What I am loving the most is not my writing, but rather your commentary. Your insights and discussions are incredibly valuable to me. I would like to thank King is a Fink, Sheri Candler, Phil Holbrook, Dee Marie, Thomas Corkran, David P. Baker, Anessa, Miles Maker, Steve Lustgarten, Mark Harris, Gregory Bayne, John Bosley, Phil Calderone, Darrell Kiedo, Ben Hicks, Mattson Tomlin, Julio Ponce Palmieri, & Ester Brym.
I haven’t publicly updated you on what has happened with Kickstarter. After I had written my Kickstarter blog, I had about 10 people hit me up offering invitations. The wild part of it was that one of those 10 was the CTO of Kickstarter offering me a personal invitation. I received the email just hours after I posted my blog. That blew me away. Shows that these guys are on their game.
Now comes the scary part for me. I am getting closer to launching our Kickstarter campaign. Whether I can reach my fundraising goal or not, this campaign will have a major impact on my life. A lot of what I have done over the past year has been concentrated on building an audience. (It has been quite a while since I have worked on a script or worked to develop my story ideas. Not that I do not have them *smile*) The energy I have put into audience building now gets put to the test. A successful campaign would be one of my life’s proudest achievements. That may sound over dramatic to some, but I am not joking. I do not take this lightly. This is more than a dollar amount, it is discovering who my supporters are. Discovering who my audience is and whether I even have an audience. You are crucial to my survival. And I need your advice.
My objective is to raise $15,000 in less than 45 days. This is certainly not an amount I can raise on my own. I am going to need a lot of support. I am also prepared to put in the work.
The campaign is for my 2nd feature film entitled Goodbye Promise. This is a passion project conceived by myself and Actor/Producer Gregor Collins. The film’s subject matter is one we believe is universal for all aspiring artists. One that many artists deal with on a daily basis. The idea that we may never achieve our dream and that we should move onto more realistic and practical means for survival. Only the select few get to live out their dreams, right? ; )
We will share more about the project within the context of our Kickstarter Campaign. Before we launch this campaign, which is going to include a Teaser Trailer, I need your help. I am seeking any input/ideas/suggestions from you on what you would like from me and potentially members of the cast & crew.
For those of you familiar with Kickstarter, you are aware that the site is fueled by incentives which the project creator awards supporters of each campaign. What incentives would entice you to contribute to our campaign? Or what do you believe would entice others to contribute?
Our Incentive Levels are going to be:
$1
$10
$25
$50
$100
$250
$500
$1000
$2500
$5000
You input will not only serve me, but it will also help fuel creativity from those who also aspire to create their own crowd-funding campaigns.
Here are a few of my ideas. Please let me know what level you believe these rewards would fall into and whether any of them should be eliminated.
-Your name mentioned in this blog
-Your name mentioned on the Film Courage Radio Show
-Your film/business/project promoted on this blog
-Your film/business/project promoted on the Film Courage Radio Show
-Your film/business/project promoted through our Film Courage Twitter (10 tweets)
-A personal video message from myself or a member of the cast
-For those in the Los Angeles area, one of my home-made apple pies. They take me about two hours to make. Delicious and dangerous.
-DVD copy of the final film before it becomes widely available
-Have original video you submit included in bonus features on DVD
-Opportunity to edit one of the film’s scenes
Would you like any of these incentives? What else would you like? Please let me know.
3 comments:
Best ideas:
Personal message video
Apple pie
Not sure if scene editing is a good idea...
For the video message, include where you'll post it (assuming the movie site).
Additional ideas:
Since you've amassed quite a bit of knowledge/contacts since Film Courage began you could offer brain-picking dinners. Maybe offer it in groups (2-4 max) for lower price and one-on-one for higher price.
Tickets to a Film Courage Interactive event.
Lightscribe version DVD.
Viewing of Film Courage taping. (sitting in, meeting the guest, photo)
I see a pretty large gap in one technique for kickstarters... and it's pretty important: At what level a person gets a DVD?
There are two motivations for you as a distributor- one: to make your money goal. two: to have as many people see. These two sort of conflict, so think about it.
A lot of really successful film projects (SIMILO, Driven, Mr. Watterson) have pledges over $20 or even $30 and $40 before an audience member gets a hard copy-or a digital copy. A copy online doesn't cost you anything, no shipping, etc, so I would try to offer something people can see as early as you can justify.
For my kickstarter, I have two different DVDs- kind of a barebones DVD at $10, and the whole pack of my project at $30. So in that $10-$30 gap, everyone will still get a pretty packed DVD that I'm going to be putting it's own features on, mostly because it's most important for as many people as possible to see the movie.
Making a DVD for your backers is a big incentive. It's what everyone wants as their baseline reward, so, some people put it at a higher value, and hopefully get more people to pledge higher. It's two different ways to go about it (despite offering a DVD at $10, many just take the jump to $30- it's about half and half)
good luck, keep in touch.
http://kck.st/9eJkLR
Mat.
My recommondation is for you to check out @IndyWoodFilm on Twitter. He has a site for his crowdfunding, which I think is slowing down. His mistake is his goal should have been split into chunks. He's going for 100k at one time. Not kickstarter or indiegogo and I think the initial couple months he got great reactions, but then it really slowed. But he has different producer packages that people liked. I also think your best incentive is DVD, maybe a special one that only those backers get. Editing I'd skip.
Post a Comment