Seeking advice: Kickstarter film project likely gone forever

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

That said: If you promise and fail to deliver, your days of getting crowd or venture funded are over.

The problem with this type of story, is that as time goes on, there may be more similar stories, and so, people will start to not donate, or even with some of the services where there is the potential for profit, not participate due to these types of stories.

I would do a Kickstarter project when I have something more lined up than I do now... but by the time I get there... jokers will have poisoned the well...

So, yeah, I would like more people to view their Kickstarter project as an actual 'business', and deliver on the promised promo items as part of that 'business' discipline.

 

[sb2012]

If anything, it's my fault I chose the people I chose to work with. I think if I had chosen better people, maybe it would have gotten done much sooner, but instead I chose an editor who's got way too much emotional baggage, economic issues, and a haphazard schedule. We were meeting one-two times a month to work on this because of my full time schedule and his freelance schedule. It's also my fault that I decided to do this project during the year I had my first child on top of school on top of a full time job. It's not like I've been sitting at home all this time, letting time pass by.

That's what I'm guilty of. But I can tell you that if I were a skilled editor and had final cut, then I would have done all of post by myself in two months time.

 

[ugafan]

it's very clear that the editor, the location owner, the lead actor's manager, the geek squad people, the guy that invested the $200 dollars, and the one year old baby are the ones to blame here.

 

[abreu-canedo]

This is really non of my business. But I felt compelled to chime in because I feel kinda bad for you. Not in a patronizing or belittling way, but in an empathetic way. But perhaps not for the obvious reason.

So yeah, these things happen. Even if you take it as seriously as a business investment, some business investments go south. And while I think that the kickstarter well has already been poisoned to a large extent, there is also the fact that people invest speculatively. Just like in a business. You can invest in the chance that you will get rewards, but part of the bylaws and premise of Kickstarter is that people are investing in a speculative manner and they are not bound by a contract to receive anything in return...no matter what people say on their pitch.

Of course, transparency, commitment and accountability should be exercised in all areas of life, so in your case too you should hold yourself accountable and try to amend a situation that you are at the helm of.

I can't imagine trying to do anything else if I had a child, school and a full time job. However, none of that is why I felt like stepping into this thread.

The reason why I feel bad for you is because you may be overlooking a real learning opportunity here. Throughout this whole thing you keep coming back to saying that if only you were a skilled editor non of this would have happened. Or if only you hadn't chosen this guy, non of this would've happened. And while it is subtle what your statements imply, what they imply is a side-stepping and shifting of responsibility. It is easy to say the words "it's my fault and I'll take responsibility". But the way you keep posting makes it seems like you are not understanding exactly HOW it is your responsibility and what exactly you did to cause this. and if you don't understand some basic concepts, you might continue to repeat your mistakes.

-Once you chose to get a project of the ground, direct it, raise funds for it, you are putting yourself at the top of the chain of command. You are now responsible for the actions of everyone you employ in your enterprise (even if they are not getting paid), and it is YOU who is accountable to your investors.
-You clearly rushed into something and by doing so you set yourself and all your collaborators and investors for failure. Forgive me if this sounds harsh, but you didn't fail because you are busy and because your editor is homeless (my words, not yours). You failed because you didn't do your research, you did not strategically plan duties, timelines, or even research into the people whom you invited to collaborate with you. The things to do to set you up for success are to numerous to explain here.

There are plenty of really valuable lessons for you to take from this. My fear is that you are so caught up in not losing face and telling everyone that it is your editors fault, that you may not take the time to really dissect this process and to use this as an opportunity to ask the right questions.

Forgive ve me if this sounds harsh. I am not attempting to scold you or anything. I think it it is really brave of you to dive in the way you did. Ok, so now you know you have Braveness (or whatever). What other skills and knowledges do you need to get now in order to achieve your filmmaking goals?

Good luck with your future projects and all the best

 

[silyn]

Your story here.

What I wrote is the difference between your actual post here, and an alternative version that said: "Hey, guys! A while back I funded my first film via Kickstarter! Friends and family (and even a few strangers—hey!) helped out. Here's the link on vimeo!"

You see? You asked for funds in good faith and got them. You mismanaged your time, money and trust and now you've got this story here. It's really OK. It was great that you had the steam to try and create something. Really. But now that it didn't work out you need to take responsibility for your actions and not feel sad. It's a pretty cheap life lesson.

Obviously I have nothing agains your person at all. But I DO take MAJOR issue with any one of the million Kickstarter campaigns that write sobbing posts about bad luck, a tragic thing in the family, how they were let down by partners, were too optimistic, became overwhelmed, are just plain sorry....

Kickstarter isn't business Kindergarten. It's real peoples money. Treat it as such.

+3

 

[sb2012]

Well today, I decided to reach out to the editor after he didn't return my calls/texts for past two months. He kept apologizing non stop, told me he got caught up with various shooting projects, etc. etc. But he did say he has the RAW undedited footage on a different hard drive but the edited version is the one that's on the drive that's been compromised.

He found a place to live which is not far from me too. He offered me a deal: Pick a day we're both off together and knock out this whole 7 minute film in 12-14 hours, from scratch. A brand new edit. We don't leave until it's done.

Or I could just call it a day, put some of the raw footage on a dvd and give that to the backers, explaining what happened to the project.

What do you guys think?

 

[Mark Williams]

I would finish the project with the best effort you can muster. You have a 2nd chance to make things right. That is a rare opportunity.

 

[sb2012]

I would finish the project with the best effort you can muster. You have a 2nd chance to make things right. That is a rare opportunity.

True, I just hope this is the end of the back and forth stuff with him. I know its not intentional and that life can be rough and all. But it sounds like he's settled now.

 

[sb2012]

This is really non of my business. But I felt compelled to chime in because I feel kinda bad for you. Not in a patronizing or belittling way, but in an empathetic way. But perhaps not for the obvious reason.

So yeah, these things happen. Even if you take it as seriously as a business investment, some business investments go south. And while I think that the kickstarter well has already been poisoned to a large extent, there is also the fact that people invest speculatively. Just like in a business. You can invest in the chance that you will get rewards, but part of the bylaws and premise of Kickstarter is that people are investing in a speculative manner and they are not bound by a contract to receive anything in return...no matter what people say on their pitch.

Of course, transparency, commitment and accountability should be exercised in all areas of life, so in your case too you should hold yourself accountable and try to amend a situation that you are at the helm of.

I can't imagine trying to do anything else if I had a child, school and a full time job. However, none of that is why I felt like stepping into this thread.

The reason why I feel bad for you is because you may be overlooking a real learning opportunity here. Throughout this whole thing you keep coming back to saying that if only you were a skilled editor non of this would have happened. Or if only you hadn't chosen this guy, non of this would've happened. And while it is subtle what your statements imply, what they imply is a side-stepping and shifting of responsibility. It is easy to say the words "it's my fault and I'll take responsibility". But the way you keep posting makes it seems like you are not understanding exactly HOW it is your responsibility and what exactly you did to cause this. and if you don't understand some basic concepts, you might continue to repeat your mistakes.

-Once you chose to get a project of the ground, direct it, raise funds for it, you are putting yourself at the top of the chain of command. You are now responsible for the actions of everyone you employ in your enterprise (even if they are not getting paid), and it is YOU who is accountable to your investors.
-You clearly rushed into something and by doing so you set yourself and all your collaborators and investors for failure. Forgive me if this sounds harsh, but you didn't fail because you are busy and because your editor is homeless (my words, not yours). You failed because you didn't do your research, you did not strategically plan duties, timelines, or even research into the people whom you invited to collaborate with you. The things to do to set you up for success are to numerous to explain here.

There are plenty of really valuable lessons for you to take from this. My fear is that you are so caught up in not losing face and telling everyone that it is your editors fault, that you may not take the time to really dissect this process and to use this as an opportunity to ask the right questions.

Forgive ve me if this sounds harsh. I am not attempting to scold you or anything. I think it it is really brave of you to dive in the way you did. Ok, so now you know you have Braveness (or whatever). What other skills and knowledges do you need to get now in order to achieve your filmmaking goals?

Good luck with your future projects and all the best

I understand what you're saying about me at the helm, hence the responsibility is on me. Okay, that makes sense looking at it that way. But I just want to say that I did my best in regards to prep work. I did my first short without the help of Kickstarter, all I paid for was food. I made a lot of mistakes on that one, but that was a big learning experience for me. So I came back in for round two, taking what I learned. I actually had everything lined up for this one. This cinematographer is actually close friends with the one I used for the first short, I've seen his work on Youtube and being that it was from a credible source, I thought I made a good choice.

But, unexpected things happened (the location owner, the lead actor's manager) that were out of my control whereas the first time around, the mistakes were more directly associated/caused by me. Then I had to deal with this editor's crazy schedule and mine (all out of my control).

FYI to the other poster, I'm not saying that my 1 year old is to blame for anything. I'm just putting it out there that I've been a busy person (being a father, going to work, trying to provide, going to school to advance myself, etc.) and haven't been just sitting on my butt playing video games, putting this project off because I feel like it. That's all I'm saying.

 

[David W. Richardson]

You never really say what the location owner did that caused a problem. Or what the lead actor's manager did. How, exactly, did these two people cause you trouble?

Did you have a signed location agreement with the location owner?

Did you have a signed contract with the actor?

If the answer to these questions is 'No', then you didn't do your job.

You are the producer. As such you have many jobs. Some of them are tedious, like getting all your paperwork straight. These jobs aren't as much fun as shooting, directing, etc. But without them, there is chaos.

One of your biggest jobs as producer is anticipating any possible thing that can go wrong, and planning for it. Is one of your shooting days outdoors? Then you have a fall-back plan in case of bad weather. Is someone else editing the footage? Then you make sure you make copies of ALL the footage and keep them, before you let that person have the media. We just did a short pitch trailer. Before I let my DP/Editor have the footage, I made a copy of it all to my hard drive, a second hard drive, and sent a 3rd copy to the director for safe keeping. Never, ever, EVER have only a single copy in a single place -- or even 50 copies in a single place. Fires happen. Computer crashes happen. Redundancy is what saves your bacon.

Back in the days of shooting on MiniDV tape, I hired a guy to DP and edit a short film. Before he headed back to Atlanta, I made copies of all the tapes. Good thing I did. He never did get around to editing the film, and completely disappeared on me. Later I learned he wiped the tapes and used them on another shoot! (He did the same thing on a FEATURE a few years later!)

Maybe directing is what you want to do. That's fine. Find someone qualified to produce, and give them the power to do the job right.

But in this case, YOU were the producer. Every person involved was there because YOU hired them. If they turned out to be lousy, it was YOUR responsibility to find out how they performed on other shoots -- not just look at a demo reel (always ONLY the very BEST stuff of that person -- and sometimes not even THEIR stuff) and take another person's word for it.

In all of this, I haven't heard a single word mentioned about everyone else who came and worked hard for you and gave of their time and talents to try to help you make something great. They deserved to have their work seen. Now all their effort and commitment has been wasted. And that is YOUR responsibility, no one else's. At least have some respect for those people. All you seem to care about is the investors. Your cast and crew invested far more than anyone who just wrote out a check.

If you want to continue in this business, then my advice would be to find a good producer who is undertaking a short film project and work for him or her for FREE. Get in there and LEARN what real producing is all about. It's not fun, it's not easy, it's not glamorous. It's tedious, it's exhausting and it's usually a thankless job. At least it has been for me. But NOBODY makes a film with any degree of professional quality to it without a great producer -- someone who is focused, detail-oriented, tireless, and who can see the big picture.

Like I said, if all you want to do is direct, then stop producing your own films. Find someone who will do it for you and do it right. Then give them control and don't fight them.

Or you can go back to writing, which you seem more comfortable with.

But yeah, everyone who invested -- whether it was money or time and talent -- deserves to get something back.

 

[David W. Richardson]

One other thing on the subject of producing...

A good producer has one primary rule -- ALWAYS hire the best, most talented, best trained and most experienced person you can afford for EVERY job, whether it be in front of or behind the camera.

And don't tell me "I didn't have any money to pay people, so I had to take what I could get." That's an excuse. If you have a strong, powerful script and are passionate about it and committed to bringing it to life with excellence, professionalism and the best production values you can squeeze out of every dollar, then people will bend over backwards to work on your project, even if only for meals, credit and copy. Which doesn't mean you should take them for granted. You should ALWAYS pay them whatever you can. But you can get really good people -- don't just settle for whoever comes along.

 

[Gillvane]

Since then I decided to go back to my roots and stick to writing fiction and getting into the publishing world. I've been much happier and stress-free ever since because I can be my own boss of literally everything.

Others have covered everything about your kickstarter. I just wanted to commend you on writing instead of making short films.

Be sure to check out beat sheets if you haven't already. here's an example:
https://timstout.wordpress.com/story-structure/blake-snyders-beat-sheet/

And here's the beat sheets applied to popular movies:
http://www.savethecat.com/category/beat-sheet

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Well today, I decided to reach out to the editor after he didn't return my calls/texts for past two months. He kept apologizing non stop, told me he got caught up with various shooting projects, etc. etc. But he did say he has the RAW undedited footage on a different hard drive but the edited version is the one that's on the drive that's been compromised.

He found a place to live which is not far from me too. He offered me a deal: Pick a day we're both off together and knock out this whole 7 minute film in 12-14 hours, from scratch. A brand new edit. We don't leave until it's done.

Step 1) Agree to meet and actually meet.
Step 2) Before any 'work' or anything, backup the original media to a hardddrive in your possession.
Step 3) Since you already have had an edit, you may find the second round is quicker, especially if you do not reevaluate the world.
Step 4) Copy all edit files/projects, etc. to your drive.
Step 5) Publish your short, submit to fests, honor your Kickstarter offerings, and move on with life.

 

[David W. Richardson]

Step 1) Agree to meet and actually meet.
Step 2) Before any 'work' or anything, backup the original media to a hardddrive in your possession.
Step 3) Since you already have had an edit, you may find the second round is quicker, especially if you do not reevaluate the world.
Step 4) Copy all edit files/projects, etc. to your drive.
Step 5) Publish your short, submit to fests, honor your Kickstarter offerings, and move on with life.

I agree with ALL of this, except I highly doubt this guy is going to produce much in the way of a halfway decent edit in 12-14 hours.

What does he intend to edit on? Does he have a working computer with editing software on it? What software will he be using? If he doesn't get a completed edit -- a GOOD one -- done in the 12-14 hours, then what? All the work he's done will only be of use to you if you have his NLE's project files and you have access to the same NLE yourself. Otherwise, you're starting from scratch again.

This guy doesn't have a good track record. He's had -- or at least claimed to have had -- problems with his PC which could recur and corrupt this drive with the raw files on it.

If it were me, I'd take the drive with the raw files and copy them to my own drive, giving him his drive back. DO NOT let this guy so much as attach the drive with the raw files to HIS computer until YOU have obtained a copy of those files -- a copy made on a different computer. After all, his could have a virus, which might then transfer to YOUR computer. Even if it doesn't, whatever caused the first failure could happen again. Don't risk it! At the very least, take a laptop -- or even a netbook -- and an external USB hard drive with you and copy the files from his hard drive to yours BEFORE anything else is done.

Then make redundant backups of ALL the files, keeping at least one backup off-site.

THEN I'd find someone else to do the edit. I just feel it's too risky to trust this guy again.

This all goes back to one of the most important jobs of a producer -- anticipating anything that could possibly go wrong, and having a contingency plan to recover from it. Don't simply trust that everything will be fine. Plan ahead to minimize your risk.

I hope you do get your raw footage files and are able to get a decent edit from it. Best of luck!

 

[Jaime Valles]

Step 1) Agree to meet and actually meet.
Step 2) Before any 'work' or anything, backup the original media to a hardddrive in your possession.
Step 3) Since you already have had an edit, you may find the second round is quicker, especially if you do not reevaluate the world.
Step 4) Copy all edit files/projects, etc. to your drive.
Step 5) Publish your short, submit to fests, honor your Kickstarter offerings, and move on with life.

I agree with ALL of this, except I highly doubt this guy is going to produce much in the way of a halfway decent edit in 12-14 hours.

What does he intend to edit on? Does he have a working computer with editing software on it? What software will he be using? If he doesn't get a completed edit -- a GOOD one -- done in the 12-14 hours, then what? All the work he's done will only be of use to you if you have his NLE's project files and you have access to the same NLE yourself. Otherwise, you're starting from scratch again.

This guy doesn't have a good track record. He's had -- or at least claimed to have had -- problems with his PC which could recur and corrupt this drive with the raw files on it.

If it were me, I'd take the drive with the raw files and copy them to my own drive, giving him his drive back. DO NOT let this guy so much as attach the drive with the raw files to HIS computer until YOU have obtained a copy of those files -- a copy made on a different computer. After all, his could have a virus, which might then transfer to YOUR computer. Even if it doesn't, whatever caused the first failure could happen again. Don't risk it! At the very least, take a laptop -- or even a netbook -- and an external USB hard drive with you and copy the files from his hard drive to yours BEFORE anything else is done.

Then make redundant backups of ALL the files, keeping at least one backup off-site.

THEN I'd find someone else to do the edit. I just feel it's too risky to trust this guy again.

This all goes back to one of the most important jobs of a producer -- anticipating anything that could possibly go wrong, and having a contingency plan to recover from it. Don't simply trust that everything will be fine. Plan ahead to minimize your risk.

I hope you do get your raw footage files and are able to get a decent edit from it. Best of luck!

I agree with pretty much everything written in these two posts. That said, if the editor wants to do it, and you can both meet up someplace and bang it out in a day or two, then great. But DON'T EDIT ANYTHING until you've made a backup or two of the raw footage.

 

[IronFilm]

Well today, I decided to reach out to the editor after he didn't return my calls/texts for past two months. He kept apologizing non stop, told me he got caught up with various shooting projects, etc. etc. But he did say he has the RAW undedited footage on a different hard drive but the edited version is the one that's on the drive that's been compromised.

He found a place to live which is not far from me too. He offered me a deal: Pick a day we're both off together and knock out this whole 7 minute film in 12-14 hours, from scratch. A brand new edit. We don't leave until it's done.

Or I could just call it a day, put some of the raw footage on a dvd and give that to the backers, explaining what happened to the project.

What do you guys think?

Do it. Grab it with both hands, and do it.
Doesn't matter if at the end of the 14hrs it isn't what you hoped it to be, at least you've now have a finished product.

Make sure you set appropriate deadlines too, such as: 4hrs to get the first rough cut done (yes, you'll need to move very very fast if you want to get it all finished in a day! So only allowing 4hrs for the first rough cut), 6hrs in to do the final polish tweaks to the edit, 9hrs in for sound, 10hrs in for music, 12hrs in for the colour grading. And you'll probably easily blow an extra couple of hours somewhere, even if it just on meals/breaks. Thus presto, your edit took 14hrs!

And what the other guys said: back ups, back ups, back ups!

 

[David W. Richardson]

Doesn't matter if at the end of the 14hrs it isn't what you hoped it to be, at least you've now have a finished product.

Look, you have the footage. So you have the opportunity to end up with a GREAT edit, rather than one thrown together in a rush. Isn't that really what you want? Don't the people who worked for you deserve that?

Don't just settle for whatever you can get just to be done with it. Turn a copy of the footage over to a good editor who is going to take whatever time it needs to get you a great edit of your film. This is your chance to be a GOOD producer, not just an adequate one.