Adam Cosco is a American Film Institute graduate with mission. His vision: to make a his debut feature Personal Demons–a film about "two neighbors with haunted pasts" who'd "kill for a second chance–through Kickstarter, all while taking the crowdfunding site back for indie filmmakers.
The crowdfunding goal: $100,000.
The hashtag: #takeindieback
Cosco's concept trailer and directing reel showcase polished, confident work. The premise of the feature looks rock solid. Yet has he bitten off more than he can chew? Is the story really indie vs. celebrity?
We aim to find out tomorrow in a LIVE Google Hangout, right here at this very URL.
Recently, Kevin Smith took to Reddit to do an AMA, and because people were already going to ask whether or not he’d use Kickstarter, he had this to say in the introduction:
As for funding the flick – we nearly Kickstarted the budget back in November (talked about at great length here: http://smodcast.com/episodes/giant-sized-annual-1-clerks-iii-audience-0/). But now I’m feeling like that’s not fair to real indie filmmakers who need the help. Unlike back when I made CLERKS in ’91, I’ve GOT access to money now – so I should use that money and not suck any loot out of the crowd-funding marketplace that might otherwise go to some first-timer who can really use it. So if I can get away with it, I’m gonna try to pay for CLERKS III myself. As much as I love the crowd-funding model (and almost did it myself in early 2009 with RedStateGreen.com), that’s an advancement in indie film that belongs to the next generation of artists. I started on my own dime, and if I’m allowed, I should finish on my own dime.
Fair enough. He’s (mostly) wrong about crowdfunding’s dynamics and macro-economics, but it’s not like this is his job. He’s an indie filmmaker (sort of). And being an indie filmmaker means that you get to make your movie however you see fit, whether you’re a kid in Montana or Neil Young. That’s what “indie” means. So when fellow filmmakers rail on someone like Zach Braff, it strikes me as incredibly selfish and hypocritical. Anyway, if he wants to finish the Clerks trilogy on his own dime, that’s 100% his call. (more…)
Film financing is a really complicated beast. Somewhere just south of whole animal butchery on the squick scale.
Those who don't have the stomach for such things are advised to either look away and be happy, or stick to user generated YouTube videos for all their entertainment needs.
We're going to scale things back a little bit on this edition of "Crowdfunding 201" and do kind of a remedial refresher course on how not to run a crowdfunding campaign, or how to avoid basic issues on your crowdfunding campaign.
There has been a lot, and I mean a LOT of digital ink spilled on the issue of "who Kickstarter is for" in the past few weeks. Ever since actor-director Zack Braff turned to the crowdfunding site looking to fund his followup to the indie hit Garden State.
The essential complaint: that Kickstarter was created with the specific intent of being for unknowns to rise up from obscurity and get their work funded.
Today no less than the founders of Kickstarter have finally weighed in with a gentle "you don't know what you're talking about".
Before we get into their peace, let's look at the other side of the argument.
I've always regretted that I never truly learned how to draw. The closest I got was being able to render images from comic books with a fair amount of fidelity.
Still, I'd look at the great illustrators or to the Old Masters and knew it was a fruitless pursuit: I'd never be good enough.
Turns out the Old Masters had a lot of help, in the form of a tool known as the Camera Lucida, a device that makes it possible to, essentially, trace a live subject.
Now a pair of art professors are looking to resurrect this lost art tool. Naturally they turned to Kickstarter, and they've already blown through their planned allotment of NeoLucidas. So what do you do when demand outstrips planned supply and you don't want to get into the manufacturing business?
Another famous person has taken to the world's favorite crowdfunding site in order to raise money for a film and twitter is a-flutter with people whining about it.
This time it's former Scrubs star and Garden State writer-director-star Zach Braff who has fired up a campaign for a new movie he's offering up to his fans.
Now streaming: the archive of our Google Hangout On-Air with Jesse Vigil of Psychic Bunny, one of the designers of the new audio adventure game FREEQ (iOS/Android).
I first encountered Sifteo Cubes back at IndieCade last October, and spent some time playing around with the little blocks which I first mistook for iPod Nanos.
