Audience financed film - "Toast"

M

mhatter

New member
I'm typically a lurker, but would love some feedback at the moment. We got a little bit of ink in this weeks edition of Weekly Variety about what we're doing...

Our goal is to finance a feature film through the presale of "memberships" in a website that will allow our audience to watch what we go through "behind the scenes" in our entire process (before pre-pre-production all the way to the delivery of the dvd).

Check it out at http://www.drinkmepictures.com/ and post a word or two about what you think of the site, our idea, our implementation, what we're missing or anything else that comes to mind.

Cheers everyone,
Steve

 
This is a great idea for raising money to make a movie, and I hope it works out well for you. But I have to admit it bothers me that you're actually trying to patent this fundraising idea. So much for the rest of us being able to follow your lead in raising funds for our own films.

Obviously, you have every right to patent the process. But then who's going to use it after that? If I have to pay you money to be able to use your fundraising process to try and get money to make my movie -- well, I'll just find some other way to raise the funds I need. So what's the point?

Again, though, best of luck. Very nice website!
 
I doubt a patent will be awarded for this, I have seen it tried several times before. Good luck with your efforts though.
 
Hey Chapelgrovefilms,

The whole reason behind the patent application was to protect our ability to follow through with this idea first. We want to be able to work with other filmmakers in the future to make other films, but need the time to get it right first. If other potential filmmakers are out there trying this exact same model on their own and then give up or in some way give the process a bad name, it could it for us and everyone else.

Ozduc, where have you seen it "tried" before, and do you know what the exact results were?

Cheers,
Steve
 
I also doubt that a business model patent would be granted for this - Since this has been done before, there would be too much prior art already in place - the basic concept of a patent is the fact that it be novel and non-obvious. Also, patent lawyers, filing and all would probably allow you to finance a low budget feature to start with...

Michael
 
Steve, thanks for the clarification. I can't cite specifics, but I have heard of pre-sales before, which is basically what you're talking about -- I think. Instead of pre-selling rights to the movie to distributors, you're pre-selling actual individual copies of the movie directly to the audience.

I had been considering offering various 'packages' to finance my planned feature 'The Circle'. For instance, with the basic package ($10.00), the buyer gets a DVD of the finished movie and a letter (suitable for framing) identifying him as an Executive Producer on the movie and thanking him for his contribution. The next level ($25.00) gets those things plus a t-shirt. Each level adds more things -- personally autographed posters, personally autographed scripts, etc. The highest level gets the person's name listed in the on-screen credits as 'Executive Producer' AND gets them thanked personally -- by name -- by the cast and crew in the 'Special Features' section of the DVD.

I actually got the idea from seeing listings on Ebay -- indie filmmakers selling 'Executive Producer' credits for their pending movie projects. In fact, a quick check shows there are a couple of similar listings on Ebay right now. In fact, I also see a site -- www.cinemashares.com -- that seems to be doing exactly the same thing you are, and they claim it's a 'patented technology'. Oh wait -- they're actually giving the 'investors' a share of the profits too. So I guess that's different.

Anyway, I do hope it works well for you. I just hate to see someone corner the market on what is, basically, a way for indie producers to raise money to get their movies made. We have far too few viable options as it is.

Best of luck!

David
 
I certainly hope a business model patent wouldn't be granted -- it's actually rather offensive that a filmmaker would try to patent a process such as this. Patents are designed to squelch competition, or to extract royalties from anyone else who dares to try the same thing (whether they thought of it independently or not!)

For an actual invention of a physical product a patent has a valid purpose, certainly -- you don't want to spend millions of dollars in research and development to create a product only to see someone else rip it off and produce cheap knockoffs. But to try to patent an idea like this for raising money for an indie film? I mean, good luck with the raising of money, but that's about the most uncharitable, hostile, un-indie type of thing I've ever heard of. If you're successful in patenting this, it means nobody else can ever do the same thing without your permission and, presumably, your royalties. That's rude and completely uncalled for; I mean, how does it hurt your business if some other indie is able to raise money for his picture?

I'd ask that you drop any idea of patenting your business model if you want to see any welcome or acceptance among the indie film crowd.
 
Well Barry, I think if I were doing this kind of fundraising thing, I wouldn't even be approaching the indie filmmaker crowd. Heck, all the filmmakers I know pour every dime they've got into their own productions. I wouldn't think it would be a very fertile market for these folks. I'd be pitching the idea to people who might truly be the target audience for the movie.

But there might be a problem there too. If it were a hard core horror movie, then there's a built-in audience for that genre that may very well open their wallets and support the movie. The same would be true if it was a movie designed to appeal to a well-defined group -- say, Christians or motorcycle enthusiasts or UFOlogists or Cabbage Patch Doll collectors. But this one appears to be basically a comedy. That's mighty broad. Of course, because the potential audience base IS so broad, that might work in their favor. Time will tell.
 
Also the fact that you made the contents of the patent public before filing reduces the chance of it being granted. I have filed several patents (and granted several) and the work involved is a lot, the expenses can get quite high, and the ability for you to prove no prior art, unique and non obvious will be difficult. Over the past several years I have seen websites that manage membership funded content for theatrical and home video creation with various degrees of return on investment - from a thank you to a free DVD to a single share return on investment.

Michael
 
Interesting comments. MichaelP, the specifics of what we're doing has not been done before (at least that we've found). Our model is based on the idea of selling memberships in a content website for the purposes of raising money. We are not selling a physical DVD to people for $10. We're selling a membership in a website which will then give them a free DVD when it's all over. That's a very big distinction both in what is required to accept someone's money (in advance) as well as what is required of us in the potential months leading up to the possible delivery of that DVD (a tangible good).

There are a lot of ways you can go about raising money for a film, and there's also a lot of them that aren't legal. If you do the traditional method of doing a private placement with investors, there are extremely limiting factors for how you can solicit those funds as well as how many investors you can have. In the case of the cinemashares.com site/patent - I think that's a really interesting idea. I also think it's many orders of magnitude harder to raise the kind of capital necessary to support the underwriting of an SEC registration and all the legal work he's already gone through. His film budget HAS to be at least $10M or it wouldn't be worth the SEC work. That would mean he needs to sell around 500k shares at $20 each to make just one movie. That's a LOT of people to get involved.

Barry, I am very surprised that the whole idea of a "patent" has gotten people so worked up. In our case it is VERY specific. None of the ideas discussed above by David would in any way be hindered by our patent application. Also, you hit the very reason as to why a patent mattered to us in the first place. Do you think it was free to develop the website we have, secure a credit card merchant account, and go through all the other legal hoops we've had to jump through (excluding anything relating to our patent application) to get to where we are right now? It took over 3 months to get the credit card merchant account alone because of the type of business model we have. Many banks were suspicious of the whole thing, and others thought we surely must be dealing in porn in some capacity. Just like with a physical product, we spent months and months pouring through federal, state, and local laws that effect sales over the internet and investigating SEC restrictions on the opposite side of the fence (other approaches to traditional investing models). Just because something exists only as a website implementation, doesn't mean it required any less effort to bring to fruition than an actual physical thing. We have nearly 100,000 lines of code (not HTML, but database work and Coldfusion) on the backend of our site to make it all work - and that grows every day.

I'm not trying to bang our drum and say, "look what we did", but merely point out that it is not nearly as trivial to just dream something up and then go to a lawyer to try to patent it. This is exactly what the patent system was originally intended for... to give the creators of new ideas a window of time to capitalize on their "invention" or "idea" before others come in to pollute the market. The whole concept of royalties and squelching competition is a distortion from that.

Screenwriters routinely get WGA registration of their screenplays so that they can protect them. Do you consider that to be un-indie and rude? I'm sure you regularly rely on the protections granted to you under copyright law for the creative work that you do. Is it un-indie of you because you expect to be compensated for your work?

All this boils down to this: If you create something and are actively working to try something new, you want the opportunity to exploit it first. It would be foolish for us to not pursue all means available to protect what we've worked so hard on. We would not be serving the people who've invested in us if we didn't take the steps we've taken. I wish the world worked in a way that everyone could just trust everyone else to play fair so that effort didn't have to be spent with lawyers, contracts, etc. That simply isn't the way the world works, and this is "show" business with financial motivations - not altruistic intentions.

David, the ebay "credit sales" that you mention are extremely scary. How would you prove to ebay (or the payment processor) that you delivered anything at all in the time between when someone "bought in" and when you had a finished movie to deliver to them to prove it? If even a small margin of people raised waves over what you were doing, your project could be entirely jeopardized. What would happen if you got 1/3 of the money you needed and ebay suspended your ability to continue to raise money in that capacity?

Finally, I wasn't intending to approach the "indie" filmmaker crowd here expecting any kind of sales. I was merely interested in what the feedback would be. Our film specifically is a dark comedy with very specific appeals to the tattoo and punk crowd. We know that our target market is (in general) guys aged 18-29, with direct (specific) spillover into tattoo culture. We will be focusing much more on the specifics of the film itself including revealing the cast (which will include some name actors) and more details about the storyline as time moves on.

I appreciate the time you've all taken so far to voice your opinions and concerns.

Cheers,
Steve
 
All it sounds like is doing Project Greenlight as an info commerical for a movie...

Also it is about bread... the money kind... it is an interesting idea...

And as Michael P says... who knows how many others have or will post sites after reading this thread...
 
Yeah, it's been done before. I donated my $10 to support an indie filmmaker and it was the first time I saw something like that done. They never raised enough money, they never updated the website so basically, nothing happened.

Do you think any of us had our websites, merchant accounts etc handed to us? But because you had to spend money you don't want anyone else to be able to raise money the same way unless they pay you?

I'll see if I still have the site bookmarked that charged memberships in order to raise funds for their films and then allowed the members into a special area to watch the progress of the film.

Sorry to burst your bubble but you're not the first to come up with this idea. Probably not the 2nd, 3rd or 4th either.
 
Hey Michael,

I just missed your last message. We did not in fact make the contents of the patent public prior to filing. In spite of any of that, the mere visitation/consultation and payment of an IP/Patent attorney in relation to one's idea and patent intentions gives you the ability to say "patent pending". I don't expect there to be any action on our patent application for at least 12-18 months. It took the cinemashares.com patent almost 5 years to make its way through the patent office.

While the effort and specifics can vary as much as someone asking, "how much will it cost to make a video?", you should be able to obtain the necessary paperwork and assistance from a patent attorney to file for a patent for $5,000-$8,000. It can certainly cost far more than that, but I also know of people who've obtained patents for far less.

I'd be very interested in knowing what the membership funded content websites that you refer to were/are? I'm aware of several including aswarmofangels.com, cinemashares.com, and makeamoviehappen.com. None of them are using the same model, and none of them are the same as what we're doing.

Cheers,
Steve
 
Sounds like a basic presales model - the question is, and kept simple for example only, if your budget for producing a feature length program and all costs to master to DVD was $100, and your set the cost of the DVD at $10, then do you cap membership to 10 members? This is similar to a limited partnership model for feature film production - or is the membership in the corporation itself for any program that may be created? Those are two different models.

And again, like I said, the fact that the details of the model are being made public, and you provided yet more in the last email reduce your chance of being granted the patent. It is up to you to provide the examiner all prior art to your knowledge (as well as your patent attorney) as part of the filing in order to show why your model is unique, and non obvious. The unique part might be easy, but the non obvious part might be harder to prove.

Michael
 
Hey, I'm selling memberships now to fund my documentary on the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone.
For $10 you can purchase a membership that will enable you to access the "members only" section of our website. Ride shotgun with us as we hike the wilds of Yellowstone National Park. You'll be there behind the scenes as we interview a rancher who believes in the three S's. Shoot, Shovel and Shutup!
Listen as we learn from top wolf biologists in the field about what the introduction means. When the movie is finished you'll receive your own personalized copy on DVD as well as a cast from a wolf track found in the backcountry of Yellowstone.

Your $10 is not an investment or an ownership towards the film, it's to give you access to the behind the scenes making of film about one of the most controversial subjects the West has seen in decades.

I've already spent the $6.95 for the domain name as well as the $3.95 a month for hosting. So the site should be finished soon!

Stay Tuned!
 
Well good luck on the filing - depending on the patent type, it does take some time to get through the PTO. Mine averaged ~2-3 years each (all technology patents, one design). If granted, it's only as good as you are willing to protect it (more money for the lawyers) or how you set up a licensing fee for others to use the same model.

As far as the wolves doc goes, very interesting. I went to school in Bozeman and spent a lot of time in Yellowstone - even honeymooned there. I still get back from time to time. Good luck with that as well.

Michael
 
i cant remember the 2 different sites that I'd seen this being done on as it was a couple of years ago. Maybe one of them was the one Kevin had seen. Regardless I still think it would be impossible to get a patent on "the idea". I'm sure you may be able to patent the code you use to set up your website, but the idea of raising funds, I doubt it.

BTW Kevin, I'll spend 10 bucks on your membership idea. I'll even come along and hold the shotgun, or a HVX if you prefer.
 
Simply put -- the purpose of a patent is so that you can sue people. You can sue those who would take your idea or your invention away.

If you were granted this patent, who would you sue? Other indie filmmakers, presumably, who would want to try this same financing model. I mean, break it down -- who else would be interested in it? You'd be suing your peers. I think that's pretty rude, yes.

Now, let's take the example of a physical invention; maybe a new type of wing for an airplane. Probably will cost you a few million dollars to invent this, and you need to have a patent before you can raise the money to put it into production, otherwise some weasel might nick your idea and produce it cheaply, thus stealing the value of all your hard work. Therefore a patent is appropriate.

But to patent a business model for raising money for an indie film? Sorry, I don't see how anyone else doing a similar thing is going to hurt you in any way. So what if someone else raises money in the same style that you did -- how does that hurt you? You raised your money, you made your film, move on, right? How does holding a legal hammer (with which you can punish other filmmakers) come into play?

Copyrights exist so that work does not get stolen. But ideas cannot be copyrighted, only the expression of an idea can be copyrighted. If you come up with a movie about transvestite vampires, that doesn't give you the right to forever prevent anyone else from coming up with a transvestite vampire film; it only prevents them from duplicating your own existing work. A patent is something entirely different -- it's the ultimate anti-compete tool. It says that
"not only can you not steal my work, but you can't do the same thing I did, even if you came up with the idea yourself, even if you came up with the idea before I did, even if you never heard of me or my idea".

Raising money for an indie film is a nearly impossible task as it is. Why try to lock out any other filmmaker from being able to take advantage of a new way? What does that hurt you? Rodriguez didn't "patent" the idea of selling one's body to a drug testing lab to make money for a film; the Coen brothers didn't "patent" the idea of setting up a boiler room and pestering doctors and dentists and stockbrokers into either investing or squealing on someone else who might invest; the Raimis and Campbell didn't patent the idea of shooting a short horror film to use as a fundraising tool for a feature. Anyone can do those things. And those guys all went on to greatness, and every one of them is willing to share their ideas and what worked for them.

So again -- what am I missing? A patent is fundamentally a legal tool to use to sue people. Those people you would be suing would be other indie filmmakers who would try to replicate your method. Yet other indie films aren't going to be your film, they're not going to hurt you, they're not going to harm your business model, they're going to be their own films. And there will always be other indie films. So why take out a legal tool to punish other filmmakers? I just don't get it. Sounds awfully rude and hostile and anti-indie to me.

I wish you luck in raising your money and making your film. But for the sake of all indies everywhere, I sincerely hope that you are not granted any patent for any idea on how to raise money for an indie film, and I hope nobody else is ever granted any patent for those purposes either.
 
1. I would be very interested if your patent lawyer could actually get a patent issued on this. (Which is quite different from just having a patent pending.)

2. If you are successful, it's meaningless unless you can successfully enforce your patent. It's a lot easier to defend in any kind of litigation than to be a successful plaintiff.

3. Most of the people who are likely to try the same thing would be folks without any money. What that means is; even if you were to successfully litigate a patent infringement you would likely be litigating against an LLC set up just for that production, meaning you would be trying to collect from a stone. Even lawyers who work on percentages are not going to bother when then is no chance of a big payday.

However, all that aside, I wish you the best of luck. If you need money to make a movie, it certainly never hurts to ask.
 
This string is awesome. I had no idea it would get this heated.

Steve's trying to get press and I'm glad to say that's happening. A huge factor of a fundraising campaign on a film is doing it in a way that makes people take notice.

I understand what Barry's saying, too, but at the same time, I don't think most films get off the ground and if you can figure out a way to do it more power to you.

A friend of mine sold rights to her film on ebay during some of the film markets. If someone's bummed they can't use Steve's idea, you can use my friends. If you want more ideas, I can list a few off for you as well. I've never found that giving away your business plan causes cannibalization among film investors. They usually rank in two categories (inexperienced folk trying to be apart of the hollywood marketing machine/dream and the wealthy in all their shades). Any clever idea gets attention and there's money out there if you can show someone 'value'. Good luck to everyone in financing your films.
 
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