Today is the first day of the last week of my Entertainment Business Graduate program at Full Sail University and I can't help but feel very reflecty. Yes, "reflecty" is a word that I just made up for the purposes of this blog post. How else do I describe my mental and emotional state after one of the hardest years of my adult life.
In May 2012, I was laid off of the best non-film job I ever had. I had two of the best bosses I have ever had. Before being laid off, I was really happy even though I wasn't doing film work. Since I have worked everyday of my life since I was 17 years old, I didn't know how to be unemployed. I ended up taken the first part time office job that came my way. On the surface it was a good job at a nice place, but I never felt so degraded as an employee before. I had to find a way to get myself back into film. No more working for working sake. But I was 34 years old and graduated film school 9 years before. How do I break back in? How about following one of my other dreams, getting my masters.
I was the first person in my family to go to college and graduate with a B.A. But I always wanted to get my Masters degree. I didn't think after years of being an adult, having a husband, and a mortgage that I could go back to school, so I didn't. But after the lay off, and working at this part time job I felt unappreciated at, I said "that's it, I'm going back to school." I chose Full Sail because it was well known for entertainment, had a convenient online program, and it was accelerated. I could get through it in a year. There were times it was hard to balance but I stuck with it, kept my grades high, and even while my personal life was being neglected and nearly fell apart, I stuck through it. I can't say how happy I am that I did. I started my first class on September 24th, today is September 23rd a year later and I am days away from having a Masters degree. How awesome is that?
As I wrap up my final assignments for school my head is turning towards Director mode. On Saturday, I go into production on my short film Origins, which I have talked about a few times on this blog. This has been a project 5 months in the making and I cannot wait to get started. My producing partner Chris Tobiaz, and I have marketed this short film like it was a feature. We have gained a lot of attention in New England, and we hope, after it is finishes to gain a lot of attention on the festival circuit as well. Since our film is gotten some attention, we have been contacted by several people to jump on their films. Which is pretty exciting because after I finish Origins, I may have some real film opportunities.
The goal is to not return to an office job, unless it is at a production company. I will spend the next year freelancing to see if I can make a living at it. If it becomes too difficult, I will find a flexible day job such as substitute teaching that will allow me to take the time I need to work on my films. Either way, I have learned that it is important to follow your dreams, even if it makes life uncomfortable for a period of time. Taking the risk to return to school after a decade and learn more about the film industry was important. I can already seeing benefits from going back. Now it is time to build a career starting with my own short film.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Running a Successful Kickstarter Campaign for your Short Film
Financing a film, short or feature-length, is difficult. When you set out to make a film, there is no guarantee the film will be successful. Even anticipated blockbuster studio films, may not do well at times. So, finding investors is a challenge. Luckily, there are websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where people can go to donate money to help people make their films, publish their books, and even support a charitable organization. That is how I choose to fund my film and as of 10:24 AM EST on Friday, September 13th, 2013; mine was 1 of the 48,537 successfully funded projects on Kickstarter.
My producer Chris Tobiaz and I keep getting emails from random people impressed with our success and asking what we did. In fact, here is an actual message we received on our FB page, the author of the message is withheld of course,
"Hey, Tell me what you guys did to be successful on Kickstarter, thanks."
No introduction, no congratulations, just a "hey you did something I want to do, tell me how so I don't have to figure it out on my own" kind of situation. Honestly, we have been flooded with these kinds of comments. It is my natural reaction to say that we worked hard, busted our asses, and it paid off. I am not really inclined to give random strangers that avoid even the basic niceties in an email any tips. But what I actually respond with is this "Good luck on your project, Kickstarter has great resources to help you get started." I don't wish to be rude but I also don't think these one line emails are the most polite way of asking for my secret either. The fact of the matter is, there is no secret. Running a successful Kickstarter campaign is hard work. It is a full time job, literally. I am currently an online graduate student, I have no other job just school and pre-production of this film (that I won't get paid for cause it is mine). As such, I spent large portions of the day trying to find donors for my project and doing homework at night. My producer Chris, does work full time but he would spend his nights doing the same thing I did all day. It was non-stop work and both of us had to be thinking about it on a constant basis. But it wasn't just the 30 days of the campaign either, this has been going on for months. Chris and I have been talking with people about the film, posting on the film's Facebook and Twitter, and reaching out to friends and family warning them that we would be begging for money soon. We were preparing people for the inevitable barrage of "give us money" related contacts we were going to have once the Kickstarter began. Within 9 days, we hit our minimum goal of $4,000. THIS my friends is not common for many projects .
This $4,000 was not all we needed to make the film, it was just the minimum it would take to get us through production. Kickstarter recommends that you don't over reach for your goals. Make them reasonable then promote stretch goals after you hit the main goal. So far the success rate for Kickstarter projects is only around 43%, so not everyone with a dream will meet their goal. (Kickstarter, 2013). You must be confident that you can to even launch the project and then you have to work-work-work to hit that goal. It is very rare for a short film without a trailer to do as well as we did in our first Kickstarter, to a certain degree we were very lucky. But it wasn't luck that people found us and donated, it was just lucky to be amongst the successful campaigns. Chris and I were so active in our promotion of the campaign, we never let one day go by that we were trying to connect with someone even if only for $1 donation.
Now I mentioned that we hit our goal in 9 days and then I went off on a tangent so let's get back on track. What do you do for the next 21 days of the campaign once you hit your goal? Do you pop the champagne and say "our work here is done!"? Do you just hang back and wait for the money to come in? NO! You have to keep reminding people what you are doing so they don't pull their donations. You have to post interesting content to show people you are committed to the project and their money won't go to waste. You have to keep looking for new people to contribute so that you can hit your ultimate funding goal. And once you hit your minimum goal, it is a lot harder to convince people you still need money. For us, it took 9 days to make $4,000 but it took 21 days to make the additional $1,152. Holding on to the $5,152 was work. Admittedly, we lost a couple donations on the last day totaling around $24. They either felt we had enough or they couldn't afford the donations they promised but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I have seen projects drop thousands of dollars near the end. You have to keep working, keeping pushing, and let people see how passionate you are so they know that their investment was not in vain.
Hopefully, from this post you can see that there is no magic secret to hitting your goal on Kickstarter. No guaranteed method. It is just a lot of hard work. Even Spike Lee, who is rich and has rich friends, didn't hit his $2 million Kickstarter goal until just days before his campaign ended. I will leave you with the video that made me start to plan my Kickstarter months before I actually launched it. This is Griffin Hammond from Youtube's Indy Mogul channel, a great resource for indie filmmakers and film geeks alike. Here Griffin talks about his project that actually hit his goal in 8 hours (again this is not typical but their YT channel is famous) and breaks down the difference between Kickstarter and Indiegogo, enjoy.
References:
Indy Mogul. Youtube. How to Launch a Successful Kickstarter. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/MXKEccRiMeQ
Kickstarter Stats. (2013) Retrieved from http://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats
How did I do it?
My producer Chris Tobiaz and I keep getting emails from random people impressed with our success and asking what we did. In fact, here is an actual message we received on our FB page, the author of the message is withheld of course,
"Hey, Tell me what you guys did to be successful on Kickstarter, thanks."
No introduction, no congratulations, just a "hey you did something I want to do, tell me how so I don't have to figure it out on my own" kind of situation. Honestly, we have been flooded with these kinds of comments. It is my natural reaction to say that we worked hard, busted our asses, and it paid off. I am not really inclined to give random strangers that avoid even the basic niceties in an email any tips. But what I actually respond with is this "Good luck on your project, Kickstarter has great resources to help you get started." I don't wish to be rude but I also don't think these one line emails are the most polite way of asking for my secret either. The fact of the matter is, there is no secret. Running a successful Kickstarter campaign is hard work. It is a full time job, literally. I am currently an online graduate student, I have no other job just school and pre-production of this film (that I won't get paid for cause it is mine). As such, I spent large portions of the day trying to find donors for my project and doing homework at night. My producer Chris, does work full time but he would spend his nights doing the same thing I did all day. It was non-stop work and both of us had to be thinking about it on a constant basis. But it wasn't just the 30 days of the campaign either, this has been going on for months. Chris and I have been talking with people about the film, posting on the film's Facebook and Twitter, and reaching out to friends and family warning them that we would be begging for money soon. We were preparing people for the inevitable barrage of "give us money" related contacts we were going to have once the Kickstarter began. Within 9 days, we hit our minimum goal of $4,000. THIS my friends is not common for many projects .
This $4,000 was not all we needed to make the film, it was just the minimum it would take to get us through production. Kickstarter recommends that you don't over reach for your goals. Make them reasonable then promote stretch goals after you hit the main goal. So far the success rate for Kickstarter projects is only around 43%, so not everyone with a dream will meet their goal. (Kickstarter, 2013). You must be confident that you can to even launch the project and then you have to work-work-work to hit that goal. It is very rare for a short film without a trailer to do as well as we did in our first Kickstarter, to a certain degree we were very lucky. But it wasn't luck that people found us and donated, it was just lucky to be amongst the successful campaigns. Chris and I were so active in our promotion of the campaign, we never let one day go by that we were trying to connect with someone even if only for $1 donation.
Now I mentioned that we hit our goal in 9 days and then I went off on a tangent so let's get back on track. What do you do for the next 21 days of the campaign once you hit your goal? Do you pop the champagne and say "our work here is done!"? Do you just hang back and wait for the money to come in? NO! You have to keep reminding people what you are doing so they don't pull their donations. You have to post interesting content to show people you are committed to the project and their money won't go to waste. You have to keep looking for new people to contribute so that you can hit your ultimate funding goal. And once you hit your minimum goal, it is a lot harder to convince people you still need money. For us, it took 9 days to make $4,000 but it took 21 days to make the additional $1,152. Holding on to the $5,152 was work. Admittedly, we lost a couple donations on the last day totaling around $24. They either felt we had enough or they couldn't afford the donations they promised but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I have seen projects drop thousands of dollars near the end. You have to keep working, keeping pushing, and let people see how passionate you are so they know that their investment was not in vain.
Hopefully, from this post you can see that there is no magic secret to hitting your goal on Kickstarter. No guaranteed method. It is just a lot of hard work. Even Spike Lee, who is rich and has rich friends, didn't hit his $2 million Kickstarter goal until just days before his campaign ended. I will leave you with the video that made me start to plan my Kickstarter months before I actually launched it. This is Griffin Hammond from Youtube's Indy Mogul channel, a great resource for indie filmmakers and film geeks alike. Here Griffin talks about his project that actually hit his goal in 8 hours (again this is not typical but their YT channel is famous) and breaks down the difference between Kickstarter and Indiegogo, enjoy.
References:
Indy Mogul. Youtube. How to Launch a Successful Kickstarter. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/MXKEccRiMeQ
Kickstarter Stats. (2013) Retrieved from http://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)