Hold on, the original Garden State cost only 3.5 million to produce. You're telling me Braff doesn't have 3.5 million to finance this thing or get a loan from a traditional outlet/rich friends/George Harrison's Estate?
It sounds like this is his pet project, with him starring, and him getting most of the profits, but he wants his fans to take all the risk? Seems off to me. Granted, he may not want to personally take on the risk, which is understandable, but its a personal vanity project no one is demanding. Just bankroll it, Zach.
Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere.
He's worth about 22million (according to a google search). I imagine much of that might be tied up in stocks/real estate, etc. 3.5M is not a trivial sum at that level of wealth.
He could certainly borrow it (with interest), but why? Fans aren't taking risk-- they are buying something that they want.
Can't reply to my sibling here, but no, they do not get their money back. Once a Kickstarter is funded, the money goes to the organizer and then it is gone. It's on their honor to deliver on their promises. Kickstarter does nothing to enforce that. It's somewhat by design, they don't want to saddle starving artists with tons of debt because they made a mistake on how much it would cost to fund the rewards. But that also assumes it's being used by starving artists. Kickstarter seems like it has largely become just an advertising and presales system for established artists and companies.
Do you really think this is a meaningful risk here? Would be a huge hit to his reputation if he broke $2M and bolted. With a risk of $1-75 for most folks, that risk/reward ratio seems fairly trivial.
It's unlikely that Braff would "bolt" with the money, but I could imagine the movie getting canceled after the money has been spent, leaving backers with no movie and no refunds.
That seems pretty unlikely, and kind of highlights how this transforms the risks. If Braff funded it directly, his risk only pays off if he makes the movie and it makes enough money. While using crowdfunding, the backer's risk is only if the movie is not made.
>But if it's not delivered they get their money back. . .
Nope.
Backers get refunded if a project doesn't meet the stated funding goal [1]. Once the goal is met and the money has been collected it's between the backers and the creators. [2]
"It's the project creator's responsibility to complete their project. Kickstarter is not involved in the development of the projects themselves."
1: Seems to me that lowballing the base goal while piling on a bunch of stretch goals would be a questionable way of gaming this as a creator.
Kickstarter reviews applications to determine a realistic floor for the funding goal, to prevent or at least greatly reduce that gaming. They wouldn't let you launch a campaign to start a new SpaceX with $10,000, for example. Otherwise everyone would circumvent the system with a campaign for $1 and then stretch goals, as you say.
Source: an online acquaintance who ran a Kickstarter campaign for a video game, and had to revise his initial funding goal upwards by several multiples at Kickstarter's insistence.
Those are extreme examples. A $10k SpaceX is obvious, virtual panhandling with a $1 goal is just as obvious.
I think "gaming" a system implies a reasonably intelligent exploitation.
Something like creating a Kickstarter "for" a sequel to a well-regarded game and setting the actual delivery of that sequel as a top-end stretch goal. The immediate funding goal could only deliver an expansion to the original game. The intermediate goals might be something like a new engine for the not necessarily delivered sequel. Such a project could collect its goal several times over before being asked to deliver what it purports to.
This has been done. It's essentially advertising one thing (the Kickstarter title) and delivering something else in the fine print (the goal structure).
A simple rule restricting the Kickstarter title and promotional blurb to be representative of the immediate funding goal only would go a long way toward addressing this. Restricting the dollar ratio of the initial goal to the top end stretch goal would probably help as well.
I'm sure the review process addresses some things, but how effective can it really be? The breadth of projects types and sizes is too wide and too many will fail (won't provide any return on the cost of a review).
If you're a creator, and collect a lot of money to make something (with some level of risk), there's a chance you'll spend the money trying but still fail -- this is a very real prospect especially if you're trying something technical that hasn't been done before.
Then what? They can't give the money back; they don't have it anymore. Forcing them into bankruptcy would basically kill Kickstarter.
So their only option is pretty much what they did -- with the course-correction added about a year ago that now they emphasize the fact that projects may fail.
> Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere.
Shouldn't the users of Kickstarter determine whether a project is worthy?
You have personal reasons for not funding this project but seem to suggest that other people shouldn't be allowed to fund it either.
If Kickstarter users think they're getting value for their money, let them fund the project.
This is Zach himself running the Kickstarter campaign (at least as far as I can tell). This isn't a stealth marketing campaign by a Hollywood distribution company, using Zach Braff as the front man. This is Zach the person. He may be a celebrity, and he may have tens of millions in the bank -- but if there's an interesting way to validate demand for his movie, market the movie, and partially finance it, why shouldn't he try? It's smart business.
Now, I understand the argument that the Zach Braffs and Rob Thomases of the world pose a danger to the future of truly independent artists and filmmakers. As I see it, there are two potential dangers here: 1) that they raise the creative and marketing bars beyond the level of the average Kickstarter artisan's ability to compete; 2) that they attract big companies, who will start subverting the Kickstarter spirit by using it to market, pre-sell, and finance Hollywood productions.
Of these two dangers, #1 hasn't seemed to materialize just yet (though the jury's still out). If anything, the presence of big names on Kickstarter seems to be shining more of a spotlight on the site -- and the rising tide may lift all boats. Danger #2, however, remains distant but possible. One can only hope that the market is smart enough to reward the deserving and punish/withhold from the undeserving. But we'll see.
In the meantime, I see no reason to limit Kickstarter to projects and people "who can't get funding elsewhere." Kickstarter should be a free marketplace for ideas. The quality of the ideas should drive the level of funding the ideas receive. If established filmmakers and stars want to trade off of their brands to get a leg up, so be it -- it seems to provide real value to their fans. Remember that there are real people in the "crowd" behind crowdfunding. If thousands of real people want to pay real money to see X product brought to life, why should we stop them?
If anything, Kickstarter may provide a real alternative to Hollywood financing for creatives who don't want to play the Hollywood game if they can help it. Aren't we supposedly rooting for that?
> but its a personal vanity project no one is demanding.
I'm not sure about that. It seems about 10,000 people are demanding it, as of noon Pacific time.
> Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere.
Ah, but these are not exclusive! Celebrities bringing their mass appeal to make more people aware of Kickstarter is exactly what will make it so that smaller players have a higher future chance of being funded through the platform.
> Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere.
Why not? This movie is a product, and the funders are the consumers of said product. If the product project meets its goal, the consumer gets its product, and Zach gets rich(?). If the project doesn't meet its goal, then we can assume there isn't enough demand for said project.
Sounds like a typical business. Kickstarter isn't an investment hive.
I don't know much about Zach or his work, but the project is already almost at $1m (50%) funding with 29 days left. Pretty impressive demand, so far.
“You're telling me Braff doesn't have 3.5 million to finance this thing or get a loan from a traditional outlet/rich friends/George Harrison's Estate? It sounds like this is his pet project, with him starring, and him getting most of the profits, but he wants his fans to take all the risk? Seems off to me.”
According to Braff, the $2 million he’s asking on Kickstarter won’t be enough to cover the entire production. On Twitter:
@zachbraff: 2 things for pple who are very upset about this Kickstarter campaign: I'm putting TONS of my own money into it.
And then there’s this Buzzfeed article[1]:
How much of your own money are you investing?
“I don't know. It will depend on how much we raise, and who I do end up casting. Let's say we raise our goal, which is $2 million. If we only raise that, that's not enough to make the movie. There will be some element of selling some foreign [distribution rights] to meet the difference, and where that falls is where I will be splitting the difference. I'm going to make this movie in August come hell or high water. Wherever we fall short, I or some element of foreign sales will split the difference.”
[...] “There's always going to be detractors. The people who would say, "Fuck him, he should pay for it himself," I don't expect those people to be the supporters of this project. I get it. But if you scroll down [on the Kickstarter page], you'll see the person who's like, "Garden State meant a lot to me, I'm dying to see what this guy's up to next, I'm in." Those are the people I'm making the movie for. It's not a scam. If I wanted to make dough, I'd go back and be on another TV show.”
>It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere.
Not sure how I feel about this.
Kickstarter does seem to cultivate a wonderful image of taking backers who support projects "to help them come to life, not to profit financially" and connecting them with creatives to enable "their dream to create something that they want to see exist in the world". [1]
It's all very "feel good" and I can understand the feeling that established people or projects are taking advantage of the platform, masquerading in a way. However, it's a bit of a "So what?".
People want to put their money into this and feel a part of it. That's not necessarily helping or hurting anyone else who wants to use the platform.
I'd be really interested in seeing what the trends among backers are. How many small versus large projects the average person funds, whether there's an trickle down exposure to more needy projects from the large overfunded ones, stuff like that.
I wouldn't mind so much if there was a reward structure in place. GS made like 30 million dollars in gross profit. Okay, so if I give Zach 10k of my money and he makes 10x on his investment, why am I not going to get 100k from him? Oh right, because its kickstarter. It exists under the guise of this "help us kick this project to life" but for Zach this is just a "get money, and dont give investors who made it happen anything back other than tchotchkes."
Kickstarter's reputation could be hurt if it just becomes a way for the well off to connect with investor rubes who are being ripped off and don't realize it.
>I wouldn't mind so much if there was a reward structure in place. GS made like 30 million dollars in gross profit. Okay, so if I give Zach 10k of my money and he makes 10x on his investment, why am I not going to get 100k from him? Oh right, because its kickstarter.
This is why I've generally only backed things I believe are genuinely novel and in need of support. I recognize backing as a donation, not an investment.
I'm all for the creation of a true "crowd" investment platform, but I imagine the administrative and regulatory aspects of a such a service pose a big challenge.
>It exists under the guise of this "help us kick this project to life" but for Zach this is just a "get money, and dont give investors who made it happen anything back other than tchotchkes."
While I have no clue about the costs involved in making movie and I don't know who this guy is, I've certainly seen projects which fit that bill and yes, it's absurd.
As far as I can tell, Kickstarter has done very little to prevent misleading projects other than added guidelines for hardware projects last May.
For instance, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping people from creating projects that only deliver the titular product as a stretch goal - blatantly misleading.
>Kickstarter's reputation could be hurt if it just becomes a way for the well off to connect with investor rubes who are being ripped off and don't realize it.
I don't know, as long the people get their tchotchkes eventually they're likely going to be happy.
I think the imminent danger to Kickstarter's reputation is having a large notable project go completely sideways. Suddenly, thousands of people who thought they "pre-ordered" something are going to realize that they actually just gave their money away and Kickstarter doesn't guarantee anything.
What do you mean? There IS a reward structure in place. Those rewards have real value to the people who are paying for them. I did not buy in to this campaign, and I'm guessing neither did you - because the rewards do not have the same value for us. But for the people who did buy in, I doubt they're being 'duped', I think they truly value what they're paying for.
Just because the reward system is not proportional to the profits the project makes doesn't make it any less of a reward system.
One more note - I really don't think this is a "get money and don't give investors...anything back". With all the rewards he's offering, particularly all those voice and video recordings, he's going to be working hard to make good on all these "tchotchkes".
Kickstarter will have to solve this problem themselves.
If Barack Obama (or any other well-known, progressive politician) decided to start some sort of campaign drive there it would probably raise millions and millions. But he already has millions and can campaign elsewhere.
I fear that Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites are headed for this type of take over by people who already have funding and funding sources unless they specifically make rules against it.
I had similar thoughts when David Braben was raising money for Elite: Dangerous.
Perhaps these are just side-projects and they (and their rich buddies) have better things to risk a few million on.
In other words they aren't that wealthy.
In general, the rule in film production is to do it with someone else's money. If you think this is unfair -- do you think employees of a company should have their retirement investments entirely in the company stock? A star or director is risking his/her reputation (and time) to make a movie, it's not entirely reasonable to expect him/her to double down with his/her own money.
My issue is that fans aren't being asked to take a risk, or even buy the product on spec -- they're being asked to DONATE.
If it turns out nobody wants to watch the movie he wants to make, at least not hard enough to pay for it, maybe he shouldn't try to make it. If he bankrolls it with his own money, and it turns out that nobody wants to watch it, it's probably because it was a bad idea. Kickstarter lets you find that out, with some uncertainty, without wasting a year of the lives of dozens of people.
Very true... when this thing goes over budget for the digital effects, I don't think you're going to see him hit up Kickstarter again. Personally, I'm willing to put up some cash to see another one of his movies made.
It sounds like this is his pet project, with him starring, and him getting most of the profits, but he wants his fans to take all the risk? Seems off to me. Granted, he may not want to personally take on the risk, which is understandable, but its a personal vanity project no one is demanding. Just bankroll it, Zach.
Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere.