ONLY 7 DAYS LEFT to make SOUND for Film and Television VOL II happen!

Nice feedback, everyone. Some of this could've been golden news if shared earlier.

Thanks for all of your effort in the attempt to get the project off the ground, DJ.
 
David Jimerson said:
Now, Simon, that's just plain rude.

Implying that I don't believe in the product, or that I thought it would not have lived up to the others, insults my integrity as a producer.
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Sorry you thought I was being rude; not my intention.

As a customer of yours I was simply saying that if you had believed in making the product by the same means as the previous ones (that is to say not by Kickstarter) then I reckon it would have been a similar success.
 
That seems to imply there is something wrong with seeking funding for good ideas on Kickstarter. I would cast it a bit differently - say you have two options for developing a new product. Option A can be executed for $10k and Option B can be executed for $40k. You have $10k in available capital. Option B would result in a better product and requires either additional investors or some pre-purchase a la Kickstarter. Pre-purchase is much preferable to seeking investors since you often have to give up control in exchange for investment, thus limiting your creative options as well as your net gain. KS is also a test market of sorts. Valuable info has been gained from the funding failure and a better product will probably result if the feedback is acted upon.
 
J Michael said:
That seems to imply there is something wrong with seeking funding for good ideas on Kickstarter. I would cast it a bit differently - say you have two options for developing a new product. Option A can be executed for $10k and Option B can be executed for $40k. You have $10k in available capital. Option B would result in a better product and requires either additional investors or some pre-purchase a la Kickstarter. Pre-purchase is much preferable to seeking investors since you often have to give up control in exchange for investment, thus limiting your creative options as well as your net gain. KS is also a test market of sorts. Valuable info has been gained from the funding failure and a better product will probably result if the feedback is acted upon.
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The higher budget would always result in better production values, for sure but that does not translate directly into value for an instructional video. It's more about the content. So I don't know if more dollars increases the value for the buyer. It might, especially if you know that there is an entertainment value to the instruction, which we all know there is here.

The waters are muddy with Kickstarter now. Is it a for profit or non-profit project? If I "donate" to someones play or short film I can be sure that they will not profit. My donation is a gift to their art. Indie go go is preferable here as it's usually tied to Fractured Atlas as a non profit umbrella organization offering tax deductible donations. It's an art project pure and simple and I am helping artists who cannot garner investment to realize their art otherwise.

However, using the platform for pre sales on Kickstarter elevates the perq to a product which is an evolution of the idea of "please help us with our art project, which we can only make based on your largesse, and we'll send you a token of our esteem." To "we're going to make something spectacular, and give you a discount if you buy now." What's inherently discouraging about that is that it may not happen. The message that I think would be more effective is, "this train is going with our without you, you want in?" Then the value is secure, but using the Kickstarter platform to fund the project doesn't provide for that and therefore puts an inordinate onus on the consumer to generate the product which, to me, doesn't feel correct.

What would be great would be if you could become an investor in a potential product as has been law since the enactment of the JOBS Act a couple of years ago. However the SEC has not implemented rules for that. Who knows if they can or ever will?
 
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Whatever you want to call it, it was the only way to get this project done.

If it had been close, we might consider revamping and trying again. But it didn't even crack the bottom 1/3 of the goal.

I agree with Terry; feedback and really, any kind of expression of interest, would have been a lot nicer during the campaign period. But as far as I could tell, in general, the project was greeted with a gigantic yawn, when what we needed was a barbaric YAWP -- not just in pledges, but in enthusiasm. Except for a few people, there wasn't any. As far I could tell, very few people cared. (Don't get me wrong; I love the people who did, but there weren't many.)

Which is fine; people are interested or they aren't. When they are, like with Veronica Mars movies or 3D printers, then magic happens. When they're not, crickets chirp and things don't happen. I'm not crying foul that only a few people really wanted this. I didn't even know what the interest would really be, which was one of the points of trying.

But I haven't seen a thing which makes me want to try it again. For it to be worth trying again, there indeed needs to be a sense of urgency, a sense of immediate demand. If there isn't, there's no point in doing it. I'm surely not going to publicly drive into another brick wall, and I'm surely not going to sink $15-20K out of pocket into a product that some people say they might get around to buying eventually (after they've exhausted all the free resources, maybe). That makes no sense at all.

So while I do appreciate it, no, it's not going to happen. We're moving out of the instructionals biz, because there's really no "biz" there anymore.

I've been very open about all of this from the beginning, unusually open, to the point of risking embarrassment. I really don't know what else there is to say about it. We took a shot, and a risk; it didn't pan out, so we move on.
 
David Jimerson said:
If it had been close, we might consider revamping and trying again. But it didn't even crack the bottom 1/3 of the goal.

I agree with Terry; feedback and really, any kind of expression of interest would have been a lot nicer during the campaign period. But as far as I could tell, in general, the project was greeted with a gigantic yawn, when what we needed was a barbaric YAWP -- not just in pledges, but in enthusiasm.
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FWIW, I know why I didn't speak up earlier - and while I can't speak for others, I suspect I might not be alone: when you have a dissenting opinion, you don't voice it while the campaign is going on. Otherwise you might be seen as someone who is sabotaging a campaign with criticism which might influence others not to pay, and when the campaign fails, you get the blame. This is such a well-known phenomenon, that it's been studied by psychologists - people don't want to be seen as the dissenter/bad guy, so they keep silent in a group project and knowingly go along with bad decisions in a group setting... sometimes absurdly, a majority in the meeting may a have different view, but go along in the wrong direction following one guy who is charismatic because the pressure to not stand out of the group is so strong. Side note: there is a terrific book (I have no connection to the author) that explores the whole subject with multiple studies cited "Wrong: Why experts keep failing us" by David H. Freedman, I highly recommend this for anyone interested in making sense of the contradictory advice we tend to get from a variety of experts - but one example left me in a cold sweat - this group pressure is so strong that even pilots who know for a fact that a mistake is being made that will result in a fatality will go along with the group pilot fatal decision in a cockpit rather than voice dissent. Bottom line: I think it's too much to expect people to speak up "during the campaign period".

David Jimerson said:
I'm surely not going to publicly drive into another brick wall, and I'm surely not going to sink $15-20K out of pocket into a product that some people say they might get around to buying eventually (after they've exhausted all the free resources, maybe). That makes no sense at all.
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I totally understand and sympathize. However, you have inbuilt goodwill based on your previous work. Surely that's worth something. I know that I have benefitted from the DVDs on sound and light, and based on that as well as the content description of sound II, I would have bought again, even if I didn't speak up earlier. Like I - and others - suggested, a higher price point might be helpful. You don't need quite as many sales at $120 compared to $70/$90. You gather the budget the old-fashioned way, through pre-sales. That of course presupposes, as you indicate, interest in the product - but also, may I point out, manner of delivery - the content may have a lot of interest, but for some people a DVD of the content will be something they'll pay for, but streaming of the very same content will not. I don't know what the numbers are - is this decisive enough? Is there enough demand for a DVD to make this viable? Well, again, pre-sales. You can run polls, but as you say, "getting around to pay" is a different issue, so pre-sales gets you "money talks". I know for a fact that I would buy a DVD based on the content of sound II as outlined, can't speak for others, though many have indicated the same. You have goodwill. Seems a pity to throw it away, but I respect your decision - it is your time, your effort, your risk and nobody has the right to expect any particular outcome, the decision is 100% yours. Thank you for your past work, and the effort you put into the sound II project.
 
ReallY? This is DVXuser; since when do people with a "dissenting opinion" not voice it here?

It would seem questions, suggestions, and comments could've been made without such tone.
 
A few people offered advice.

But really, nobody did anything "wrong" and I don't want to seem like I'm saying anyone did. No one was obligated to do anything. Would I have preferred other things? Well, of course. :)
 
OldCorpse said:
I totally understand and sympathize. However, you have inbuilt goodwill based on your previous work. Surely that's worth something. I know that I have benefitted from the DVDs on sound and light, and based on that as well as the content description of sound II, I would have bought again, even if I didn't speak up earlier. Like I - and others - suggested, a higher price point might be helpful. You don't need quite as many sales at $120 compared to $70/$90. You gather the budget the old-fashioned way, through pre-sales. That of course presupposes, as you indicate, interest in the product - but also, may I point out, manner of delivery - the content may have a lot of interest, but for some people a DVD of the content will be something they'll pay for, but streaming of the very same content will not. I don't know what the numbers are - is this decisive enough? Is there enough demand for a DVD to make this viable? Well, again, pre-sales. You can run polls, but as you say, "getting around to pay" is a different issue, so pre-sales gets you "money talks". I know for a fact that I would buy a DVD based on the content of sound II as outlined, can't speak for others, though many have indicated the same. You have goodwill. Seems a pity to throw it away, but I respect your decision - it is your time, your effort, your risk and nobody has the right to expect any particular outcome, the decision is 100% yours. Thank you for your past work, and the effort you put into the sound II project.
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Just to fill in some of the blanks --

Customers in general overwhelmingly prefer downloads to physical DVDs. When directly given a choice, over 90% went for downloads, and there was even a period where we were selling Lighting DVDs at a substantial discount to burn through stock, and more people were still going for the more expensive downloads. Physical disc still has its stalwarts (I'm kind of one myself), but the market spoke with a clear voice.

"Old-fashioned pre-sale" -- this was the pre-sale. The only reason we used Kickstarter was to eliminate the risk. No one would be charged at all unless all of the money would be raised and the project would definitely move forward. We found this far more palatable for everyone involved than directly taking people's money before we knew we'd have enough, and then having to refund, etc., if it didn't work. I said all this several times over the course of the campaign.
 
hscully said:
The waters are muddy with Kickstarter now. Is it a for profit or non-profit project? If I "donate" to someones play or short film I can be sure that they will not profit. My donation is a gift to their art. Indie go go is preferable here as it's usually tied to Fractured Atlas as a non profit umbrella organization offering tax deductible donations. It's an art project pure and simple and I am helping artists who cannot garner investment to realize their art otherwise.

However, using the platform for pre sales on Kickstarter elevates the perq to a product which is an evolution of the idea of "please help us with our art project, which we can only make based on your largesse, and we'll send you a token of our esteem." To "we're going to make something spectacular, and give you a discount if you buy now." What's inherently discouraging about that is that it may not happen. The message that I think would be more effective is, "this train is going with our without you, you want in?" Then the value is secure, but using the Kickstarter platform to fund the project doesn't provide for that and therefore puts an inordinate onus on the consumer to generate the product which, to me, doesn't feel correct.
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I pretty much agree here. Now I came across this thread by chance. I have not bought any of the DVDs and probably wouldn't buy this one. Not because they are a bad product or anything. I can't judge as I have never had any interest because I just do not need it. But the feedback from the prior DVDs is highly positive so I'm sure they are a great product. So my opinion is not really about it but rather about the whole crowd funding thing. So my opinion is not really relevant to this campaign or the sound DVD.

Crowd funding started as a good idea. Helping artists who can't afford to fund their projects to bring their projects to life. It then started helping artists who could probably afford or at least have the network to make it happen and allowing them to do something some would call taking advantage of their fan base to earn funding. It has now moved to all sorts of things from buy my product before it exists and help me bring it to market to help me start my business. This has thrown a huge slap of cold water on the whole crowd funding thing for lot of people. I'm all for helping starving artists. I have no interest in helping somebody start their businesses. They should do it themselves. This is not what charity is. I have no interest in helping some well known actor to fund his pet project. I wouldn't ask for either of the above. I know it's voluntary and it's called a donation for a reason. But it's somehow based on the same premise as the case of people who stand in front of stores bagging for money and if you wait till their day is over you will see them being picked up by somebody driving a nice car. Even though this is widely known and stories like this run around, you will always find people who are still willing to volunteer cash. Basically taking advantage of human goodwill. Are there some of these people who truly need the money because they can't find a job? Sure! But the other ones destroy it for all of them.

The problem is that this is destroying crowd funding for the people who really need it. I would hope these crowd funding sites would develop common rules to avoid this to happen. But as they make money from the amounts and the higher the amount the more money they make, I doubt they will.

Like I said, it has nothing directly to do with this particular campaign.
 
Commercial and non-commercial funding initiatives are capable of co-existing in the same domain without detriment to either. People (e.g. those visiting Kickstarter) have different interests and motivations. The same person may be capable of funding both a new creative work like a film (because she loves zombie films) as well as a 3-D printer project (because she would like a low-cost 3-D printer). In fact there may be a symbiosis of sorts that leads to an increase in funding for projects due to the existence of other projects that lead the funders to the site to begin with.
 
Yes but maybe to the detriment of both. The clear message of a dance company looking to fund a new season, or an entrepreneur seeking funding to prototype a device are essentially different. The dance is ethereal and impermanent and has value to those who perform it, experience it and then it is gone. The benefit of the prototype lives on in products present and future and stands to make money.

That's why it would be so beneficial for the JOBs act micro financing aspects to be implemented by the SEC, so that we can separate these two disparate things, donations and investment.

I would LOVE to be able to make a pitch for micro finance investment in a movie instead of asking for donations or chasing around rich people to invest.
 
hscully said:
Yes but maybe to the detriment of both. The clear message of a dance company looking to fund a new season, or an entrepreneur seeking funding to prototype a device are essentially different. The dance is ethereal and impermanent and has value to those who perform it, experience it and then it is gone. The benefit of the prototype lives on in products present and future and stands to make money.

That's why it would be so beneficial for the JOBs act micro financing aspects to be implemented by the SEC, so that we can separate these two disparate things, donations and investment.

I would LOVE to be able to make a pitch for micro finance investment in a movie instead of asking for donations or chasing around rich people to invest.
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I disagree. You cannot do charities on Kickstarter or say you are donating money to a charity. So people give "rewards". If you are doing a dance company you will probably give tickets out as "rewards". Tickets to a dance show are no less concrete than a 3d printer. It's a thing of value for sure. Or they might give you a download to a video of the show. Again, no less concerte than a subscription to Netflix.

What would tickets to teh Super Bowl be worth? Are they "ethereal"? It's the same as tickets to a dance show or whatever reward they are giving away, it's not going to be charity it's going to be something of value to the person that "donates" to get it. In fact he kickstarter rules make it concrete. You must provide a product or service. You cannot ask for funds simply to start a business and not offer a product or service. You can't say, give me money to start a dance theater company and your reward is good feelings.
 
I also disagree. After going on kickstarter for the first time to support this campaign, I browsed the site a bit and ended up funding two other business ventures because I wanted the product and get the benefit of a big discount for getting in early. Feeling magnamanious I also funded three art projects because they were projects that the world is lacking right now and I have a bit of cash leftover after getting a really good deal on a mattebox. The film I funded is offering gifts that are well short of the price of the donation so is definitely charity. I suspect you are speaking quite accurately for yourself but perhaps not for others.
 
Egg Born Son said:
I also disagree. After going on kickstarter for the first time to support this campaign, I browsed the site a bit and ended up funding two other business ventures because I wanted the product and get the benefit of a big discount for getting in early. Feeling magnamanious I also funded three art projects because they were projects that the world is lacking right now and I have a bit of cash leftover after getting a really good deal on a mattebox. The film I funded is offering gifts that are well short of the price of the donation so is definitely charity. I suspect you are speaking quite accurately for yourself but perhaps not for others.
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Free Market price is what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller. If you were willing to pay for those rewards, and the founder of the kickstarter was willing to give them to you for that price, that's what they are worth.

If it's a Tshirt with the movie poster on it, and you think the film maker deserves to make his movie so you're willing to buy the Tshirt for 500 bucks, then that's what that Tshirt is worth. It's just semantics if you want to say you paid for a 20 dollar Tshirt and gave 480 as a "donation". Unless you get nothing you 're not donating, you're purchasing a service or product and it's worth exactly what you are willing to pay for it.

At one time people that were collectors paid 500 dollars or more for beanie babies. They are small teddy bears. Now you can get them for 20 bucks. When the people bought them for 500 bucks, that's what they were worth even though they were the exact same 2 dollars worth of fabric and stuffing as they are today.

What a consumer tells themselves in their mind when they buy something is irrelevant to what something is worth.
 
David Jimerson said:
Customers in general overwhelmingly prefer downloads to physical DVDs. When directly given a choice, over 90% went for downloads, and there was even a period where we were selling Lighting DVDs at a substantial discount to burn through stock, and more people were still going for the more expensive downloads. Physical disc still has its stalwarts (I'm kind of one myself), but the market spoke with a clear voice.
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Since you've run the numbers and I have not, I cede the point. I guess I just find it hard to believe that there is so little interest in something that I personally find very interesting and desirable - sound II as you've outlined the content. But numbers don't lie. I'll chalk it up to "it's a strange world out there".
 
Gillvane said:
Free Market price is what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller. If you were willing to pay for those rewards, and the founder of the kickstarter was willing to give them to you for that price, that's what they are worth.

If it's a Tshirt with the movie poster on it, and you think the film maker deserves to make his movie so you're willing to buy the Tshirt for 500 bucks, then that's what that Tshirt is worth. It's just semantics if you want to say you paid for a 20 dollar Tshirt and gave 480 as a "donation". Unless you get nothing you 're not donating, you're purchasing a service or product and it's worth exactly what you are willing to pay for it.

At one time people that were collectors paid 500 dollars or more for beanie babies. They are small teddy bears. Now you can get them for 20 bucks. When the people bought them for 500 bucks, that's what they were worth even though they were the exact same 2 dollars worth of fabric and stuffing as they are today.

What a consumer tells themselves in their mind when they buy something is irrelevant to what something is worth.
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In case it wasn't clear I was disagreeing with the premise 'of the detriment of both' from the previous post to say that both views can coexist on the same platform. While I don't disagree with your analysis there (which is a slightly different topic) I do feel differently. While what you say is fundamentally true it is not how I characterise my decisions or view the world.

In my mind crowdfunding is the solution to the firefly problem. It is not about value for money. It's not even about money. It is about the consumer having input, something lost in the increasingly broken model of capitalism in the modern world. The movie I pledged to is not worth what I paid to get my copy. The excess is charity or my expression of desire that this particular movie and it's motivations for being created be foisted upon the world. It is about having two votes instead of one. It's not about money other than that money buys me a second vote.

And this is where I personally failed Sound II. I pledged to the Kickstarter discount price. I thought this was a sure thing so didn't pay too much attention to the campaign post-pledge. Had I realised it was struggling I would have pledged at least $100 to make it happen. Not value for me but it gives me two votes with my wallet to say the world could benefit from this product, this production model, invest/give back to the people making it (who have given tirelessly to our community in other ways) and a myriad of other reasoning. Charity in and of itself rarely serves purposes greater than feeling better about yourself or imposing your will in some small measure on the world so it is entirely selfish but others can benefit.

On the other hand my pledge to the 3D printer that Barry brought to my attention in another thread gets me a 3D printer that is essentially a toy for half price for my early pledge which is an economic decision. So both philanthropic, fan desire-driven, and purely business orientated models can all function alongside each other on this funding model, even in the same pledger(pledgee?). In the five kickstarters I have now contributed to, all three motivations I mention have been addressed. In itself it's just a platform for funding. The users on both sides determine what anything else means. Crowdfunding just brings both parties together. Nothing more.
 
David, I just happened upon this thread. I don't know about the first DVD but after reading the second DVDs topic list, it looked like a great product. After reading the entire thread, my take on this is your experience gave you a snapshot of market demand but was it a true snapshot of the entire market?

It would seem to me that a KS prefunding campaign is a very limited snapshot of the market. I am not trying encourage behavior either way but from my perspective, peoples raising monies on the interwebs is kind of just pretend compared to real life. In other words it is very easy to disregard or not take seriously because at its core, the very existence of the campaign demonstrates the lack of confidence of the producing entity in the product. This is not any reflection or judgment on you, just my opinion. Would it be convenient if you received all of your orders before your project? Yes. Is that very likely in ay business situation? Not in my experience without a more closed, well known smaller group of people.

I think your approach is very valid IF you KNOW you have reached a majority of possible buyers. Otherwise you have killed your project on limited market data. I hear you as many here (because we are in the same industry) on the yawn of demand and competing with free etc... Maybe a lowering of production costs could be a way forward? The internet and the world today offer so many choices that many make no choice and just watch. But those same people might still buy your DVD because the content is strong.

Frustrating... Best of luck!
 
Thanks, Bassman.

I hate to keep coming back to this, but we approached this Kickstarter in exactly the same way we've approached every other product launch and pre-sale. We alerted all of the same people and did things the same way. The other product launches and pre-sales were all quite successful, more than enough to get this off the ground if it aroused the same interest. It simply didn't.

I confess, I was surprised that it did so poorly. I didn't know if it was going to succeed, but I didn't expect the yawn it actually got (others said privately they were surprised, too) -- because as OldCorpse said, I did hope for some of the goodwill we should have built up (and that some people showed). As we said right in the campaign itself, we were trying to build on a sense of community. But that's not something we're entitled to, so it is what it is.

It not so much that the Kickstarter wasn't successful, it's how dismally it failed, and the tumbleweeds which bounced by while it was going on, which tell me that the market is simply not there. I don't want to say that "nobody" cares, because obviously some people do, but in the scheme of things, not nearly enough.

Which, again, simply says it's time to move on to other things.
 
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