Kickstarter’s new tool allows creators to fund and build community around their ongoing projects.
"Kickstarter is for projects; Drip is for people."
That's Kickstarter's tagline for Drip, its new service, launching today. Built as a tool to empower "serial online content creators" on an ongoing basis, Drip enables filmmakers to receive sustained support from their audiences. In return, filmmakers open the door to their processes, allowing subscribed audience members direct access to notes from production, in-progress cuts, and a system of rewards. Filmmakers decide whether to charge subscribers on either a project-by-project or monthly basis and can design multiple subscription tiers. According to Kickstarter, Drip is poised to become a powerful audience-building tool for filmmakers—as well as an opportunity to receive continuous financial support.
Drip provides an opportunity for filmmakers to receive continuous financial support.
For now, Drip is invite-only. (Enter your email at the bottom of the Drip homepage to be notified about when you can join.) Elizabeth Lo, who was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 Faces of Independent Film in 2015, has been invited to be Drip's first film creator. Her work has been broadcast and showcased around the world, including the Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and New York Times Op-Docs.
"I had always planned to launch a crowdfunding campaign when I got to post-production for my first feature," Lo told No Film School, "not just to raise funds but also to start building awareness for the film. But Drip feels like an opportunity to start even earlier in a softer way, and helps to pave a path for me to develop followers over the long-term so that when I do launch a Kickstarter that is much more time-sensitive, I'll have a built-in audience that I can turn to who I know already like my work and want to support it. Drip feels like a great platform to do that in a way that I wouldn't on Facebook to my friends or on YouTube to anonymous strangers."
Drip originally launched as a pioneering subscription platform in 2011 by the record label Ghostly International. Now, Drip launches with the "full weight of the Kickstarter experience, infrastructure, and community behind it," according to a press release. Since its launch in 2009, Kickstarter has facilitated more than $3 billion in pledges to more than 130,000 creative projects. In the Film & Video category specifically, the crowdfunding site has seen more than 23,000 successfully funded projects, raising over $330 million.
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7 Comments
So basically it's the exact same thing as Patreon?
November 15, 2017 at 7:12AM
Exactly. I was going to say the same thing. The good thing about it is that people might be more familiar with the Kickstarter brand so maybe they'd be more comforting donating?
November 15, 2017 at 7:47AM
Yeah, the brand awareness thing is a pretty big deal. I'm also intrigued by the feature that lets you do "founding memberships" to build momentum. Seems like the only feature that actually separates it from Patreon.
November 15, 2017 at 7:54AM
Good old-fashioned competition.
November 15, 2017 at 3:38PM
So another way for Kickstarter to make money, got it!
November 15, 2017 at 9:40PM
I feel like this would mostly be beneficial to people that already have a very strong online following
November 16, 2017 at 5:58AM, Edited November 16, 5:58AM
While the idea of a social media directed towards filmmakers sounds good (although I didn't see a mention to community forum boards in the description), I think the whole thing with the filmmakers being almost indebted to deliver backstage material isn't attractive. I like Patreon because you can establish your own rewards. Not everyone has the time or manpower to deliver regular backstage videos or organize production notes to be published while still focusing on the main product. And online patronage should be about making sure the final product gets delivered. It could be about people collaborating with colleagues and people they admire, and this allows for people to feel like they're the bosses of the creators and like they're owed more than the final product. Don't think it's ideal for people who can barely work around finishing a short.
November 16, 2017 at 9:06AM