The first is in response to the trailer’s inclusion of a “gay man shopping” montage, which is about as surprising as would be an “Asian man playing videogames” montage. Regardless, pet peeves aside, I’m posting this here not because I’m particularly interested in an Iraqi Bruno but rather because I think the film has a chance to put a human face on the faraway, extreme version of a conflict currently unfolding closer to home in California and Mexico.

I’d like to start spotlighting more in-progress crowdfunding campaigns (this is only the third to date), but I could do so much more effectively if crowdfunders would do one thing (this is my second complaint). For anyone embarking on a crowdfunding campaign, make your trailer embeddable! For whatever reason, Kickstarter’s video player is not embeddable. Therefore it’s up to you to make it available on Vimeo, YouTube, or any other site that allows people to actually share the video clip with which you’re trying to raise money! Instead, I’m forced to excerpt the blurb alone:

FROM BAGHDAD TO BROOKLYN is a film that takes place amidst the Iraqi refugee crisis, told through the story of Mohamed, a gay Iraqi refugee. It chronicles his quest for a better life amidst persecution, and his unlikely friendship with an American journalist who advocates for his asylum in the United States. But this is not a typical “westerner saves the day” portrait, as we learn that all is not what it seems with Mohamed. The film will shatter stereotypes of Iraqis, challenge preconceived notions of victimhood, and examine the real reasons behind selfless actions.

Link: From Baghdad to Brooklyn

• Behavior Patterns of Kickstarter Funders
• How to Figure the True Cost of a Kickstarter Project
• My Kickstarter Experience: The Good, Bad, and Ugly
• Miao Wang On The Secrets of Her Kickstarter Success
• David Branin’s Crowdfunding Cheat Sheet

(Thanks @grking for the fifth link)

[via Filmmaker Magazine]

It was the summer the gas stations closed. The summer they played music in the old mill. The summer they built a boat. The summer they left.

Flood Tide is a road movie on a river. It tells the story of four musicians who create extraordinary boats out of ordinary junk and set out for open water, fueled by dreams, desperation and a sense of adventure.

Project page and trailer: Flood Tide – Kickstarter

IndieGoGo and Kickstarter’s project creators often offer “rewards” for donors — a t-shirt, a DVD of the film (when and if it’s eventually finished) — and coming up with cool rewards is a big part of running a successful campaign. But there are a lot of potential issues with rewards — it’s up to the creator to deliver on their promise — and if we’re not already seeing it already, eventually people will start feeling “crowdfunding fatigue,” where all of their friends are emailing them all the time for money. Hopefully this feeling won’t be widespread before July!

However, offering people a chance to invest in a project is a different beast entirely.¹ One successful example of microinvestment was The Age of Stupid, which opened simultaneously worldwide and employed a brilliant crowdfunding model — but it was a British production, and I assume the reason it was able to offer microinvestments was because the laws are different on the other side of the pond. Thus the Crowdfunding Campaign to Change Crowdfunding Law, which states:

Crowdfunding sites like IndieGoGo offer VIP Perks but not shares—because offering profit participation is illegal. Securities law lets you gamble your retirement on investments conveyed through the all-controlling financial system, but you can’t invest $50 in someone you actually know personally, in order to help them start a small business, write a book, make a film, build an iPhone app or develop a new product that you believe has commercial potential. The SEC can change this situation by introducing a regulatory exemption that caps individual investments at $100. I believe that doing this would change everything for crowdfunding, spark innovation, and help vitalize the economy from the bottom up.

The project’s already funded — with 40 days still remaining — but the minimum donation is only $2 and in exchange you’ll be listed as a contributor on the Public Petition for Rulemaking submitted to the SEC. Once the petition is filed with the SEC, the campaign will presumably take off in earnest. This is a complicated legal issue and I spent a good portion of a recent party discussing SEC laws with a financial advisor; I wasn’t close to grasping the ins and outs afterwards. As you’d expect the issues are obfuscated by all sorts of legalese, but check out the IndieGoGo campaign and the longer prospectus if you’re interested in where crowdfunding might be headed next.

[via Jeff Steele's Film Closings]

1. That is, if anyone figures out how to make money on independent film.

Along with a rapidly changing distribution landscape is a rapidly changing finance game. OpenIndie is not yet a reality, but it’s being crowdfunded with the aid of Kickstarter (currently an invite-only service), which is similar to IndieGoGo in that it is a platform for creators to solicit donations to fund projects. It will be fascinating to see what, if any, the limits are on this type of funding — The Age of Stupid raised 1.5 million (USD) from donations (and, perhaps more importantly, investors) using a brilliant plan they outline in very helpful detail in their article How to Crowd Fund Your Film. You’re going to see a lot more of this going forward (perhaps from our own Exit Strategy), and my feeling is that the micro investment scheme has a much more intriguing future than does the micro donation model. Zack and I have some ideas in this space that we’ll hopefully be able to make a reality… perhaps by initially using Kickstarter or IndieGogo.

I’m not attempting to offer further insight into “the future of distribution” as I did with, say, “the future of cinematography,” as I’m less qualified given my last project was self-financed and distributed for free. But I wanted to post this ASAP in case anyone reading it can help Arin make his $10k goal (if he is a dollar short, the project doesn’t get funded). The minimum donation is $1, so please help support independent filmmakers!