The following replies are approved. To see additional replies that are pending approval, click Show Pending. Warning: These may contain graphic material.
7
The famous film maker who has floor seats to every Knicks game should not be crowdfunding his next project.
3
He answers that question himself in the Kickstarter: QUESTION #1 – Why are you on Kickstarter? You’re an established wealthy Filmmaker!
2
Crowdfunding isn't charity. It's investment.
The sooner Kickstarter users wrap their heads around that, the better it will be for crowdfunding.
1
Thanks. He gave a pretty cool answer, flipped it on its head.
3
Oh. Do contributors get some kind of equity in the project? (I haven't ever been involved in a Kickstarter project.)
11
"Now let's resume feeding the hungry children."
Why do people act as though contributing money to a project on Kickstarter is some unworthy form of charity? Spike Lee has money, but if every actor or director funded all of their projects themselves they likely wouldn't have money for long. People contributed to this project because they wanted to see this movie. That's it. It's no less worthy an expenditure than paying $13 for a movie ticket.
If you want to contribute money to hungry children, then stay home from the movies next week and send that money to a charity. That would be a good thing to do. But if you decided to go to the movies instead, nobody would look at you as you walked out of the theater and mutter about how shameful it is that that $13 didn't go to hungry children.
5
Thankfully this comment was written before I got here and wrote the same thing.
...seriously, this whole faux-outrage about his use of Kickstarter is dumb, and this snark to go along with this post is garbage.
1
No one is saying that he should have funded it himself (though he probably could), they're saying he's a well established director. He KNOWS people with money (studios, investors), and they know him. It wouldn't be hard to get this project funded had he just used his available contacts.
However Kickstarter is basically free money with no strings attached, unlike investor money. The point of kickstarter is to fund people with great and bold ideas but don't have the resources to get their idea off the ground. Not for people like Lee who are in the PERFECT position to get their ideas off the ground.
2
I disagree. I think that the point of Kickstarter is also to provide an alternative to a dying model in which artists must lick the boots of entertainment industry moneymen and are often forced to choose between compromising the integrity of their project or not seeing it made. This isn't a zero-sum situation—it isn't as though by funding his movie this way he's cutting into money that some worthy indie director would otherwise be getting.
It's a way forward in an age where people don't like to pay for content but are more passionate about it than ever before, and are willing to kick in an hour's pay to see their favorite creators working. David Lynch says he may never make another movie because he can't find anyone willing to finance a project that will likely lose money. Spike is probably in a similar situation with this project, but even if he isn't, using crowd-funding to fund it is a good thing. It further legitimizes and brings attention to the idea, and will end up leading to more money for indie artists with no connections rather than less.
I think that the next step is giving contributors little slivers of equity in these projects, which would definitely mitigate the "no strings attached" situation you mention. I would argue that strings are definitely attached, and that Spike will be facing a lot of pressure from his fans to not only finish this project but make it good.
Now that Spike Lee got the people to help him fund his next movie, is going to share the profits of this mystery movie with the people? Probably not.
3
"Malcolm O-"
3
Red Blood Cell Summer
3
He Got Maim
