I haven't yet watched the Summit (though I'm hearing great things...it's in my queue), but I had some thoughts I wanted to ask while it's on my mind. This seems to be a common question asked in this lounge...the "How do I?" So here goes:
Long story short:
The Outer Rim Webseries actually started as a Star Trek fan film. The world was our oyster, because we had access to the best fan-built sets, props and costumes in the world (now CBS-licensed "Official Star Trek Set Tour" in Ticonderoga, New York).
At that time, we had a community excited about a prospect of another addition to their fan film universe. However, due to "drama" in that community and CBS launching new streaming series, continued production came under too much scrutiny for us to continue.
After six-months of licking our wounds, we re-designed the show to an original setting. Our followers were still there, and through a round of fundraising, we were able to build NEW sets, costumes and props from scratch.
The "Plan" was to leverage our first couple episodes and a series of vignettes to raise awareness of our project and generate a modest sum (approximately $10,000) to build the last "major" set pieces - the operations and cargo areas for the largest ship in our Anthology. Once acquired, we should be able to rely on periodic "asks" (i.e. Patreon) to replenish consumables throughout at least our first story arc.
The hurdles we face include:
- While we can keep "going back to the well" (our original investors) for regular, small needs, we're not making any headway for larger investments.
- Interruptions in production (incuding quarantining and other related delays) have placed a seed of doubt within our community regarding resiliency.
- Recent economic issues, directly or indirectly related to the pandemic, have caused previously generous donors to tighten their pursestrings.
Sometimes, I feel it would be easier to develop a business plan to pitch $1 Million instead, for donors who just "don't do small projects," but that is in no way realistic.
So:
- How do we engage our existing (though distanced) community to making this final big push?
- For crowdfunding platforms - how do we leverage that to invstors beyond the above community?
- How do you expand the list of prospects beyond our crowd of existing followers?
- Have you found "perks" to be effective, whether through a formal "Kickstarter" or via boots-on-the-ground efforts? Which types have you found to be most successful? Digital? Physical? Credit?
Thank you for your time.
Ooo... that is a great question. QuestionS, sorry. Have you also read RB's crowdfunding book? I think a lot of the answers you seek are better explained there: https://www.amazon.com/Crowdsourcing-for-Filmmakers-audiobook/dp/B07N6KT...
On it!
Thank you so much. I've got it queued up. I hope to be able to sit down with the other creators to go over all this.
From my experience I've been told the perks are more of an effort and expense than filmmakers realize and are generally not all that worth it. I would suggest creating a finance plan for a larger sum and getting to investors, and certainly reading RB's Book Crowdsourcing for Filmmakers. Good luck!
Hi, crowdfunding can work for smaller amounts but I think my personal popular perks were my own services that I discounted slightly and they sold out- I did script reviews, self tape reviews, showreels and others offered singing lessons, beauty products but really the effort came from the AP’s and myself before the generous supporters. Get a team behind you for crowdfund alone. As Jack says those perks created work for us but were worth it as we got our money.