7 THINGS WE DID TO ENSURE A SUCCESSFUL CROWD-FUNDING EXPERIENCE – PART I
David Mandel
On December 2, the Mulligan team launched a project on Kickstarter to raise $10,000 for post-production costs (color-correction, sound, and festival submissions chiefly). Ten days later, they reached that goal, and the project will be funded on December 31. Meanwhile, donations are still coming in to the Mulligan page—Kickstarter is all-or-nothing in that if you don’t raise your goal amount you do not receive any funding; however there is no cap on how much you can raise, and projects continue to accept pledges until time runs out. According to Kickstarter, 94% of successful projects raise more than their funding goal.
Thing 1. Assign Roles, Get Help
The core team on Mulligan‘s Kickstarter campaign was Will Slocombe, the director; Graham Ballou, the producer; and me, a co-producer. We knew this would be a complex and multi-faceted project—I honestly think it took as much planning and work as a decently-sized short film, if not a feature. The other issue—as I’m sure is the case with a lot of indie filmmakers—is that we all have day jobs and couldn’t devote 40 hours a week to this. Then there’s the fact that we were on opposite coasts (Graham and I in NY, Will in LA) and that we were still working on post-production for the movie, and prepping our next feature, which shoots in March.
All of this is to say that Kickstarter/crowdfunding is a very demanding process, and we went into it knowing that we’d have to divvy up responsibilities and ask for help for certain aspects. It was agreed early on that Will, as director of the movie, would be ‘the Face’ of Mulligan‘s Kickstarter page. This meant putting the Kickstarter campaign under his name, and featuring him in the pitch video (note: Kickstarter strongly encourages projects to shoot a video and has great guidelines for them). He was also going to be the person actively promoting it on Facebook (more on that in Thing 6). Graham was primarily focused on keeping things running in post (sourcing color-correction and sound mixers). I drafted most of the written materials that went onto our Kickstarter page, including the updates, and I edited the pitch video – which was shot three different times and probably went through about 40 drafts.
On the set of 'Mulligan'
I don’t know if a single person could’ve done all of that. Not while doing everything else. So if you’re planning to do a project on Kickstarter, reach out and recruit some supporters/collaborators. It’s very much in the spirit of what Kickstarter is – getting other people excited about your creation and supporting you in some way. You’ll have someone to bounce ideas off of, and you’ll be boosting the network of people you’re approaching for donations.
Thing 2. Do your Research. Think About your Audience
The three of us come from a pretty academic background. We’re classic over thinkers. Hence the constant emails (seriously, you guys should see the Mulligan Kickstarter-related emails I have). We looked at every article about a Kickstarter campaign out there. We scoured all over Kickstarter itself—which is an incredible resource that you can learn so much from. We even tried searching for ‘Unsuccessful Kickstarters,’ but there isn’t much data on the subject.
There’s an interesting article that we discovered through our research on Kickstarter that says “90% of the projects that make 30% of their money make all their money.” That helped us frame some of our thinking: we wanted to push hard to reach that first 30% as quickly as possible. There’s usually a plateau afterwards, and so we had ideas to rouse the troops and boost awareness for that period.
Looking at other projects—and they weren’t all narrative film projects either—helped us figure out rewards. Seeing how frequently people posted ‘Updates,’ and their content helped us make decisions about that. A lot of successful projects on Kickstarter clearly send out press releases, or try to get some kind of publicity for their project to help boost awareness. Don’t be afraid to hit up a website or newspaper and say “Hey, I noticed you covered this person’s Kickstarter project. Ours is similar, would you be willing to do a piece on us?”
Thinking about “Your Audience” is something that gets tossed around all the time in indie filmmaking discussions. If there’s an obvious audience for your movie, then you should definitely be doing everything you can to make sure they’re aware. If you don’t know or think you have one, you’ll find that Kickstarter can help you find them. If you’ve convinced someone to pledge any amount of money to a movie that hasn’t been made, you need to find out why they’re doing that, and everything else about them. And whether they have friends. We’ve had strangers back our movie and ask that we make sure to submit to a film festival near them—in Scotland, in Chile. When we do submit (and we will), and if we get in, they’re gonna be the first people to know.
By David Mandel for Film Independent
About: David Mandel is the co-producer of Mulligan, a low-budget feature comedy directed by Will Slocombe and produced by Graham Ballou. The film was shot in Chicago in the summer of 2010, and follows the story of two former best friends who reunite to find $500,000 of stolen cash buried on a golf course in Wisconsin.
December 19th, 2011 • 3 Comments
3 Responses to “7 THINGS WE DID TO ENSURE A SUCCESSFUL CROWD-FUNDING EXPERIENCE – PART I”
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Great article. I am definitely working on a feature for summer 2012 and hope to get a good budget for it. I have no idea what kind of budget i need though. Some help on it it would be great. I am going to run a kickstarter campaign once I finish the script. I am collaborating with a comic book writer to write a short comic to introduce characters and get some following for the film through different media outlets. But let me know, in my position, what would be the first thing I should do for my campaign. Thanks. see you on set. -JM
Hi Josh,
You should come to Member Night in January and network with folks and ask questions. People will have all sorts of ideas. Good luck with your film!
Hi Josh,
Sounds like you’re already off to a promising start, so congratulations on that!
I’d definitely recommend having a thorough budget in place before going on Kickstarter – when asking for money, you’re going to want to tell people what it’s for. And depending on the budget, I’d caution against trying to raise the entire amount on Kickstarter: I think the success rate for projects that try raising more than $10,000 is a little stark.
It sounds like you’ve already got some awesome potential rewards: the comic would definitely be something to offer – maybe original limited edition pieces of artwork for higher donations. And if you’ve got shorts or other features that you’ve made, those can be a good reward as well.
Best of luck with your project!