How to Kickstarter Your Movie Project

You are a filmmaker and you want your movie to be seen all around the world, right?

Creator, you had this amazing idea for a film plot and now it's time to make it real and you will need support and money to make it real.

But... are film crowdfunding a thing?

Of course, they are! Crowdfunding is a powerful tool for creators like you, allowing you to raise funds from a community ready to support your artistic project.

What are the steps to create a movie campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo?

Before reading the article...

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1. WHAT PLATFORM SUITS YOU?

As you may already know there are two major crowdfunding platforms: Kickstarter & Indiegogo.

They're both valid and well-known and we could analyze their successes for what concerns the film-making projects: Kickstarter says that nearly 78k film projects have been launched on the platform raising more than $500 million, of those projects more than 37% of campaigns were fully funded.

Talking about the other big platform Indiegogo we don't have any comprehensive stats as Kickstarter, so it’s not easy to monitor movie crowdfunding success. But their website says “Indiegogo is where filmmakers raise more for their films globally than any other crowdfunding platform” that's pretty engaging, right?

It's up to you to choose the best platform, they both have their community interested in new projects.

As you could see Kickstarter has a better success rate, but that's mainly because of their ''All or Nothing'' funding strategy, which means that if you don't reach your goal in 30 days you will not get any money.

While on Indiegogo, other than the ''All or Nothing'' strategy also offers a flexible goal that allows you to keep the money you’ve raised even if you don't reach your funding goal. Creators are more attracted to this option because some funding is better than nothing to start a movie.

Be careful with this choice though, because backers may not be 100% motivated to back you if they know that the risks you're taking are too small.

2. PROMOTE YOUR FILM BEFORE GOING LIVE

Now that you chose your favorite crowdfunding platform, is now time to start boosting your project and make people know that you're going to start soon crowdfunding so they know where, why, and how should they back your project.

You want to start mobilizing your core network, which means: Past collaborators, your and your team's family & friends, everyone that might be interested in your field. Remember that it's fundamental to communicate how much their donation would mean to you and your future and educate them about how crowdfunding platforms work. When you take your time to value and educate people, they'll feel happy to back your project.

After that, you need to plan a real marketing strategy that will involve an initial investment in paid social ads. Thanks to the contact you gained it's time to build your email list, and you will do that by asking people that interacted with your ads to leave their emails on your landing page where they would be redirected.

So now you may have a bunch of interested people ready to know more about your project, make sure to explain in a simple and engaging way since we're talking about a non-tangible product!

3. CREATE YOUR CROWDFUNDING PAGE

After gathering interested people you're now ready to set up your campaign page on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
The most important thing people would want to see when entering in your campaign page is your pitch video. Since you're not selling a product, so there are no features to show or something like that, your film pitch will certainly be a trailer, not longer than 3 minutes.

You should focus on creating emotion in viewers, for example, curiosity, emotional response, interest, or surprise.

After making an extraordinary teaser it's now time to complete the rest of the page: fill it with high quality images, pictures done on the set, the actors, supporting copy and most importantly the section dedicated to your team.

Just take a look at this campaign example from Blue Mountain State: The Movie, they raised more than $1.900.000 for their first movie on Kickstarter. Take a look at their trailer!

4. CHOOSE YOUR REWARD

Rewards are really important inside your campaign, they give people's motivation to back your project offering them something back. Think well ahead about the rewards you may want to offer and how they can relate to your movie.

Keep in mind that the movie itself will be your core reward, other than that you should think about other things such as: autographed objects, t-shirts, posters, behind the scenes access and interviews with the creators. All these rewards will incentivize larger donations and get people who are most passionate about your project to get involved.

My advice is to research other film campaigns and what they have done to get to their success, take a look at their tiers and what where most popular. You could take a look and get inspired by their strategies and apply them on your campaign.

WRAPPING IT UP

This is it for today, creative projects are always most welcomed in crowdfunding world, especially if there's an accurate presentation along with a storytelling, you should be able to show the world how amazing your idea will be when it will be turned into a movie!

A crowdfunding launch requires a lot of hard work and sacrifices, but I'm sure that it will be worth it in order to start making your dream project come true.

Always remember that before launching your project you will need to analyze and prepare your pre-launch phase to launch your first product, I’ve got you covered with my crowdfunding pre-launch free e-book called ''3 steps to success on Kickstarter and Indiegogo''. 

As always make sure to subscribe to my channel to stay updated on fresh new content that I’m gonna drop there.

Ciao ciao! 

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