How to Crowdfund Your First Professional Short Film
Resources, plan and how I did it
Go to: “How to Make Your First Professional Short Film: A step-by-step Guide,” for the introduction to the article series and the table of contents.
Let’s talk about how to crowdfund your first professional short film. You only need money for the resources you don’t already have.
Think about the resources that are already available to you. Does your aunt own a restaurant, and can she provide catering? Does your uncle have a tire shop, and can he provide a location? Is your friend a graphic designer, and can they design your social media posts?
You need the money for human talent, skill, and material resources.
You don’t need money if you already have access to any of them.
∘ Crowdfunding Platforms
∘ Crowdfunding Campaign For Your Short Film
∘ 1. Social Media
∘ 2. Pitch Video
∘ 3. Campaign Page
∘ 4. Email Outreach
∘ 5. Incentives
∘ BONUS
Crowdfunding Platforms
There are three very popular crowdfunding platforms:
Indiegogo — you get to keep whatever you raise.
Seed&Spark — you keep what you raise only if you hit at least 80% of your goal.
Kickstarter — you can only keep the money if you raise the entire amount of your goal.
I chose to hold my campaign on Seed&Spark because the platform was created by filmmakers for filmmakers. They know exactly what kind of ride you are in for, and they provide great support — both educational and in the form of feedback — to make your crowdfunding campaign a success. Their website is an amazing resource to help you learn everything you need to know about leading a crowdfunding campaign.
Crowdfunding Campaign For Your Short Film
Much like the film itself, crowdfunding is a big project that you need to break down into multiple smaller steps. I was producing, directing, and acting in my film. On top of that, I made a big mistake of leading the crowdfunding campaign and pre-production at the same time, while also having a survival job. It was like having two big projects happen at once with extremely limited resources and time. Every free second outside my survival job went into managing the campaign, planning pre-production, or rehearsing. It also ended up taking away some of the creative preparation time I needed. So, plan ahead!
A good plan for me would have taken two months and included the following steps:
𐩒 Familiarize myself with all the resources Seed&Spark offers.
𐩒 Start building the crowdfunding email list.
𐩒 Write the campaign email outreach text.
𐩒 Build the social media pages for the film.
𐩒 Reach out to other filmmakers who have already led a successful crowdfunding campaign and learn from their experience.
𐩒 Create a pitch video.
𐩒 Create a crowdfunding page.
𐩒 Submit it for review to Seed&Spark. (They take only a couple of days to get back with feedback.)
𐩒 Make the necessary changes.
𐩒 Launch the campaign.
𐩒 Set tentative dates for the shoot.
1. Social Media
Start here, because you need time to build a following, even if it consists of your existing friends and acquaintances. Take all the typical social media advice into consideration.
𐩒 Figure out a look that matches the tone of your film.
𐩒 Post consistently.
𐩒 Engage your followers.
𐩒 Share just enough information. (Ideally, your audience gets the information the way Hansel and Gretel got breadcrumbs, and follows you through the campaign launch, ultimately landing on your crowdfunding page.)
𐩒 Ask your friends to share. (As many of your posts and stories as possible. You’d be surprised how supportive people can be.)
Which social media?
Whichever your target audience uses the most, and whichever you can use best. I only used Instagram. I should have had some Facebook presence as well, but I didn’t have the mental capacity left to tackle that platform, too.
What I did well: I worked on my film’s Instagram with my DP, who also does graphic design. Social media is a lot of work, and if you have support, use it.
What I could have done better: I stopped posting after wrapping the shoot. However, I intend to pick it up and keep updating my existing audience about post-production. After all, they are the audience for the film as well as the contributors who made this film possible.
2. Pitch Video
In the crowdfunding video course, the founder and CEO of Seed&Spark, Emily Best, and co-founder Erica Anderson talk about how to make the most engaging video, even what language to use to entice people to contribute to your campaign.
My first pitch video was dark, gloomy, and clashed with my intention of making a romantic comedy. I submitted the video, got feedback, and decided to reshoot it.
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What I did well: When I realized that I had to remake the pitch video, I decided to make it easy on myself and my collaborators. I dropped the perfectionist attitude and opted to do my best in the moment. We made a straightforward video that communicated the message, was upbeat like a romcom should be, and showed a glimpse of the characters.
What I could have done better: I could have allocated more time for the preparation of the video from the beginning.
3. Campaign Page
When I was working on my film’s crowdfunding campaign page, a producer I know sent me a Hollywood pitch deck. It was amazing! It was concise, clear, and as I was reading through it and seeing the design, I could see what impression the film would leave on me.
I used this pitch deck and other people’s crowdfunding pages as a guide for my page. I ended up breaking it down into:
𐩒 A logline.
𐩒 A mission statement, or why I’m making this movie.
𐩒 A synopsis (a paragraph or so).
𐩒 Theme and “Why support this film?” (Your target audience will. hopefully relate to the theme).
𐩒 Elements of the film (or how you are communicating the theme through the language of film).
𐩒 The budget breakdown.
You don’t need the exact budget down to a penny here, but an idea of what the movie will cost. Most people who support you through this will have no idea of all the things you’ll need to pay for, and it’s great if you let them know why you’re asking for a specific amount.
(If you are completely lost about this, as I was, an article about how to make a budget for your first professional short film is coming up…)
What I did well: I gave just enough overview of the story and the theme.
What I could have done better: I could have explained how I was going to translate the story and the theme into the language of film.
4. Email Outreach
Email addresses are the first thing you should start compiling, alongside working on your social media and researching crowdfunding tips on Seed&Spark.
𐩒 Compile the mailing list.
𐩒 Write your email text.
𐩒 Tweak your email to different groups of people in it. For instance, your boss and your college professor will probably not get the same text in their email as your best friend or your pot dealer (if you have their email).
My DP designed the email in Mailchimp, I wrote the text, and my friend’s wife, who does email marketing for a living, finalized everything, sent out the emails, and monitored the response.
What I did well: Even though email outreach is considered a very important way of targeting your audience, I had no knowledge or understanding of how it works. I had no time to learn about it, so I did what I could and didn’t drive myself crazy.
What I could have done better: I could have given myself enough time to understand how email outreach really works and perhaps gained more from it.
5. Incentives
Incentives are something you offer people in exchange for their contribution to your campaign. I really struggled here. I got all my incentive ideas from other campaigns. The main goal of incentives is to make something that will encourage the recipient to share information about your campaign while it’s running. While physical incentives like T-shirts and tote bags might seem great, delivering them takes time. You need something the donors can receive and share instantly on their social media. This way, your campaign gets more attention.
The most common amount of money people donate is $25, so your main digital incentive will be built around this.
For my $25 incentive, I offered custom movie posters I built in Canva. The poster should, of course, somehow relate to your film.
My film’s title is Don’t Talk to Milo, so I offered to make posters with the picture of their choice that would say: “Don’t talk to <insert name>.”
What I did well: I chose the $25 incentive that I could create easily, quickly, and for free.
What I could have done better: Come up with a more fun $25 incentive and made a bigger deal out of it.
Good luck with getting all you need from your crowdfunding campaign and some more!!!
BONUS
The Craziest Part of My Crowdfunding Journey
I got the biggest pledge through good old word-of-mouth. When you look at the educational articles and videos, you will find great advice on how to pace the campaign. If you know someone who’s guaranteed to pledge, ask them to wait until donations start slowing down — then have them contribute to boost momentum. The big donor for me was my ex-boyfriend from back in the old country. This guy was so completely broke when we were dating in our early twenties that every time we went out, I had to buy him a cup of tea. We had been broken up for almost 7 years at that point, and while we exchanged an occasional “Merry Christmas” email, I had no idea how his life was going. He ran into my mother in the street and asked her what I was up to. My mom told him I was running a crowdfunding campaign, and he offered to give me the money I needed. In full disclosure, I needed at least $10K for my film, and he gave me half of it.
I only had to put part of this money into the campaign during the moments when the pledges were thinning.
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