversely, if you have product that you hope to sell (Tik/Tok, etc) or want to use kickstarter as a short term store front, then opt for a longer time frame (90 days) to maximize (pre) sales.

In conclusion

To reiterate, this is just a jumping off point. There is MUCH more that could be said about each of these points, and there’s no one size fits all answer to crowdfunding. I can tell you confidently that this list will ensure your project is built on a solid foundation, set up for success. I have a list of 10 tips for Post Launch that I’m not sure what I’ll do with just yet – but they’re equally important to ensuring your project accomplishes your goals and helps you maintain sanity.

Two parting tips:
a. Launch and THEN send out press releases and emails – NOT BEFORE!

b. Be ready to curate, tweet, facebook, and lose sleep. This better be a project you’re passionate about.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for a follow up article.

Nathaniel
Filmmaker/Producer

http://www.nathanielhansen.com

I’m also delighted that people make the connection to The Elders as a “short” film project. I suppose, technically, that’s accurate as it is a collection of short films that make up a feature-length film (70 minutes). And that was my intent from the beginning: Could I create a feature-length documentary film built entirely on short portraits of mostly talking heads? It worked, and it’s working as support continues to pour in!

http://blog.kickstarter.com/post/2713612870/best-short-film-project

Thanks Kickstarter!

Over the last month, I’ve noticed two big spikes in traffic on my vimeo.com videos page. Yesterday, my inbox was flooded with emails from people on Vimeo – commenting and “liking” my videos. The sudden influx surprised me and I suspected it had been linked to from somewhere.

To my pleasant surprise, I found that I had been featured on the Vimeo blog as someone whose work was worth checking out. Talk about humbling!

Here’s a screen shot (I added the arrows):

The second spike came earlier in the month, when Kickstarter featured my project on their blog! Here’s an excerpt:

Nathaniel Hansen is making a documentary which collects the short, stylized interviews he conducts with elderly people. His project was successful months ago, but he’s been keeping his backers in the loop by premiering finished clips (like the one above) and giving great production updates on his blog.

And another fab screenshot:

You can read the vimeo blog here and the kickstarter blog here.

Enjoy!

Nathaniel Hansen is getting ready to take a cross-country road trip to find his film, a documentary called “The Elders,” but he’s found his funding for the journey through the kindness of both friends and strangers, and their belief, in dollars, in what he’s doing.

Hansen, an Oregon native living in Boston, and with a degree in documentary filmmaking from Emerson College, is one of those filmmakers who is inverting the formula for how it’s done.
One of the ways he has is by mounting a successful crowdfunding effort through Kickstarter.com, which bills itself as “a new way to fund and follow creativity.”

Kickstarter allows filmmakers and other artists to propose a project, with a defined amount of funding requested and defined window of time in which to raise it. If the funding goal is not met, all pledges are wiped clean, a kind of all-or-nothing prospect that can be both inspiring and daunting, seeing if your idea is as viable as you think.

Hansen says, “I’ve been following Kickstarter not quite since they launched, when a friend of mine sent me an email and said, ‘Have you seen this?’ I was a little frustrated because it was by invitation, and it was a bit of a mystery to me how you got invited. But I kept following it, and in the back of my mind I kept thinking, ‘What kind of a project would get me the widest possible support from friends, family and strangers?’

It’s a pretty long article, so if you’re interested you can read the rest of it here at documentary tech.

Earlier in the week, I had learned that my project was being featured on kickstarter.com’s home page, which blew me away considering the volume of amazing projects that are submitted on a daily basis. I have seen multiple pledges come from people who have found the project there. The generosity of strangers is truly something to behold.

What made the front page even cooler, is that during the three days or so my page was near the top, kickstarter was getting crazy press about a project called *diaspora that had raised $175k in under two weeks. What? Wow, I’m still hopeful some karma comes my way from association.

A lot of people have asked me what the process has been like, and the only thing I can think to say is that it’s been totally humbling. To watch donations come in from friends, family, friends of friends, and total strangers is overwhelming. It’s a fine line, I think, pestering people for support, but I’m confident in the product I can create so their investment in me isn’t a loss. It comes down to being able to deliver, should this venture prove successful, and I’m very confident I’ll be able to do just that.

I still have 5.5 days to go, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. Check out the pitch page here, if you haven’t already. More to come…

http://kck.st/dkXLSD

On Friday night, around 10pm, May 7th I decided I had waited long enough. I set up one key light, and I started to talk to the camera. It was really, really difficult. Pitching in person is one thing…pitching to a virtual audiences of thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of people who you couldn’t see, was unnerving. I must have done the pitch 12 times before finally settling on the last take (usually the best!). I cut the pitch video (which goes on the kickstarter.com project page) down to a couple minutes (I rambled for a while) and uploaded it to the project page.

I then spent some time crafting, re-writing and refining the project description. I had written it out in a proposal form weeks ago, but it lacked spirit (not to mention a good title), so I started to re-write.

The Elders – A Coming of Age Documentary Portrait Series

By the way in which a society behaves toward its old people it uncovers the naked, and often carefully hidden, truth about its real principles and aims.
–Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age

Logline:
Through the eyes of an aging generation, The Elders examines what it really means to live, by coming of age.

**The following serves as an outline, but it is common in documentary for the story to change once production begins.

Synopsis:
A feature-length documentary, The Elders uses stylized interview portraits of elderly individuals to tell a universal story about life’s most important lessons. Thematically organized around life lessons that reflect a wide range of human emotion and experience, the film seeks to reveal a larger more complex portrait of our shared humanity.

The short film “Pat” that I shot in October of 2009 is a good example of what this film will look and feel like: http://vimeo.com/7196960

The Elders is an attempt to explore the breadth of understanding held by an aging generation. Their collective memory is fading, and while many of their more universal stories have been immortalized by literature, science, and the arts, their oral histories and unique experiences could yet yield a moving reminder of how best to live a life.

There’s more to the description, but you get the idea. The next part was really fun, and involved coming up with “rewards” for prospective donors. Part of the kickstarter philosphy is rewarding those who pledge with something tangible in exchange for their support. Some rewards are pretty zany and clever, but with a potentially somber, and often serious subject like “The Elders,” I couldn’t be too silly with the rewards. The reward had to match the quality of the project.

Here’s what I came up with:

Pledge $1 or more
Special Thanks on the film website and in the film credits.

Pledge $15 or more
HD Digital Download of the feature film; Special Thanks on the film website and in the film credits.

Pledge $35 or more
Limited edition DVD copy of the film; HD Digital Download of the feature film; Special Thanks on the film website and in the film credits.

Pledge $50 or more
Digital Still from the film; Limited edition DVD copy of the film; HD Digital Download of the feature film; Special Thanks on the film website and in the film credits.

Pledge $100 or more
Photo Book of the film’s production; Digital Still from the film; Limited edition DVD copy of the film; HD Digital Download of the feature film; Special Thanks on the film website and in the film credits.

Pledge $500 or more
VIP Tickets to the premiere and Special Producer credit; Photo Book of the film’s production; Digital Still from the film; Limited edition DVD copy of the film; HD Digital Download of the feature film; Special Thanks on the film website and in the film credits.

Pledge $1,000 or more
Aside from my eternal gratitude, a personal showing of the film with live running commentary (if you want it). And food. I’ll bring the film and the food… Plus: VIP Tickets to the premiere and Special Producer credit; Photo Book of the film’s production; Digital Still from the film; Limited edition DVD copy of the film; HD Digital Download of the feature film; Special Thanks on the film website and in the film credits.

I squared away my rewards, spell checked a few times…and then, early Saturday morning, after having another set of eyes look over everything, I clicked the “Launch Project” button at the bottom of the page. I have to say, I’ve never had so much apprehension about clicking a button. After-all, it’s kind of my reputation on the line!

More to come…stay tuned.

In line with Kickstarter.com guidelines, artists have a set number of days to raise all the funds, or the project receives nothing. Hansen’s film has an 18 day fundraising window, from start to finish. If the alloted budget ($11,000 US) isn’t raised before May 26, all pledges are cancelled and the film is not funded.

When asked about why Kickstarter was appealing, Hansen noted that “the ability to spread the word quickly online to a lot of people, and keep them updated on the status of the project is invaluable.” An added advantage for artists is Kickstarter’s merchant partner Amazon.com, which enables each project the convenience of receiving funds from anywhere in the world.

Hansen entered the online fundraising pool a little bit at a time. Another film he is co-producing about the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans was 135% funded after a 45 day fundraising effort. The project’s success gave Hansen the courage to go-it-alone with his own project, “Seeing the success of our other project gave me the courage to put my own film on the line.”

Hansen’s film The Elders, examines what it really means to live, by coming of age. A feature-length documentary, The Elders uses stylized interview portraits of elderly individuals to tell a universal story about life’s most important lessons. Thematically organized around life lessons that reflect a wide range of human emotion and experience, the film seeks to reveal a larger more complex portrait of our shared humanity.

If the film is successfully funded, Hansen expects to deliver the final cut before the end of the year. To learn more about the film, readers can visit the project’s pitch page here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nathanielhansen/the-elders-a-coming-of-age-documentary-portrait-se

About Nathaniel Hansen:
Nathaniel James Hansen is an award-winning filmmaker and media artist. His directed works include nationally broadcast commercials, short and feature-length documentaries, short narrative films, episodic television, web-based media, and ethnographic film. His documentary films have screened at festivals in the US and internationally, and most recently at the White House.

Contact:
Nathaniel Hansen
nh@nathanielhansen.com
Salmonrun Media LLC
702-513-5831

http://www.nathanielhansen.com

###

Hi Nathaniel –

[your project] sounds great. Welcome to Kickstarter.

Let your community, your audience and your network know about your project. The lion’s share of your funding will come from them. Spread the word!

Rewards are just as important. Offer something of real value, and consider something more intangible, more about an experience. That will have an enormous impact. Three or four reasonably priced rewards is ideal (think of it as S, M, L, XL). Take a look around the site if you want some inspiration.

And finally, include a video. It’ll drive home that this is a real person doing this.

Good luck!

Whaaaa! This is what I had been waiting for!! I was elated for the remainder of the day. Instead of waiting around for an invite from a stranger, I decided to email the staff to see if I could get the ball rolling. I had spent all day on the Friday before building a website for the upcoming project, and had sent it off with my proposal to kickstarter at 2am.

Come Sunday afternoon, I was surprised how fast they responded. The excitement hasn’t worn off – but the sheer realization that the heavy lifting is now begining has officially pushed down on my shoulders. It’s just the beginning, and we haven’t even launched our project yet.

New Documentary Film Website - Screenshot

Kickstarter.com is an interesting model for independent filmmakers like myself who tire of competing for studio dollars or scrapping for a bad distribution contract. The key (I think anyway) to running a successful project is networking. This sounds obvious, but for me and our team, I think that it’s time to capitalize on our social networks (both on and offline) to make something we’re passionate about and make something we believe people will want to see. We also think they’ll enjoy it.

I’ll be keeping an active journal of our fundraising activities, both here and on the acutal film website. As I navigate the somewhat chartered waters of crowdsource fundraising, I hope to become something of an expert so to continue in my efforts to make interesting documentaries. Stay Tuned!!