Advice for your own Facebook & Crowdfunding Campaigns Jim Goldblum and Adam Weber, filmmakers based in NYC, agreed to share with us the DOs and DONTs when you launch a Facebook or Crowdfunding campaign. They have about 4400 fans on FB and more than 24.000 $ on Kickstarter. We met them in London as they were officially selected to pitch at Power to the Pixel. If you like their project, and like what they shared with us, just support «Tomorrow We Disappear» until 13th November on Kickstarter! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1567618329/tomorrowwe-disappear
Matt - Hi guys, great to have you here. Could you say in a nutshell what’s your project about? Jim - Our film is about India’s Kathputli Colony, a tinsel slum that’s been home to world-famous magicians, acrobats, and puppeteers for half a century. Last year the government sold the colony land to real estate developers, and Kathputli is going to be bulldozed and cleared for developers.
Adam - “Tomorrow We Disappear” captures a wondrous culture threatened to extinction, not by crooked developers or
myopic bureaucrats, but by time. Our film will pause the rolling modernity of New Delhi, India and create a context where this art can once again be appreciated, before it fades away.
You’ve done an impressive job on social media: what are the lessons you learn in this process? Adam - Be a human being. Films create awe, directors don’t. There’s a process between everything we do, and we invite people in to see. Also, do not assume that the platforms solve your problems. We spend hours each day sending out email invites to our Kickstarter and Facebook.
Jim - Be proud of what you’re doing! A lot of Kickstarter emails we get are super apologetic. «Sorry, I know it sucks to ask your friends for money, but...» - Fuck that! I love supporting my friends if they’re doing something awesome. Own it. Our film is a big tent. On the one hand, we’re dealing with
hot-button political issues: modernization, land rights, India, forced evictions, fading folk cultures. On the other hand, our film is steeped in myth, in the near dream-like lives of magicians and acrobats and puppeteers, these unbroken chains to history.
Adam - The key is identifying pre-existing communities online that could be interested in what we’re doing; then we break off a piece of our larger story and share it with them. Honing our message, to entice them into the larger world of our film. For example: you have to trick communities interested in magic and folklore to care about land rights in India, and maybe you can email NGOs about «the death of the song,» but they’ll likely think you’re crazy. Jim - We’ve been on a steady upward climb. Every morning we fire off at least 15 emails. We identify blogs, Facebook fan pages, Twitter-ers who’d be down with what we’re doing, and we put our video in front of them. We hit $20,000 in about 15 days though, which I gotta admit is kinda outrageous.
What are the DOs and DON’Ts that come to your mind for any body starting these campaigns? DOs - Make awesome stuff that adheres to your taste. You’ve spent your life cultivating your interests and your work should confidently reflect that. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to get people invested in something if its creators genuinely think it’s awesome. - For Kickstarter, it’s good to come up with some awesome incentives at a low pledge level. One film on there is giving away «Associate Producer» credits for $100. That’s not our style, but they raised a ton of money. We’re giving out rings from a magician in the colony for just $10. We’ll get a lot of volume from that, it helps the magician who’s a good friend, and our Backer numbers go way up. Getting your Backer numbers up means more people are out there touting what you’re doing. See the logic? - Before you launch, identify platforms with large followings who can commit to promoting you. For example, Atlas Obscura--with their 40,000 FB fans--loves what we’re doing, just as we love what they do. When they promoted our Kickstarter video on Facebook, it was shared over 100 times in a day.
DON’Ts - Even if your video, project, and incentives are all kickass, don’t just post it on there and walk away. You need to constantly be putting your content in front of people, wherever they may be.
- Be grateful. People are giving you their time, which, in this bifurcated media environment, is asking a lot. Make sure that that time is well spent. - On Kickstarter, be appreciative. I don’t care if it’s $1 or $10,000. Anybody dropping change to support your work is unbelievable. Tks a lot Jim and Adam for sharing all this with us! We wish you good luck for the last days of the campaign on Kickstarter. If any one wants to contribute, the deadline is 13th of November! So do it nooooooww ;) http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1567618329/tomorrowwe-disappear
Will Basanta, Adam Weber and Jim Goldblum (Photo credit: Josh Cogan / Rebel Yell)
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