Darren Roark
Forum Replies Created
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “also a barmily evocative pitch video does no harm.”
Couldn’t have said it better. Creating confidence in the abilities of the filmmakers to make something good is important.
I think the boom times for straight up entertainment funding on Kickstarter is going to be winding down as there is so much to weed through. That and the backlash of otherwise connected filmmakers and stars ‘abusing’ it like “Veronica Mars” and the Zach Braff project.
I helped out on a horror feature recently that was originally a short. The fans of the short started to pester the filmmakers to do a Kickstarter and championed it to be funded. The film got in to SXSW this year, so there will be exceptions. *
like the project Aindreas posted, cause based projects are going to flourish. Before it was private investor and grant funding, now people can vote with their wallets.
* (Shot on Red Epic and cut on FCP X by the co-directors just to be back on topic 🙂
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One of the films the producer did pay taxes, but I believe will be entitled to a refund as the cost of making the film far outweighed the Kickstarter funding.
With the new “Jobs Act”, this is going to have to become more clear with the IRS. This is from the Kickstarter site, they have a full disclaimer that they cannot offer tax advice, but yet they still did.
“In general, in the US, funds raised on Kickstarter are considered income.
In general, a creator can offset the income from their Kickstarter project with deductible expenses that are related to the project and accounted for in the same tax year. For example, if a creator receives $1,000 in funding and spends $1,000 on their project in the same tax year, then their expenses could fully offset their Kickstarter funding for federal income tax purposes. If a creator receives funding in one year and spends money on their project in a later year, consider whether their expenses can still offset their Kickstarter funding using the accrual method of accounting.
Beyond deductions, a creator may be able to classify certain funds raised on Kickstarter as a nontaxable gift, and not income. A gift is something given out of “detached and disinterested generosity” for personal reasons and without the expectation of getting something in return.”
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My wife is a bit of a Kickstarter genius. She has consulted a few projects that get funding, and has funded both of the docs she is currently working on.
She just made it look easy until I looked at the ratio of those who get funded vs those who don’t.
The least amount she raised was 11K for this doc she is producing:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darleystreetdisco/roller-dreams
Her take on Indiegogo vs Kickstarter is that Indiegogo primarily dips into your own well, as in friends, relatives, etc. Kickstarter is for when you have something that relates to a broader built in audience.
If you are doing a doc that raises awareness of the dangers of fracking, tap into the online groups who hate fracking. Making a doc that thinks fracking is great? Well shame on you, but you probably would already know where to look for support.
In the case of Rollerdreams, there are still folks out there who are passionate about skate dancing, it was about getting enough people talking about the project to get the word out. There were enough social media outlets where they could get the word out to roller skaters.
One reason her track record is so good is that she is picky about which projects are a good candidate. She specializes in docs, so by the time she does a Kickstarter, the filmmakers already have a trailer or a sample scene, something exciting enough that if the film existed already, people would pay for a digital download.
The other reason is cool bribes (I mean gifts). She is working on a doc about the WWE hall of famer ‘The Baron Von Raschke’. They offered custom posters signed by the man himself, t-shirts and for a bigger donation you could have a steak dinner with the Baron at the same restaurant all the wrestlers hung out at during the Andre the Giant days. (Someone got that one I believe.)
It sounds like an oversimplification, but it’s just like anything, it’s all comes down to the content and the audience. Even then, you still never know.
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The newest MBA with the Samsung 512GB SSD gets around 720 MB/s which makes some speedy virtual memory.
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The FS700 footage isn’t actually optimized, it’s rewrapped into a quicktime wrapper. So you are still using the native codec in the NLE you migrate to.
I have been doing something similar with FCP X on set for a while now. I would have to make bins manually before so this is a great development.
Some producers would get really upset when they ‘caught’ me using FCP X, but when I’d include a PP CS6 project file already prepped they came around.
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It’s like when bacon was called the gateway drug that stopped people from being vegetarians..
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It just seems like people are afraid to use anything that isn’t what most people use. That way if a piece of critical equipment screws up, you screwed up with the industry standard.
Since when is cooking as steak on a stove without a good thermometer OK?
(Yes, 7D footage is hard to look at next to the GH2 with the hack)
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[Oliver Peters] “Don’t you think people here actually prefer the honest approach? Warts and all?”
Bill did have a point about that. I don’t talk about it in the same way other editor friends who enthusiastically and unconditionally love Avid.
I do have to qualify it with an “It’s not perfect, but I really like it the best.” If I don’t the worry is that person will think I’m crazy.
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I agree with you Jim.
After all, this is a business, and nobody goes to a restaurant and cares what stove their food was cooked on.
Once I brought a t3i to a multi camera 7D shoot. Even though I knew it has the exact sensor as the 7D, but is much less money, I still got the stink eye from the director when he noticed my camera body looked different.
It all worked out when the final product used footage that was mostly shot with my camera, but it’s still a strange thing for people to obsess over.
My camera cost $1000 less, and I shot the largest ratio of usable footage that day. It’s not always about the tools after all.
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As someone who has crashed a couple motorcycles, all that mother taunting helmetless footage he manipulated her with was predatory.
That said, a Honda 175 in that condition, she got it for a steal. I’d pay $2200!