Kevin Smith & Crowdfunding

I am all for Crowdfunding. I love the idea that there is this group of benevolent souls who are going to gather together to support a project because they believe in it or even because they will get a free DVD when it is finished. Hell, I donated to a film today. A young man tweeted me and asked me to check out his site. He is 19, lives somewhere in New York State and has already made a bunch of movies, including one for $250. How could I resist giving him a few bucks that I don’t really have?

While I do know of filmmakers that have been able to do great things with crowdfunding, they have been primarily documentary filmmakers where a donation kind of makes sense. For me and the projects I work on, I don’t think it will work. Who is going to donate to the slate of films that I am currently raising money for? Our friends, our families, perhaps some die-hard fans of the director or the actors because after all, it is in fact a donation and not even one you or I can write off at the end of the year.

However, when someone like Kevin Smith is interested in playing around with crowdfunding, well, it’s a game changer. Kevin has such a personal relationship with his fans. We listen to his podcast over here and it’s like we’re part of his gaggle of insane friends sitting around his Los Angeles home. Kevin is big enough to have an article written about the fact that he is thinking of using crowdfunding and yet still not big enough to not need a studio or some financier to back his movie. Kevin could make crowdfunding work.

I look forward to seeing what he comes up with and I also look forward to seeing how crowdfunding evolves or is killed by individuals who don’t understand it or are threatened by it. I’ve listened to a lot of smart people argue the merits of it and be confused by how it mingles with, skirts dangerously close to or avoids the securities laws.

I am rooting for you crowdfunding…even if I don’t think you will work for the majority of us.