KickstarterForum.org

Hello Kickstarter Enthusiasts,

I'm Nicholas, and sitting across the office from me is Adam and we've set out on a quest to find the happiest people in America. I don't really need to tell you much more about our documentary as I trust you'll watch our video if you're interested:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/112 ... ntary-film

I'm so curious to hear from other people who have successfully or unsuccessfully funded film projects. We're two days into our campaign and not sure how to feel about our 4% progress. Obviously we're thrilled to be getting so many Facebook "likes" and all the money that has been pledged so far really tickles our fancy, but we've never done this before so it's hard to gauge our progress.

Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Hi Nicholas- Welcome to the forum. That's a pretty cool documentary idea. I just forwarded to a few of my friends. With regards to progress, you should shoot for 25-30% in the first week to be in good shape. A lot of campaigners notice a lull in the middle of the fundraising process.

I've done a one interview of a film project creator (though he ended up not being successful). Looking back on his experience he said:

Do you have any advice for other first-time film directors who are thinking about using Kickstarter?

As a first time director on Kickstarter, it’s a learning experience. Advice? Make sure you spend as MUCH time as possible getting the campaign perfect. Write out your story, erase it, write it again, add pictures. For a movie, if you have filmed some of it or have test footage, storyboards, ANYTHING you can share, put it out there. It helps people know how serious you are about this, and it helps break up that wall of text. Also, and you will see this everywhere, the video is SO important. Now is not the time to break out the webcam or the iphone. Talk to your friends, get a camera, write an outline of what you want to say, and be you. This is your ONLY face time and your ONLY chance to make a first impression.

I will try to do more interviews of successful film campaigns.

Hello there!

Very much appreciate the reply and your advice. We've spent a great deal of time getting our story and campaign as perfect as we could get it, so now it's very much a numbers game. We'll shoot for 20-30 percent this first week- thanks for the tip. I suppose everyone shoots for 100% on day one, but 20-30 in the first week is perhaps a more realistic goal.

Glad to hear you enjoyed our project and forwarded it along- means so much to us.

Yea, I agree with you regarding shooting for 100% from day one. Keep us updated on the progress.

Well, on one hand we're progressing nicely in that people are generously donating money- hard to complain about that.

However, projections indicate we aren't going to meet our fundraising goal.

We're trying to reach a larger audience, but that's proving tough. Open to suggestions!

That is always a big worry, thank fully the people here have a lot of good tips if you look around. Our group is going through a pre funding promotion expansion. We decided it would be best to try and generate hype and publicity through free social sites and information sites such as youtube, facebook, and groups that target our demographic. Hope it goes well and you meet your goal! Best of luck!