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Filmmakers Using Tiered Support Levels And Fan Support As Well

from the and-on-it-goes dept

Wed, Aug 26th 2009 8:23pm — Mike Masnick

I have to admit, these days, we're getting overwhelmed with people submitting really cool, unique and fun business models being done by various creative folks. I simply can't post all of them, but will try to dip in and post a few examples here and there. Scott Walker points us to some info on a "crowd-sourced" film called Artemis Eternal, where they're offering various tiers of support -- similar to what we've seen with Josh Freese, Jill Sobule and others. But, since this is a movie, rather than music, the things you can get are even more integrated into the movie -- such as the ability to appear in the movie itself, including the marketing of the movie (being on a billboard for a month in LA) among other things. Of course, with something like this, you'd have to imagine there's a risk that the movie never actually gets completed, so it's a bit more difficult to pull it off. But, still, should be a model worth watching to see what happens.

Also in the movie space, Joshua Jones sent in (a while back now, sorry) the fact that the folks behind the movie Visioneers took a different sort of approach as well. Rather than freaking out about "piracy" or people watching the movie in their homes, they realized that obscurity was a much bigger problem than "piracy." So they asked people to host their own screenings -- and even said it was fine for you to charge people to attend. Oh, and if you sent in photos of the screening, you had a chance to win a contest. Again, this isn't a huge step, but it is a neat little promotion, showing that there are unique ways to get some additional attention for your creative efforts, and have the fans help you in the process.

Filed Under: movies, tiers

15 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2009 @ 8:37pm

When artistic decisions about a movie are made not on the basis of what is right for the movie and made on the basis of who is willing to pay to be in it, it seems a little bit like a losing battle. The idea should be to make the best film possible. Compromise the product, and all the gorilla marketing in the world won't help if the movie isn't as good as it could be.
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- Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2009 @ 10:15pm
  
  Re:
  I'm gonna market me some gorillas!
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- hegemon13, 27 Aug 2009 @ 7:22am
  
  Re:
  Those so-called "artistic" decisions are already being made by those willing to pay for it. They're called "producers." Or haven't you seen a movie in the last twenty years? There is very little "art" on display as it is.
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Thomas (profile), 26 Aug 2009 @ 8:58pm

As expected ..
I clicked on the one comment so far thinking "This is going to be some AC crapping on the concept or calling Mike a doodie-head." Yup.
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Thomas (profile), 26 Aug 2009 @ 9:11pm

...
Oh, and it's "guerrilla" marketing .. If gorillas were better at marketing, maybe they wouldn't be endangered.
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2009 @ 4:02am
  
  Re: ...
  Hey Thomas, whatever. The point stands. When they start selling your artistic vision out by allowing anyone with a wallet to appear in your movie, they have already failed.
  
  As the other AC said, a million Masnick Bobble heads...
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Thomas (profile), 26 Aug 2009 @ 9:43pm

...
Oh, and while we're on the subject .. Who says figuring out a way for a contributor to appear in the movie or in the marketing material for the movie has to "compromise" the product? Advertising is content, and content is advertising. But that doesn't work for you "All or Nothing" guys, does it?
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2009 @ 10:24pm

No name people attempt to make no budget, no name short film that no one cares about and a million Masnick Bobble Heads immediately start chanting "success!" as if somebody pressed their "ON" button.

Same old, same old...
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- Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2009 @ 11:46pm
  
  Re:
  Hmm, someone with zero reputation, zero funding and zero audience manages to pull all of the above out of his ass through creativity.
  
  And of course, a million Anonymous Shills immediately start chanting "loser" as if somebody pressed the "ATTACK" button.
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Ernst Kaufmann, 26 Aug 2009 @ 10:36pm

Mike - can you start a database (or simply even a page with a list) of all these responses?
It could serve as a repository of all those that have managed to use non-scarce goods to sell scarce goods/services.
This could serve as 1. an inspiration (or contact points) for others seeking to do the same 2. a demonstration to nay-sayers that this is a viable model - and that not everyone has to "sell t-shirts."
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Another AC, 27 Aug 2009 @ 5:12am

Lol Masnick bobbleheads
I'd buy one.
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EEJ (profile), 27 Aug 2009 @ 7:27am

TROJAN!
I clicked on the link labelled "appear in the movie itself" which leads to www.jessicastover.com/entry.php?id=1207 and was redirected to some gobbledygook site (gkhgkjd or something) and received a "you're infected with spyware" pop-up that tried to run a "virus scan" and then got trojan horse warnings from my antivirus.

Can someone check this out and see what the deal is???
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Thomas (profile), 27 Aug 2009 @ 7:46am

Yeah
Because movies are about nothing but "art."
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Scott Walker, 27 Aug 2009 @ 3:18pm

Here's a good/safe link for Artemis Eternal
http://artemiseternal.com/

The first entry discusses the tiered offering...no security warnings.

I have no idea what's going on with the other link from Stover's blog...
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@JSto, 5 Sep 2009 @ 9:46pm

Replies
Hi, I'm the filmmaker behind ARTEMIS. You cannot pay to be in the film, sorry. I fully agree that that would be ridiculous. CRIMSON (the billboard initiative) is an ancillary project related to the WINGMEN community approach to the film, not the film itself. Artistically, when it comes to the film, we are purists and the film is not technically crowd-sourced but crowd-funded under a certain ethos. Feel free to, you know, like, check out the details of the project before you actually comment. And stuff. ;-)

As for the Spyware warning, our hosts did a scan as did we. There's no spyware on JSDC or otherwise/everything is safe. They are addressing the issue of the warning. Apologies for the confusion. Rest assured that sorting out the issue is driving me crazy and wasting much of my time.
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