Wish I Was Here (Zach Braff, 2014)

[hearthesilence]

And even though he wasn't making Braff's salary (much less "Oprah money," as Braff whined), Haggis secured financing for Crash on his own, all $7.5 million of it (calculated without inflation, FWIW). Did it in five years with two mortgages.

[domino harvey]

Not all Celeb Kickstarters have a happy ending

[hearthesilence]

Darci’s Walk Of Shame? I realize this is the star of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, but now that she's pushing 40, this comes off as ridiculously immature and sad for a pet project.

[mfunk9786]

Makes more sense when you consider that she publicly backed Romney

[Black Hat]

Goodness gracious, the mom looks more like Melissa Joan Hart more than she does. The only thing I remember about her horrendous show was that it ruined ABC's awesome TGIF lineup I'd grown up with.

[hearthesilence]

Makes more sense when you consider that she publicly backed Romney

Hah, of course! 'Walk of shame,' indeed.

[mfunk9786]

Goodness gracious, the mom looks more like Melissa Joan Hart more than she does. The only thing I remember about her horrendous show was that it ruined ABC's awesome TGIF lineup I'd grown up with.

It completely poisoned the stellar Stefan Urk-el episodes of Family Matters that came before it

[bdlover]

Why use Kickstarter?

Because it works? These folks don't get a return because they're not really investors, just fans buying limited edition knick-knacks. Would you find it less morally contemptible if Braff sold this stuff through a regular distributor (Fox / News Corp, for example) and they took a chunk of the proceeds?

[Black Hat]

Yes.

[bdlover]

Murdoch is smiling.

[manicsounds]

Considering that Fox hasn't upgraded the Garden State DVD to Blu-ray yet (even though Studio Canal has in Europe), they probably had little interest in a "sequel".

[hearthesilence]

Why use Kickstarter?

Because it works? These folks don't get a return because they're not really investors, just fans buying limited edition knick-knacks. Would you find it less morally contemptible if Braff sold this stuff through a regular distributor (Fox / News Corp, for example) and they took a chunk of the proceeds?

That's missing the issue. Not a perfect analogy, but if you can bear with me for a second, think of tax breaks for non-profits, like say a production company that makes documentaries. This is a company that is trying to doing something that goes beyond the basic forces of capitalism - they're making works that aren't ever going to make much money, but contribute something vital, either to society, to filmmaking as an art form, etc. The government acknowledges that a company like this should get some help in the form of tax relief, among other things, because of the economic realities going up against the merit of what it's trying to do. For the most part, everyone agrees with this, it makes logical and moral sense.

That changes when you see tax relief granted to organizations that are clearly flush with cash but aren't meeting any economic challenges inherent in their purpose/mission so much as looking for a self-serving economic advantage. (Just look at the groups looking for tax exemption in the last election cycle, claiming to be non-profits deserving of such relief.) Imagine if the Weinstein Company got tax relief for their films.

The idea of Kickstarter came to be from a guitarist who had financial difficulties booking shows, and it dawned upon him that his problem could be virtually solved if you knew ahead of time exactly how many people were going to pay admission for his appearances.

For any art form to remain healthy, it needs a healthy supply of people at the bottom who may not be popular on an individual basis but collectively adds a diversity that's necessary to allow the art form as a whole to continuously grow and thrive. I'd like to think that high profile projects could ultimately help Kickstarter, bringing publicity to other projects, but I can't help but believe that this is wishful thinking, that the whole enterprise could easily be co-opted by the wrong people like, say, Sundance.

[swo17]

Remember also that Braff initially characterized that he was reaching out to his fans for funding to avoid the inevitable compromises that come with typical financing arrangements, when he was likely planning to enhance their funding with such an arrangement all along.

[bdlover]

Imagine if the Weinstein Company got tax relief for their films.

In most of Europe (and some US regions I believe, eg. New Orleans), tax breaks are offered to all sizes of film production as an economic stimulus. eg. Star Wars 7 will receive tax breaks for shooting in the UK. So... yeah, not a perfect analogy

And colour me cynical, but I don't see the lower end of Kickstarter doing much to anything to support the artform - it's not like you can make a real film for a few thousand dollars anyway.

[knives]

Paul Schrader managed to. Though that's still waiting for a real release.

[Black Hat]

And I'd be the idealist which is the root of why we see this much differently. Reality is one thing, principle is quite another.

[The Third Man]

Paul Schrader managed to. Though that's still waiting for a real release.

Ditto Shane Carruth, Amy Seimetz, Robert Rodriguez, Oren Peli, and others I'm probably forgetting.

[hearthesilence]

Imagine if the Weinstein Company got tax relief for their films.

And colour me cynical, but I don't see the lower end of Kickstarter doing much to anything to support the artform - it's not like you can make a real film for a few thousand dollars anyway.

Sure, that's a cynical and ridiculously misguided statement that ignores and wrongfully dismisses decades of vital work. Cassavetes, Rappaport, Jost, Mekas, etc., etc. Not to mention a wrong assessment of what fundraising campaigns, never mind Kickstarter campaigns, are usually after - you know how many celebrated documentaries had to scrape together their last "few thousand dollars" just to finish their film and make it releasable?

[bdlover]

Schrader raised $160k, with a total budget in excess of $250k+. And again we're talking about celebrities using Kickstarter as a platform to sell to their existing fanbase. Which I find to be quite an interesting development, don't get me wrong. Yes, of course, it's possible to create experimental shorts for next to nothing, but a mainstream narrative feature as the Kickstarter hype would have us believe, no.

[Lionel]

If only crowd-funding had been around when Welles was still alive...

[who is bobby dylan]

Sure, that's a cynical and ridiculously misguided statement that ignores and wrongfully dismisses decades of vital work. Cassavetes, Rappaport, Jost, Mekas, etc., etc. Not to mention a wrong assessment of what fundraising campaigns, never mind Kickstarter campaigns, are usually after - you know how many celebrated documentaries had to scrape together their last "few thousand dollars" just to finish their film and make it releasable?

Surely it's not. What's misguided is grouping a filmmaker like Cassavetes with Jost or Rappaport, who are working at wildly different scales and levels of distribution.

To me this argument sounds like Kickstarter is great, except for when projects I don't like get funded. Personally, I think Kickstarter is in large part a waste, unless delivering more i-phone accessories to the masses is a worthwhile public mission. That being said, I can understand the desire to keep it, "pure" given its origins and the fear that larger, more established entities using it more and more might push the smaller ones out. I think this view avoids the benefits (personally I think it could be great if the consumer played more of a role in the decisions large companies take) as well as the likely outcome, someone will start something new and this whole process will repeat itself, with the exact same hand wringing.

That being said, the real question is why are the interested parties not organizing a kickstarter type project to complete Orson Welles' films. Whay aren't Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar and Rosenbaum gathering people together, making nice promotional videos and t-shirts so that we can finally get a release of The Other Side of the Wind?

[mfunk9786]

Might be time for a thread split for the new Braff movie

[Lionel]

Seems like the reason he couldn't finance it himself was that (even though he has a net worth of 22 million) he's not Opra.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/zach-bra ... not-oprah/ ot

Also, according to the New York times he's an opportunist:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magaz ... .html?_r=0

Cynicism aside I wonder if we'll ever get to the point where studios are going to pledge for Comic book movies for something like minor Marvel Superheroes. Fans are the only people who are happy to invest without demanding to see a profit.

[krnash]

Jesus, it sounds like another "quirky" twee indie cliché, this time from a complete douchebag. (His interviews for The Last Kiss didn't do his reputation any favors.)

Any specific interviews you're referencing? Just curious as to what he said that was offensive/off-putting and not interested in sifting through them all.

[domino harvey]

No matter how obnoxious Zach Braff may be, at least he isn't calling for homosexuals to be burned alive in ovens like the star of the Russian version of Scrubs