Indiegogo’s UK Film & Creative Miranda Fleming Reveals Crowdfunding Secrets at Aesthetica Short Film Festival

Offering up some advice on how to receive crowdfunding success, award-winning producer and UK film and creative at Indiegogo, Miranda Fleming sat down with Aesthetica Short Film Festival to discuss key strategies to earning the cash filmmakers need for their projects.

indiegogoDuring her interview, Fleming revealed why crowdfunding is so important:

“Crowdfunding in film not only empowers the filmmakers of today to fund their shorts and/or feature films but it also gives them a real way of building an audience for their film. Filmmakers increasingly hear about how they need to grow their audience from concept of idea, and this is an extremely effective way to do that. It’s important today because it sits in the eco system of new models of film financing and distribution.

 

“If a filmmaker is going to take on more innovative and cost effective ways of distributing their films, they need funding and also data to access their fans. If a film is releasing theatrically or on VOD, a filmmaker can e-mail their crowd/audience (which they found through crowdfunding) and ask them to actively help marketing their film. This is hugely powerful since the crowdfunding and distribution can be 18 months apart – the filmmaker can ask their funder to remain active throughout their release strategy.”

Sharing details about her position with the crowdfunding giant, Fleming explained:

Miranda Fleming“I am here to support film and creative campaigns. Filmmakers shouldn’t simply put up a campaign with the press of a button. There is some real work and planning that must be done. I am here to help with that. I can take a look at elements of each individual film and give advice and guidance to the filmmaker as to how best strengthen these elements for crowdfunding. A UK filmmaker’s ultimate goal is to find their global audience on Indiegogo and this takes time and thinking.”

Also noting what it takes for a campaign to become success, Fleming stated:

“Perks, personalization and pitch. Those are three key elements. Perks need to be creative and reflect the tone and creativity of the filmmaker. Personalization is about the person driving the crowdfunding campaign and thereby getting at the front of it and stating their request and reasons for funding. This personalization can drip feed itself throughout the campaign elements, e.g. if you have an interesting person who is acting in the film or is the subject of a documentary, ask them to personalize some of the perks – sign a DVD of one of their films, or sign the DVD for this film. No campaign works without a good pitch film too.

 

Film“My favorite one from last year was Window Horses – after watching this, why wouldn’t you pull out £20 for the filmmaker?! You need to leave plenty of time to set up your social media channels – Facebook is still really effective and larger campaigns need to be thinking about setting these up at least three months before they launch a crowdfunding campaign.

 

“Short films can fully fund themselves through a crowd found online. My favourite example of last year was Horse Called OzThe fact that they got funding of almost £9,000 in six weeks was amazing. On top of this, in their last week, two funders in the United States picked up the two Executive Producer credits for £1,000 each. These filmmakers now have two US investors who, I presume, will continue to track their films and their career. That’s empowering.”

In regards to any projects that stood out in 2014, Fleming added:

“Projects that stood out in 2014 include short film Simon’s Cat, which raised £310,000 (YouTube creators with strong fanbase), drama Little Favour, which raised £90,000 (it did star Benedict Cumberbatch) and lastly A Horse Called Oz, which raised £9,000 (with no stars attached).”

 


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