Crowdfunding tips: DIY Filmmaking

My last couple of posts have been about DIY filmmaking, and how film school is becoming more and more irrelevant as the years go by. One big hurdle of creating movies yourself, is CrowdFunding. If you want your movie to be seen, you need distribution. Distribution cost money. But before you get to that point, you need to make your movie. Even if it's a low budget, DIY film that you wrote in your basement; you still need funding.

For filmmaking to become a career option for DIY-ers, it needs to be a well made movie. Which isn't ever cheap. It'll most likely cost more money than you have lying around waiting for you to spend it. That is where CrowdFunding comes into play. CrowdFunding is a way of creating a budget for something that you can't fund yourself.

It works on the basic principal that if enough people donate a small amount, you'll end up with the bigger number that you need. This is accomplished by creating publicity around your idea, and promising perks to the first ones that donate. Or even a perk system based on amount of donation.
For example- If you donate $20, you'll receive a signed movie poster upon completion of the film. This is becoming more and more popular for inspiring donations, and it seems to work pretty well.

There are many other tips for starting your CrowdFunding campaign, that are outlined in the Film Courage video below:

 I can't recommend this video enough. 25 Filmmakers on one word: CrowdFunding