Production still from scifi short film Similo

My latest article for Microfilmmaker Magazine dropped today. Here is a little excerpt:

The latest buzzword sweeping the microbudget filmmaking, indeed all of indie filmmaking, is crowdfunding. Crowdfunding describes the process of aggregating small amounts of money from many people to help fund projects. This money comes in the form of donations, not investment, so it will not be repaid. However, most of the crowdfunding sites do offer the ability to provide a donor with a perk for his/her donation. Perks vary in range andW are dependent on the amount of donation made. There are many donation sites available to the microbudget filmmaker and I will be covering three of the most well known over the course of the next few months. The first is Kickstarter.

Kickstarter officially went live in April 2009. The platform is not exclusively for film endeavors. Many creative projects can be funded on the site; everything from comic books, video games, and unique apparel to theater and music events and help with expenses for educational trips. While my requests for an interview with the founders was declined, I did manage to find an interview on Lance Weiler’s brilliant site The Workbook Project with one of the founders, Yancey Strickler. Essentially the way Kickstarter works is that you set a funding goal and a deadline by which the goal must be reached. If you do not reach the goal by the date, all funding is cancelled. So, when you pledge a donation, you are not actually charged anything unless the goal is reached. “It might seem harsh that you can be a dollar short and not get any of the money, but people who raise funds normally would tell you that it serves as a nice motivator. It is a way to protect yourself really because it encourages you to raise your funds before you start a project rather than getting a little bit of money and starting a project, but not having the funds to finish it,” said Strickler.

Story continues on the Microfilmmaker Magazine site.

This week I attended an edition of the roving conference put on by WBP, filmmaker Lance Weiler’s outfit. It followed on nicely from seminars and conversations that were going on AFM the week before. I covered AFM for Microfilmmaker Magazine and the article will be out on December 1, but I wanted to share my notes from this event first.

The first speaker of the night was Weiler and his topic was Social Media for Storytellers. “There is more opportunity now than there ever has been to reach the audience,” Weiler proclaimed. He cited examples of his own work with his film HEAD TRAUMA where he used multiple media to engage the audience with comic books,  ARG, mobile phone components and live interaction during screenings. He also cited the work that the Mad Men TV show did to target different audience segments during their seasons to broaden the reach of the show. Their campaigns grew from building a buzz in the ad agency niche, then moved out to the entertainment media, early adopters WOM and then wide audience promotions.

He cautioned before you get a conversation going you need to decide what kind of voice you want to use. Should you engage from the characters’ perspective, a location- centric perspective, the voice of your staff or your own voice? There is no right or wrong to this, it just has to be determined and stay consistent.

He also advised to be realistic about time and resources. Choose outlets and accounts to use that will reach your audience best and these will change over time as new platforms come into fashion. Interaction will take up a measurable part of the day and there needs to be a routine. He utilizes interns or a full time community manager to handle this work. This has to be a conversation, no one likes to be talked to without any way to talk back or feel that no one is listening. Give them the tools to talk to you and to each other.

Weiler insists that building trust with your audience is key. You can’t just jump into conversation with them, you must slowly cultivate a relationship and it will take time to gather your audience. You must reward your audience by giving them access to content or access to you not widely available. You must respect them by not overusing your email list or making your content only self serving. This is important because you can’t control them and what they say. They can make or break you.

He closed by listing a few of the platforms he recommends for filmmaker audience building. WordPress, Flikr, Twitter, Feedburner and Delicious. He cautioned that you should mirror your audience list details from your online platforms because you do not own that information, the platform does. If you should ever lose privileges on a platform or want to change platforms, you want to have that information in your personal files for future access.

In part II, I will talk about Jon Reiss’ talk on theatrical releases and why the term needs to encompass more than cinemas. He has a new book out now called Think Outside the Box Office, the ultimate guide to film distribution and marketing in the digital era. I have read it and highly recommend it. He talks about his new philosophy in it in detail but highlighted it in this talk.