Moderngrumble: A Crowdfunding Post-Op
by MODERNGRUMBLE
Well, we've had a couple of days to review our crowdfunding campaign and consider a good many factors as to why we raised what we did and why we did not manage to secure the full 10k. But first here are the final numbers from our Indiegogo page, Website, and Facebook Fan page:
Taking a look at the overall peaks and valleys of the campaign it appears that our highest traffic volume through all sites was at about the halfway mark of the campaign, a steady build across the first two weeks that then fell off almost completely in the next two weeks. Donations however remained steady and evenly spread out across the campaign and were the result of direct referrals to the site and not a one from a web surfing good soul just happening upon the campaign which brings me to one conclusion: our facebook ads campaign, and the ipad promotional giveaway or "perks for sharing" were total washouts.
As for the "perks for sharing" idea I can only assume it appeared to many users too much like one of those scams that plague us all in one way or another. Unfortunate for our campaign that it didn't help bring us a larger audience but very fortunate for those who shared our links as the pool of potential winners is far smaller than it would have been otherwise. I still see a lot of potential in this idea of creating incentives for sharing and online participation but we shall have to go back to the drawing board and see how best to streamline this promotional idea.
As for the failure of the campaign to reach it's full goal, I must first lay the problem at the feet of a film and story that's chief strength is it's uniqueness, mystery and ambiguity, a problem I adressed several months ago in Defining the Indefinable. We are not making a slasher film, torture porn, survival horror or anything else that comes with a built in audience and that will always be a problem as pointed out here; "films that are genre-benders or are in the absence of a solid public aim are hard beasts to secure crowdfunding for, trust me. People need to know within a few seconds of having clicked over to your campaign page what your story’s about exactly and why you’re asking for their hard-earned ducats." Secondly, our Twitter campaign while hard fought by Luis Alguera of Mubi and his team started too late in the campaign to really reach critical mass. We should have started our presence a few months prior and not nearly half way through the campaign. Beyond these two problems, I am at a bit of a loss as to why we were not able to rally the troops further in the last days of the campaign. The generous support of Pulsion Productions halfway through the campaign put us over the half way mark and we at Lotushead Productions expected that to help us out of our slump and re-invigorate our audience to take another look at the project. This did not happen. Looking back we should have done some video updates, and created a real sense of urgency and excitement as the campaign came to a close as the folks behind the successful ExtremeIndie doc did earlier in the year.
For those of you that supported us on Twitter I will be tweeting your names seperately as a final list and thank you, I will leave this list posted for a week so that anyone that shared and is not listed has the opportunity to notify us. After which we will be giving away a brand new iPad2 to some lucky film lover! Thank you all very much for your time and support and as always please feel free to contact me with any questions, conerns or ideas you might have to help make Moderngrumble a reality.
TV
Salem Kapsaski
Jon Medders
Sedivy Reigh
J Roland Kelly
Samuel Brewer
Bogdan Darev
Despina Vnt
Paul Gardikis
Thomas Spiekeer
Canto Starbuck
Warren Ross
Tracy Boyette Boehr
Jordan Estes
Delberta Chappelle Larsen
Colby Ward
Chad Easthouse
Rob Smart
Aaron Finster
Craig Harguess
Cade Harguess
Jason Wilson
Garrett A Hill
Charles Tillman
Camilla Schumaker-Medders
Luis Alguera
Sarah Marsh
Michael Duggan
Rocky Dopp
Manna Schlund
Joe Bushlong
Gloria Grahame
Jesse Richards
Scout Tafoya
Jenna Gibbon
Jonathan Douglas Duran
Brian Risselada
Joseph Graves
David P Baker
Meg Pinsonneault
Cynthia Alana
Z. Bart Thornton
Dane Benko
JP Schmidt
Jennifer Sharpe
Comments
odilonvert
It’s definitely a puzzle, Toby. And thank you so much for this post-op production note. We are a in a similar quandry about what crowdfunding didn’t do for The Ergodic Cinema Project, and are in a similar position of having to reorient ourselves and pursue other avenues for the resources we need.
The subject that catches my attention the most in your note is that of easily defined, and how in essence what you put on a crowdfunding site for a pitch is really very much like the small amount of time you have to make a pitch to a potential funder in person, except that there isn’t the space (is there?) on such a page to have a dialog with that funder. Or if there is, I don’t remember it standing out much during our Ergodic campaign. Putting a campaign up on a crowdfunding site is seems to me a lot like putting a sort of “living” advertisement in a magazine. Tough stuff, for people who are not professionals in that area, to know the tricks of grabbing attention, keeping it, and spreading it.
As Dane Benko mentions in his recent forum thread about crowdfunding, filmmakers going into this method of raising money can be rather mislead about what it actually takes to make it a success if they don’t do a lot of research and strategizing about it ahead of time. Part of this research and strategizing is having solid knowledge of a good base of potential funders, i.e. knowing your audience (see the link he provides at the top of the thread to an article on Indie Wire by Sheri Candler). The other is having a shrewd understanding of the “business” aspect of the undertaking, i.e. marketing.
Sigh. A big learning curve for those of us who are mere artists. But better to have a grasp on this than not, if only to understand how to aim correctly for the best chance of success down the line, IFyou learn your lessons well.