When we thought of crowdfunding The Other Way, we really did not know whether it would work or not. But we decided to do it any way; we were completely broke and had nothing to lose.
Yes we did apply to a couple of film grants; but no one really took us seriously. Yes we are adults and all but to them we are two twenty year media students. And approaching independent producers seemed like a far fetched dream back then.
We decided to start from scratch. We broke things down and made the structure of the film modular. And therefore we could make a film any which way. If we reach a certain amount, we do the number of modules we decided on doing.
Then we worked out a plan for the crowdfunding campaign. We decided against raising the entire budget through crowd-funding. The sum looked really ambitious and we really wanted to make this happen. What we decided to be 60,000 Rupees through crowdfunding reached 90,000 until we finally decided on 70,000 Rupees. And this is a part of our budget.
Then came the question of the platform. Kickstarter is meant for Americans, IndieGoGo had issues with Indian debit cards. And that's the two major crowdfunding platforms. We almost created our campaign on IndieGoGo until we heard of Wishberry.in. Wishberry has what seemed a rather complicated process to sign up. In fact,they don't have one.
You need to call/email/meet them.
We emailed them and they got back to us. And that personal interaction helped us a lot. Yes, I know in the long run Wishberry will need to automate the process (they are working on it right now) but for us the personal mail/call system worked. We got what we wanted and needed.
We re-calculated the campaign goal to Rs.80,000 keeping in mind Wishberry's fee of 10%.
And a few calls and a few more more mails later, it started.
Now I'll be honest. I didn't know why would anyone give two completely unknown people (read "student filmmakers") any money to make a film about people who aren't really spoken about?
I mean they'd rather watch a film like Student of the Year with that money or maybe something a little less idiotic like Kya Super Kool Hain Hum. (Yes, I admit I suck at being sarcastic)
It started out with friends; primarily people we knew and met every day or even lived with. Then it was family and other folks who would give us money even if we were trying to jump off from the stratosphere (RedBull are you listening?) and then we were stuck.
We had 60 days to raise 80 thousand Rupees and we managed to raise about 37,000 Rupees in 56 days.
It was in the other 4 days that we reached 1,01,000. How did that happen?
Firstly a lot of people completely unknown to us found out about our campaign from posts on LongLiveCinema and MoiFightClub and after that...well I really don't know.
And the best part is that more than 60% of our campaign money came from people we did not know. And the crowdfunding campaign helped otherwise too.
Independent producers have themselves contacted us to fund the film.
What we learnt was: Have faith. (no, I did not incept that image of George Michael in your head)
And some of the other things we learnt:
Decide on a viable crowdfunding budget; something very high will leave you wanting, something very low will not help you much. The ideal thing to do is find a producer (or a set of producers) who will match the amount you raise through crowdfunding.
Make sure your crowdfunding campaign appeals to people. Why would anyone want to fund your film about your toilet seat? Unless it's the same toilet seat Prince Charles used on his visit to India and was later auctioned for charity. Projects high on personal viewpoints are harder to fund through the crowd. Unless you are David Fincher.
Give back to the system. For any crowdfunding platform to be viable in the long run there has to be a continuous process of giving. We gave too. Not a lot of money since we are still very broke, but we contributed to other campaigns on Wishberry and intend to do so in the future. This does two things; firstly you are helping someone who really needs the help, secondly he or she may help you out with your next project. That's why crowdfunding is so indie.
Create interesting perks; crowdfunding is not crowdinvesting. You can't give away equity in your film (it would be crowd investing then and that is governed by a different set of rules). Therefore what you give back needs to be good. With The Other Way we decided on getting our movie out to the maximum number of people and hence we plan to give links to the movie even to the lowest contributions. And thanking them on Facebook and Twitter helps you reach out to the friends of your contributors.
Spread the work and keep telling people. This is very important. I think a lot of people on Gtalk, Facebook, WhatsApp and KiK have put me on a blacklist or used that invisibility thingie. I think some of them unfriended me and unfollowed me. But then it paid off. Your real friends will mostly come and beat the living daylights out of you for spamming their wall but that's a small sacrifice you need to make. Get your friends involved; we got a lot of our money from social networking. Talk to people on a personal level; meet them and call them. And most importantly advocate your film wherever you are. (Okay, not maybe everywhere, especially not when they don't want to hear it but you get the point)
If you have any doubts and clarifications, feel free to mail me at [email protected] and do like our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TOWfilm.
