I was also a backer and that's why I got the quick failure notice.
I'm going to be real careful with my KS campaign. It will be LF based.
I was also a backer and that's why I got the quick failure notice.
I'm going to be real careful with my KS campaign. It will be LF based.
Tin Can
I hope not...seems a bit unethical to claim it is for future expenses and then really pay yourself back for prior expenses.
Their project was amateurish. The video was goofy. The pitch lame.
Take this bit:
The biggest risk the project faces is not getting the money? So funding the project eliminates the biggest risk? Well....ok. Good to have success guaranteed!This is an all-or-nothing campaign. Yes, it's risky, but we believe in this project and think that there are enough people who will rally with us to reach our goal.
Risks and challenges include first and foremost getting the full amount of funding on Kickstarter to make the project. A big challenge is going to be sorting through all the archival images and photos and converting it into video format.
Looks like it was thrown together in a short afternoon.
--Darin
I see two issues.
The film maker failed to show why the film would be interesting. Let's assume it will be interesting to people who are already his fans. And to his wife (really? His wife is one of the three or four endorsers on the video?) A successful documentarian always finds an interesting angle. Some story we haven't heard before. All I get from this is that Clyde's a really good unsung photographer and a helluva guy. This won't send crowds to the movie theater or to their wallets.
And $100,000+ is just an awful lot to ask unless you have a project with unusually broad appeal. Black+White landscape photography = narrow appeal. Pictures of the Everglades = slightly less narrow appeal. Bio of an old guy with a funny old camera = extreeeeemely narrow appeal. Add these all together, it's just hard to imagine how they'd get to their goal. I'm impressed that they made it 1/4 of the way. They raised more than I'll need for my project, and I'm nervous!
Coming from 7 years working in the movie industry, an entire film, even documentary, shot on the lowest of acceptable digital video (like a Canon 5DmkII) not even using a RED or similar camera, with any serious intent, equipment, editing, filming, crew costs, etc, $200,000 is a TINY budget.
Even the smallest of any realistic movie budget I worked on was ONLY 1 million to 2 million dollar budgets. And they were tiny, no food for the crew, really rough sets, etc.
Think about it, for 1-2 months of work, if it's a real production you need a camera operator a focus puller, boom mic operator, mixer, color video manager(that's the wrong word I'm blanking, DXS or some acronym), gaffer, best boy, grips. I mean, how can you expect to pay all those people, that doesn't cover the Director, producer, DP, or Clyde if he even gets anything. Then the whole thing has to be cut together and edited, sound mixed in, etc. on $200,000 that's pennies.
Even if it's some ultra low budget non-Union crew trying to make their days on set so they can join the union (read = all Newbs with no experience) you're really stretching it on $200,000.
No one is being dishonest or "pocketing" the money at all. You should really check what you say before you throw out accusations like that.
You need to reread the thread, Stone. The claim was made by another poster that the $200k was for past expenses. The Kickstarter page explicitly stated that the money was to cover future costs. Referring to the prior claim I wrote, "I hope not...seems a bit unethical to claim it is for future expenses and then really pay yourself back for prior expenses."
--Darin
Well, I guess we just don't know how to make a documentary. My closest friends made this 2 Docs, I pitched in when needed. I could add movies to this list but both cost a fraction of $200K to produce.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1466072/
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/n...he-road-is-all
I consider editing perhaps the the most important and difficult part of any movie. I cull footage, and advise. No unions. We make movies.
These movies were made right in my building with ancient Macs, crappy monitors, borrowed DSLR, HD Prosumer Camcorders, and anything we else could find. I researched, scanned magazines stills for both movies on an old flatbed. Ed Asner did voice over in DIY audio booth in a closet.
Making movies and especially Docs is Art driven by need, the need to tell a story. Just like we need to shoot pictures. Money...
As an interesting side connection, another thread today is about Photo Booths and I said I could be in one in 10 minutes. If you scroll down the IndieGoGo link you will see a shot of RAINBO Club which is where I would go, and it is the same bar, same signs Nelson Algren talks about in his essay, 'City on the Make'. Nothing has changed in 64 years. Still junkie Hell.
Tin Can
I think that's absolutely right, unless (as Randy demonstrates) we stretch our ideas of film production into what's possible today. We live in an era when surprisingly good looking movies get made by a pair of people who do everything themselves, using cheap gear that they already have, fueling the whole project with fast food. It's not an imperative ... there are reasons to have a real crew and to work at different levels. But technology has enabled some crazy possibilities.
(I just looked up Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture—a really good feature film from 2010. Budget $65,000. And yes, it helps that it stars the film maker, and that the main character's mom and sister are played by the film maker's mom and sister)
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