One part audience engagement, one part marketing, and with a few techniques from Barack Obama’s online outreach team’s playbook thrown in, IndieGoGo could be a Godsend for independent filmmakers. After filtering by location and topic, the social marketplace invites film fans to learn more about projects currently being developed (not to mention throw a few dollars their way). Not only do films generate an early fan base before release, but the site creates a simple way for producers to know who their audiences are and the kinds of perks they’re interested in, whether it be credits in the film or visits to the set. Berkeley-based IndieGoGo opened shop earlier this year but has already helped a Polish film about a Jewish dwarf who hid in garbage cans to survive the Holocaust and a mockumentary web series about 1970s rockers achieve their fundraising goals.
Danae Ringelmann, one of three co-founders who spearheads film finance efforts, calls the network’s Do It With Others (DIWO, a collaborative approach with DIY spirit) outlook a good way to be proactive since distributors aren’t solely responsible for generating fans anymore. While people who liked a film could previously only support it by buying a physical copy, this model encourages transparency to create a more inclusive relationship between filmmakers and open source-familiar fans. Consider it mini patronage at its finest.
For more information, visit JoshSpear.com and see a video description from one of Ringelmann’s co-founders, Slava Rubin, speaking at the recent New Media Expo.
[...] the morning of their South By Southwest soiree, artistic project fundraising platform IndieGoGo has announced that their San Francisco-based company has acquired Adam Chapnick’s digital [...]