One think on the Kickstarter campaigns, as someone who has earned every credit he’s ever gotten by doing the actual work, it disturbs me to see credits being sold so easily to people. I understand fully why people are offering it. To me it cheapens the meaning of a credit though. And that’s not meant as a shot to anyone who has done that. You guys have used rewards to get your projects funded. Just my two cents.

But then I don’t get why a lot of people watch the things they watch on the Internet, so often I’ll see a Vimeo video, watch a bit, think that’s a bit crap and stop it only to see 444 thousand people have watched it. And I really do think What the F at that point.

It is really hard to get viewership online and it’s even harder to get people to comment on what you do make as well (which is the current problem I’m having!) but that is the inevitable consequence of DSLRS. The equipment is so cheap that everyone can afford to do it, and everyone can be considered a success the minute that they have a lot of views for something.

I guess I’m a bit old fashioned in that I’d rather someone said to my face what they thought of something, it means a lot more than a couple of words someone has written online.

As for what you do about crowdfunding, personally I’m not sure it really works for UK projects in the same way it does for US ones, and I don’t know why that is. Maybe Americans have deeper pockets, maybe they are just better at supporting film makers. I’d argue the latter. There’s a real apathy in the UK generally, especially when it comes to creative arts, people like to watch them but can’t be bothered to support them, not surprising when you think of elitist institutions like the film council.

I think virtually everyone in the community wanted Koo to get his funding and I’m sure if PB was doing a project for himself then people would have helped him too. 

I think the answer is to turn the clock back and be born in the US! I think opportunities for film makers are so much greater there personally.

I hear you on the not wanting to do a crowdfunding campaign again, as I was exhausted when mine was over. But I do wonder if crowdfunding’s best days are behind us. I think the novelty of it for guys like us who are super connected online and hear about a ton of campaigns has worn off, but even for my recent effort — which took place two years after the initial rise of IndieGoGo and Kickstarter — I would say the vast majority of backers were first-time Kickstarter users. So just because we feel saturated does not mean most people feel the same way. Yet.

Crowdfunding’s future may be all about profit participation. Here in the states the Obama administration has actually brought it up recently; I’m writing a post about it now for NoFilmSchool but if we can actually give backers an investment opportunity (a chance to not only help us but perhaps make some scratch themselves) then that’s a whole ‘nother game. A game that is considered illegal here in the US at present, but has been successful over in your woods as seen famously in the Age of Stupid.

Of course, that kind of scheme is another can of worms entirely.

Thanks for the thoughts and looking forward to what you’ve got in the pipeline.