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IndieGoGo: Doing It with Others

Published on April 7, 2008

by Harriette Yahr

Sundance offered several panels and presentations of interest to independent filmmakers, including at the New Frontier on Main, one of the hot spots of the fest this year, an inspired space highlighting artists and filmmakers working at the crossroads of art and technology. "Going at it Alone: Digital Distribution for Indie Filmmakers," a popular panel, was moderated by Meyer Shwarzstein, CEO of Brainstorm Media and included as a panelist the co-founder of IndieGoGo, Slava Rubin. IndieGoGo launched a few days before Sundance and had a kick-off party at the festival, which also honored the doc Flow: For Love of Water.

IndieGoGo is a new online social marketplace designed to connect filmmakers and fans to make independent film happen. From IndieGoGo:

"The platform provides filmmakers the tools for project funding, recruiting, and promotion, while enabling the audience to discover and connect directly with filmmakers and the causes they support."

The founders are Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin and Eric Schell; here I speak with Slava Rubin.

Slava Rubin, co-founder of IndieGoGo

Let's start out with basic IndieGoGo info. How does IndieGoGo work?

The way we talk about it for filmmakers is: Post, Promote, Produce; for fans: Discover, Support, Get Perks.

First, filmmakers post a project and build an audience with IndieGoGo's promotion tools. When they are ready to raise funding, they submit a request specifying the funding goal, use of proceeds and the VIP perks - which are film credits, premiere parties, film extra, set visits - aligned with varying support levels.

The funding period runs for 45 days from the day of the first contribution. This compact time period encourages filmmakers to be realistic with their requests and alleviates the fans' concern about "inactive" contributions. We recommend filmmakers raise money in rounds to increase the chance of achieving their funding goals while building a track record of successful fundraising and execution.

Can you say more about the levels or tiers of financing?

All attempts for fundraising are treated the same. Whether the filmmaker has only an idea in their mind or the entire film already in the can, they can use IndieGoGo to help raise awareness and financing. Examples on IndieGoGo range from $500 to help college students make Undigitize Me - a documentary about living in college without a computer to $5,000 to support Chris Roberts' (2001 Sundance Grand just prize winner) with Up With Me - a narrative film set to premiere at SXSW about the struggle of inner city teens in New York City.

So, to filmmakers, what is your pitch? How does it behoove them to fully sign on?

An independent filmmaker's job is very difficult. They need to juggle many roles - as artist, technologist, marketer, fundraiser etc. - and IndieGoGo helps by providing the tools needed to be more effective. Each filmmaker gets free real estate on IndieGoGo to pitch their project to the world. They can then build their community and harness it to get feedback, raise financing and build promotion.

A couple years ago Robert Greenwald and Jim Gilliam, from Brave New Films, were able to raise over $200,000 in contributions in nine days, with four emails for their movie, Iraq for Sale. The audience received no profit in return, but got their names highlighted in the film's credits. They were able to do this by engaging the audiences and IndieGoGo empowers all filmmakers to have the same opportunities. We like to call it DIWO or "Do it with others" filmmaking.

What about the idea that fans were supporting Greenwald himself. Investing in him as an individual, a known and liked entity, after a proven track record with his films?

Everyone has an audience. Robert Greenwald's is bigger than most - but even he had to grow his audience one fan at a time. Instead of trying to win the lottery with one film, filmmakers should look at their opportunity to develop a body of work. With each film comes more experience, more credibility, and more fans. Looks at what Christopher Nolan was able to accomplish. He started by making an $11,000 production, The Following. After being noticed by Peter Broderick and others for his talents, Nolan directed Memento and then eventually became the new director of the Batman franchise. The idea is everyone needs to start small and IndieGoGo empowers the filmmakers to engage their audiences.

So how did you get involved with IndieGoGo? What sparked your interest?

In the fall of 2006, Danae and Eric, my fellow founders, first talked about the idea of extending movie financing opportunities to the masses. As I went to visit Eric that October in San Francisco, the three of us engaged in long conversations about using the latest technologies to bring a scalable solution to the public.

The eureka moment came while overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, reminded how easy technology makes it to connect two worlds. We figured it would be cool if it was easier for a filmmaker to connect with his audience - if the audience didn't have to be on the other side of the film making process. We knew the only viable possible next step was to take action.

Seems to me there is a divide between people who use the web and many actual practicing independent filmmakers. How do you solve this?

Filmmaker, construction worker or dentist - too often the problem with the internet is that the service is too complicated or worse yet the company has not taken the perspective of the end user when designing the interface or product.

Obviously film financing is a complicated topic but we have studied the real world issues extensively and have tried to create a service online that makes a more efficient, easy to use process for the independent filmmaker.

To date many filmmakers, both tech savvy and not, have found our site intuitive, logical and fun. Their continued feedback has helped to create a more valuable resource for everyone.

Can you talk about how you legally get around SEC restrictions? I am sure other filmmakers would like to understand those restrictions and how IndieGoGo plays safe.

According to the Securities act of 1933 it is illegal for public solicitation of any investment opportunity without registration with the Securities Exchange Commission.

Given the overhead and expense of registering with the SEC, at this time IndieGoGo does not offer equity investments, but focuses on contributions. We see a broad spectrum of reasons to make film - from passion projects like Nanking to economic endeavors like Transformers; each aligns with a different type of expected ROI.

At IndieGoGo, we believe passion and perks will be the motivation for contributions in the absence of profit. In the beginning we expect passion projects to find more fundraising success on IndieGoGo. Passion projects will include cause-based documentaries, niche-topic features and shorts, as well as the pet projects of renowned filmmakers. Whether it's Darfur, string theory or Arin Crumley [of Four Eyed Monsters] we believe the VIP perks filmmakers offer in combination with people's passions will galvanize contributions.

How did your panel go at Sundance and how do you feel IndieGoGo is being received?

The reception from Sundance 2008 has been excellent including lots of great filmmaker feedback and some very exciting media coverage; for instance the BBC, Reuters, the AP, Indiewire, Filmmaker Magazine, GreenCine, and others.

The Institute has been very supportive of our efforts and the panel was a great opportunity to share the stage with filmmakers Tiffany Schlain and Yvonne Welbon and toolmakers Sara Pollock, David Straus, Steven Starr and Meyer Schwartzstein who are all using the internet to make artistic visions a reality. The overall vibe from the panel and festival was very positive for independent filmmakers and a key takeaway was that DIWO or "Do it with others" filmmaking is the way of the future.

What are the hurdles you face?

Creating a change in mentality is never easy. Too often filmmakers and others hope they can sit back and eventually they "will be found." Success is rarely easy and usually requires lots of hard work.

To ease this transition we have created IndieGoGo to be user friendly and laser focused on the filmmaker's core issues, including financing and building awareness. We have partnered with and secured project content from some of the pioneers in internet filmmaking and audience building - these folks have made it happen; including Lance Weiler (The Last Broadcast), Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters), M Dot Strange (We Are the Strange) and Tiffany Schlain (The Tribe).

Can you talk a little about the new term on the digi-media block: Crowdsourcing, and other sites like Film Riot and how you'd say you differ?

Crowdsourcing is an opportunity to distribute the power of decision making across a large group. In the mainstream the TV show American Idol can be considered crowdsourcing given the audience chooses the final winner.

Beyond crowdsourcing, there have been a few trends that have helped us get to where we are today: Online fundraising is accelerating, the cost of production and distribution is falling, social networking is approaching mainstream, pulled media is outpacing the growth of pushed media and user-controlled media is the future.

As the market is full of challengers - some established like Film Riot and others yet to be created - the competition further validates the demand for tools which support fundraising and can create a more efficient filmmaking process.

What's your relationship with the filmmakers of Flow: For Love of Water?

Our relationship with the movie FLOW spawned from Sundance 2007 after meeting Steven Starr. He has been a valuable advisor to IndieGoGo from the beginning. Together we were able to make the connection between the two organizations to partner on marketing and PR efforts during Sundance 2008. Given the important topic FLOW is covering, the global water crisis, it is a perfect example of a passion project on our site.

What are your ultimate hopes for IndieGoGo?

The goal for IndieGoGo is to develop a thriving independent film community that helps make more projects happen. By empowering the filmmakers to engage their audience the marketplace will see more relevant and niche films find their fans. Every filmmaker is looking for help in this effort and IndieGoGo aims to become their trusted partner throughout the process - offering an extensive network of contacts, services and products.

How do you all make money?

IndieGoGo is free to sign-up and a majority of the core actions are free to use (i.e. post, fund, promote, discover, endorse, rate, tag and comment). Incentives are aligned as we charge a 9% processing fee only when filmmakers and fans connect to successfully fund a project. In addition, IndieGoGo serves their members relevant advertising of indie products and services without ever sharing confidential information.

What are your thoughts about the challenges filmmakers face monetizing their content or do you think it's okay to, say, throw a pebble in the water of YouTube and see if it turns into gold somehow? Many feel having a directed internet strategy is best, so as to not give yourself away for free, while other filmmakers seem content to just get exposure. And certainly there are cases where exposure has generated other results. Maybe it's a generational thing?

The internet is a new and exciting medium of exposure but as much as things change they still stay the same. A filmmaker still needs to start with great content. They still need to think of their career as a portfolio. They still need to work endlessly on marketing and exposure. The difference now is there are more tools to help them and more ways to reach the people that can become their audience or supporters. At IndieGoGo, we like to tell filmmakers to start thinking about the audience from the beginning. Start creating your community as soon as you come up with an idea for a movie. Build your portfolio one clip, one short, one movie at a time. Over time what will be more valuable is not just that you created a DVD, but that you have created a DIWO community around your vision along the way.

How would someone get started on IndieGoGo?

Filmmakers can sign-up on IndieGoGo.com, post a project, and begin building your audience.Then determine your funding needs and the VIP perks you can offer in return for support - and start fundraising. Fans can sign-up on IndieGoGo.com, post a profile and find filmmakers, projects or causes to support. Then enjoy the discovery and get VIP perks for your contributions.