Photo credit: Courtesy of Kickstarter Campaigns
Spike Lee was doing Kickstarter “before there was Kickstarter.” He needs your money by Wednesday Aug 21, 12:15pm EDT to reach his fundraising goal of $1,250,000 for his next flick. So go ahead, make the pledge.
So what is Kickstarter and why is Spike Lee using it? Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative projects. The New York Times calls it “Pioneering,” CNN calls it “Paradigm-shifting.” We call it HELP, we need money.
In the second part of our interview with filmmaker and author Dan Mirvish, we asked him about Kickstarter and what he thinks about the Spike Lee controversy……a controversy because people think the Kickstarter program should not be a vehicle for rich people.
Dan Mirvish
“We did one of the first Kickstarter campaigns (Between Us),” said Mirvish. “First we raised a little bit of money through a couple of friends, through Facebook, an old high school friend, an old filmmaker friend, a casting director friend of mine and then we did a Kickstarter campaign. It was one of the first feature Kickstarter campaigns – in the fall of 2010.
We raised about ten thousand dollars directly through it. It was way before Spike Lee’s ‘hey let’s raise a million dollar’ thing. You know, it was when ten thousand dollars was a successful campaign. People were just starting to learn about Kickstarter in the first place. I always tell people it is called Kickstarter, not Kickfinisher. The idea is to use it to build your momentum and get your momentum started.
The hardest person to convince that you’re making a movie is always yourself. The nice thing about Kickstarter is that it forces you to think seriously that you’re making this movie by making you do a business plan and a video presentation and you get all these contributors and donors and at least emotionally, if not legally, you are obligated to do something with their money. Even though it raised ten thousand dollars directly, it probably indirectly lead to another 30 or 40 thousand dollars.”
Back to Spike Lee…..Mirvish actually wrote a piece about it for Huffington Post. “I take kind of a broad view of it,” he said. “which is to say that I think it is good with higher profile people in the sense that it is bringing attention to Kickstarter which otherwise may not be there. For us, we had to first educate people as to what Kickstarter even was and at that time it felt like we were only raising money from other filmmakers who were also on Kickstarter. It was like a daisy chain of people. The higher profile people have brought a lot of people to the party. On the other hand, I think it is starting to fundamently change the way people raise money for film. It fundamentally changes the paradigm.”
So go ahead: Make his Day!
Hey, even DC is using it.
“Our 4th annual DC State Fair is coming up on September 28th at Barracks Row Fall Festival, and this year we’re trying something new. We’ve always relied on donations, sponsorships, and entry fees to help cover the considerable costs of putting on the Fair. But we want to make the Fair as open and accessible as possible. If we make our Kickstarter goal, we pledge there will be no entry fees at this year’s Fair!”
Bring the DC State Fair campaign:
