KickstarterForum.org

Hey everyone,

My name's Isaac Paul, and I'm about to launch my first kickstarter to fund the debut album for a band called Lionhart.

By trade, I'm not in the music business, but rather, I'm a filmmaker. I've literally grown up on movie sets my entire life; my Dad is a writer/director, my Uncle is a producer, my Grandmother is a casting director, and so on.. I work for my Uncle's production company now, Crystal Sky LLC, based in Los Angeles, but I've recently started to branch off and I created my own company- Pigeon Tree Productions.

I called my company Pigeon Tree Productions, instead of Pigeon Tree Films, because I didn't want to limit myself to just making movies. I've found that when I'm passionate about something, my creative engine revs up and I just have to make it happen.. In this case, I'm talking about Lionhart.

The lead singer of Lionhart, Marc Schneider, is also an employee of Crystal Sky, he's an aspiring filmmaker, and talented writer, but he also stems from a family of musicians. Music has always been a way for Marc to manage his creative overflow, a pastime of artistic expression to escape the stress of every day life. One day Marc (who by this time, has become one of my very best friends), played me a rough recording of a song from this concept album idea he came up with, and I completely fell in love with it- the sound, the story that the music told, and the heart behind it.

Needless to say, I felt that I had to make it happen, so I rattled ideas around in my head, "producing movies can't be so different from the music world, it's all about making thing's happen, right?", and that's more or less turned out to be true. I've taken what knowledge I have of the film business, and placed that into the world of music. I'm not claiming to be a music producer, that term is very very different than film producer- but I am managing the band, and doing my best to make things happen.

Thus far, we've recorded a single, "Fire in the Sea", which we've been blessed to have play on the radio a few times here in Los Angeles, on 88.5 KCSN. I've managed to partner up with a clothing company, called Rising Sun Jeans, who make everything by hand right here in Eagle Rock, CA. And we just played our first show, at a small venue, but it was nearly sold out.

I couldn't be more proud of what we've accomplished, and I'm very excited to be a part of what these guys are doing. We're all very driven, and it's pure passion all around.

So, we're about to launch our kickstarter campaign and I've been doing lots and lots of research, and I'm feeling good about what we've got. Our video is solid, our perks are appealing, and our goal is reachable.

I've written up a press release and I'm currently trying to figure out if this is something that I'll effectively be able to send out myself to relevant publications/blogs, or if I need a PR company to do it for me. I'm confident in the press release itself, and I feel like I'll be able to hit a good number of websites on my own, but I don't really have any experience in this area, so I'm unsure.

I appreciate any insight. Thanks a lot for reading! Nice to meet you all.

Isaac

Hi Isaac,

Welcome to the forum . Hope you are able to contribute a bit to the forum in terms of things you have learned as you raise money and advice.

That's an awesome personal story. With regards to PR it really depends on your budget.

For example, hiring a PR agency would cost $3,000-$10,000 for a retainer (depending on their prestige/connections).

You can do a lot of the leg work yourself in terms of generating interest from niche blogs, it just takes effort rather than money. For example, we are doing a new initiative on CrowdfundingPR (which is free I may add) to pair creators up with bloggers (more info here: http://www.crowdfundingpr.org/get-paire ... iche-blog/)

For the gold tier on CrowdfundingPR (which is priced at $100 at the time of writing), we generate a list of 30 bloggers, journalists, and publications that you reach out to. You can generate this list yourself, it just requires work.

I would try to pick out 30 or so relevant bloggers/journalists and begin courting them (commenting on their articles, retweeting their tweets, mentioning them on twitter, linking to them on your personal blog, emailing them what you think about a particular article etc.). The more you court journalists and bloggers, the better the chance they will respond when you actually need something from them.

Once you begin getting on niche blogs, you can then bring this traction to larger publications.

I talk about this more in these articles:

http://www.crowdcrux.com/5-low-budget-p ... -campaign/

http://www.crowdcrux.com/how-to-get-hig ... ur-emails/

http://www.crowdcrux.com/what-blogs-sho ... -campaign/

Please leave a comment on the articles if you find them to be helpful.

Thanks so much for all of your help, your articles are really terrific.

Well, we just launched our kickstarter, and now starts a real adventure.

Lionhart: A Filmmaker's Story turned Folk Rock Album

Would love any help in the form of promoting, sharing, or purchasing, we have some cool perks!

Will be sure to update with how thing's are going, and what we learn through the process.

Thanks for reading!

So we're trucking along, a little over two days in and we're over $2500. I think it's going well, but it is so nerve wracking! Making sure everyone gets a very personal thank you after they contribute, letting them know that nothing will be taken from their card until January, and that's only if the kickstarter is successful.

Sending out personal texts/e-mails/facebook messages to everyone I know that could be a candidate, as well as encouraging people to share what we're doing whether they're personally able to afford contributing or not.

Here's the press release I came up with

"When filmmakers make music; Lionhart’s debut album “In Waves” tells a story fit for the silver screen, or your ipod."
http://new.pitchengine.com/pitches/81f1 ... 3fa5a04921

Keep it up! The first week is a crucial time period - try to raise as much as possible and set a good pace for the rest of the campaign. Glad the articles are helpful.

Have you gotten any traction/traffic from PitchEngine? Thank you for keeping us updated on your experience and the actions you are taking.

I think PitchEngine is great as a template and it's nice to have a URL for your press release, and maybe their paid services are worth the exposure (I wouldn't know, I just used their free service), but no, I don't think it's really gotten me any extra traffic. It's nice to share around and it looks professional though.

Trying to put a big emphasis on getting people to contribute earlier than later, but it's still slow going. I know of a lot of people who are definitely planning on contributing, but I'm not really sure what the hold up is.

I'm very much out of my element asking people for money. I don't even like to let people buy me drinks or treat me to dinner. I'm trying to get over that, and I'm glad not to be alone in this, but some of the members of the band are not very social media savvy. One member hasn't even shared the kickstarter on his facebook yet. le sigh.

@Lionhart - Cool. I'm trying to do something similar to PitchEngine with regards to hosting PRs on CrowdfundingPR. I'll look at them more in-depth.

You really need to get him to share it on his facebook! I worked in sales for a number of years (software products, startups, etc) and this advice may or may not be helpful: Try to not think of it as "asking someone for money" but focus on the benefits or rewards they will receive by investing in you and your creative endeavor. Benefits or rewards do not always have to be tangible - the reward of helping a friend achieve his life's ambition for less than $10 is satisfying for most good friends.

Rather than "taking their money" in exchange for "nothing," make yourself a promise that you will deliver value to them in some way, whether that is tangible rewards or making them feel like the best person in the world for allowing your dream to be possible. Crediting them as much as possible in your end product and incorporate their values/ideas when appropriate. Everyone wants to feel like they are special and had a big impact in some way.

Lionhart wrote:I appreciate any insightIsaac

Hey Lionhart, I just watched your full video.. very nice! Very high production quality! Honestly, I tried to watch it a couple days ago but aborted about 20 second in. Two reasons.. I saw a total video length of 4:57, and pace was to slow. When I watched the entire video, this is where I got interested.. 1:05.

This is my suggestion.. start out with the 10 seconds starting at 1:05. Then show your absolutely awesome intro logo adnim. Still keep the 1:05 clip... in music repetition is your friend. Maybe I'm overlay jaded, but I feel projects have a very short time to catch a viewers attention.

Also, the static project title art could use some thought I think.

That all being said.. awesome job!

Salvador, thanks for the tips, I agree 100%. He has since, in fact, started to share the kickstarter around. So that's good.

And Vapor, thanks so much for the contribution!! And for what you're doing for the community. I like your advice on the video, I've passed it on to Marc and he likes them too, so we are going to see if we can edit the video while the kickstarter is active, fingers crossed.

So very helpful, thank you all!

Not sure where you guys are based, but Lionhart has a live show in LA this Saturday Dec 21 at Molly Malone's- 930pm, and we'd love to have you! $10 cover, whatever funds we pull from our live shows, we'll put right into the recording of the album.

Event page here on FB:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1395270480719640/

Btw, we're over $3,000 with 25 days left! Hopefully with your help and tips, we can push on through.