Crowdsourcing & Film

I don't have any experience when it comes to crowdsourcing for a film, however I've seen it done a lot by other people. Usually for small independent films or even fan films. One of the biggest pros to crowdsourcing with film is that it allows creative experienced or inexperienced filmmakers a chance to produce a film that they want to see without having to get a studio involved. All you need is the equipment, the cast and crew, as well as the knowledge.

That being said, it's still very hard to get a project running and off  the ground. You have to market and share like crazy online with friends and family to even come close to meeting the target goal. Usually these films don't have a large enough audience to reach their goals.

As I've stated many times before, I'm a big Star Wars fan, and I've seen a couple Star Wars fan films pop up here and there on kickstarter.com. This is kind of a tricky scenario because licensed IPs are owned by large corporations and if they want to they can easily shutdown any unauthorized/unlicensed person or studio who wants to make a fan film. Most of the time, they are pretty lenient and actually encourage people to be creative and make fan films, however, they do not allow you to make money off of them and that's where crowdsourcing can be a tricky situation. I can easily see a situation where a fan film has reached its target goal on kickstarter but the studio ends up pocketing the cash and not actually finishing their project. I  can't imagine this happens often but it is a possible problem. These are the kinds of people that ruin it for others and make independent filmmakers more untrustworthy.

All in all, I really like the idea of crowdsourcing and what it can accomplish. It has a lot of potential and it can really make things easier for people who wish to try their hand at filming. However, I also understand that it's not always an easy thing to do and that there can be many complications that involve the people involved with the projects, especially inexperienced ones. You are 100% reliant on whether you reach that target goal and if you don't then your project is doomed. At least they are given the opportunity though.