$10k from someone that lives down the road = $10k for the campaign

$10k from someone the other side of the world = $6k for the campaign

you see the problem here with deducting travel costs from the backing cost, right?

Don't forget $500 for kickstarter and about $200 for amazon.

Well, presumably people who dish out $10k+ for a kickstarter campaign can provide better travel arrangements than the producers can without using half of their donation.

Return business class flights in Australia to Los Angeles can be at least $15K.

Well, without it becomes a giant wildcard. Imagine flying someone in from the other side of the planet and providing accomodations - suddenly it ends up being less of a helping hand to make the movie and basically a very expensive premiere ticket and accomodation. All kickstarter rewards basically have to give you somwething back, but still make the project money, and usually the higher-tier rewards give you less monetary rewards and more feel good / influential rewards.

Or Richard Branson could look at it like a cheap way of financing a return trip from space.