Kickstarter Rewards for My Short Film
The Plan
My primary focus right now is preparing for the Cathedrals Kickstarter. And believe me, I’ve got big plans. This will be one of the most epic effective, crazy fairly normal Kickstarter videos of all time. We shot my portion of the video last week, but I’ve got a few more experts I want to talk to on camera in order to round out the “pitch.”
1. A Raymond Carver “expert” (or just a book editor) talking about the need for a modernized, truthful adaptation of his work, especially following Birdman, which kind of smeared him.
2. An advocate for the blind at an organization that works to support the blind or the disabled in the arts. I want to donate to an organization like this as part of the Kickstarter campaign. (e.g. “If you donate $50, we’ll donate an extra 10 on top of that to [Blind Advocacy Organization]”)
3. One of our producers, perhaps Eben Kostbar or Earl Bolden Jr., talking about why they wanted to jump on board and help make this thing a reality.
4. The blind actor who we cast.
I’m reaching out to organizations and experts for #1 and #2, but if anybody has any suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them!
The Rewards
The second thing I’m diving into is planning for the rewards for donors. These are just in the planning stages, and I need your feedback! What looks interesting? Would any of these appeal to you? Please let me know in the comments what you think works, what looks like I vomited.
Kickstarter allows you to edit perks later, so we can experiment as the campaign progresses, but we might as well start with some cool rewards that get people excited in the first place. Here are some ideas, ordered generally from low donation/high supply to high donation/low supply.
1. access to the production diary
2. digital copy of original soundtrack
3. Twitter shout out from Sawhorse/Ben/actor
4. digital copy of film
5. Kickstarter thanks credit
6. we donate to [blind advocacy organization]
7. film poster
8. invitation to opening screening and afterparty
9. Instagram shout out from Ben
10. copy of first draft of screenplay
11. special thanks credit
12. Ben writes a poem about whatever you want
13. pages from script used on set, signed by actors
14. associate producer credit
15. visit to Sawhorse offices, meet and greet with producers
16. include a personal item or artwork in the film
17. join us on set
18. interview on “Making Cathedrals”
19. executive producer credit
20. include your name in the film
21. Ben changes his license plate to whatever they want
I’m pulling for #12, because I really want a reason to have to write poetry every night for the next 6 months straight. Let me know if you have anything you’d like to see! You can leave a comment on the Facebook page or YouTube vlog.
Big shoutout to Jason Ludke for letting us use his “Cathedral” artwork to promote the short film until we can create some original artwork for the project. Check out his website. He’s got a lot more calming Carver-related paintings that are pretty cool!
