Zach on Film: Celebrities and Crowdfunding

There are lots of SEC regulations about funding films (and products, services, etc) from an investment position. It is currently illegal to offer a dividend/payout from a crowdfunding donation. You cannot sell a stake/percentage of a crowdfunded project without breaking the law.

Broken Lizard created the Fandango Bango deal with Fandango, essentially preselling tickets, which will certainly benefit future crowdfunding filmmakers, at least of a certain size. That’s almost certainly a good thing. The question of (how famous is too famous?) came up again. I’d argue Wil Wheaton is a bigger name than Jay Chandrasekhar, and he probably has a bigger net worth (only guessing), but there seemed to be less problem with him using his celebrity for his much smaller (and more easily self funded) Table Top project.

Likewise, I could say that a ‘famous’ comic creator from a Marvel/DC book has enough industry ‘pull’ or recognition to get a book published and is a ‘big celebrity’ in the smaller pond of comics, and may even be a bigger celebrity in that comics pond than Broken Lizard is in the film world. Should that creator leave Kickstarter to true indie creators and fund his independently produced comic out of his own pocket? I’d say, no. His indie book may be a smaller, more personal project that Marvel/DC or maybe even Image wouldn’t produce, so crowdfunding makes his project possible direct to the audience that will read it.

Broken Lizard tried for years to get ST:2 funded and finally decided to go to their fans (of which I am a big one). Fans who want to see that specific movie, done by the only people who know how to do it right. I gave more on this campaign than I have on any other crowdfunding project, because the Broken Lizard films are something I’ve greatly enjoyed over the years, and I trust these creators to do what they say and deliver a great experience. The campaign itself has so far been very entertaining with their updates utilizing the characters from the films. As for an inflated ticket price as part of the reward packages, you do get the pdf script ($10 reward) with that, and at higher levels you get the ticket along with digital download/DVD etc, etc.

I’ve paid $15 for PDFs of comics, not because I think a digital file is that valuable, but because I wanted to help a creator get her book done, while not wanting to spend a higher amount on print. The wonderful thing about crowdfunding is that people are capable of deciding if they think a project is worthy. As Ashley said, she votes with her wallet, which is what the democratizing power of crowdfunding is all about. You don’t care about a project? Don’t give to it. Think a project is the best thing ever? You might spend a lot, plus promote the campaign to ensure it sees the light of day.