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CROWDFUNDING IS THE FUTURe - by Mr Biffo

29/6/2017

24 Comments

 
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I really, really love crowdfunding. Obviously, I speak as a creator who has run a couple of successful crowdfunding campaigns, but also as somebody who has backed things that I want to exist, which would otherwise not necessarily happen.

There's something incredibly democratic about crowdfunding, but something sort of quite beautiful and inherently optimistic too. Yes, there have been crowdfunding horror stories of creators buggering off with the money, but generally... it works for everyone.

What I love about it most, as someone who has worked in film and TV, is how creators are trusted to just do their thing.

That's what you invest in when you back someone through crowdfunding; you're investing in a person, or group of people, and giving them the confidence to deliver something that is true to them. It's an amazing, selfless gesture, and - as a creator - profoundly humbling.

It allows to exist stuff that is niche, that doesn't feel the need to pander to as broad a selection of people as possible; stuff that feels more personal, not just to the creator, but to the audience.

Years ago - and we're talking two decades here - I, like many, saw working in TV or film as some sort of Holy Grail. It's incredibly hard to get into the industry, very tough to stay in, and there are days when I'm exhausted, where I question whether the rewards are always worth the effort. Since the rise of crowdfunding I've come to realise how wanting to be accepted into that club can be quite ego-driven.

​There's an unquestionable degree of looking for validation, acceptance, and being able to go to people "Oh, I work in TV actually" - simply because our society has placed the media and entertainment industries on a sort of golden pedestal.
BREAK IN
Getting that break in TV boils down to getting the thumbs up from one or two people.

Yes, it helps to have talent and ambition... but it really helps to have talent - or a style - that isn't going to rock any boats. I've forged a career out of an ability to round the edges off my true, instinctual, style and taste, to colour within the lines, and not break too many rules. No matter how much I might want to. The last 20 years has honed me into a good, reliable, writer, but it also left a part of me shackled.

Always, the decision to commission something boils down to a few people sitting in a room, discussing whether the idea you've had fits with the profile of a channel. In film, it's almost always about how much money an idea can make. The more money at stake, the more voices will chip in at a creative level.

Experimentation - the sort of thing that people with a creative itch need - is rarely welcome, because it narrows down the potential audience, and makes it harder for others to have input. Personal projects, where the creator has the final say, are scary if potential failure can reflect badly on others. It's only human, of course, to try to control or limit the risk of perceived failure, but with crowdfunding that sort of experimentation is precisely what you're investing in.

What has opened my eyes is how crowdfunding can get you the support and approval of hundreds of people, rather than just one or two, all of whom are saying "Go on - experiment... do your thing your way".

It's amazing, and once more creators wake up to this, I think it's going to become the model of the future, a real alternative to sit alongside mainstream film and TV. Funding a lot of different projects might, potentially, cost more than a TV license or Sky subscription (or maybe not), but what you get from that is designed with you in mind. 
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I'M LOVING THIS: IT
Something I'm loving at the moment is the work of Neil Blomkamp's Oats Studios. Blomkamp got his break when a short film he made led to him directing the movie District 9. From there he made Elysium and Chappie, and was scheduled to make Alien 5... until the studio backed Ridley Scott's disappointing Alien prequels instead.

Clearly singed by Hollywood, if not outright burned, Blomkamp has now gone back to his roots, and is making relatively low-budget sci-fi shorts through Oats. 

Though not crowdfunded in the sense of starting from scratch - Blomkamp had a pot of money upfront, but is also asking for donations, and is selling CGI assets via Steam - the results are clearly a creator making stuff for himself, and trusting there'll be an audience that will want to watch it.

Admittedly, that audience may not be as huge as the one that might've been there for Alien 5, but that doesn't matter. Something I've learned since starting Digitiser2000 - and lest we forget that I was resistant to crowdfunding this site initially, until you wore me down (thank you) - as well as doing Found Footage, is that the most important thing isn't necessarily the size of an audience, but its passion. 

I mean, I want Found Footage and Digi to be enjoyed by as many people as possible - but that's mainly so that I can potentially grow the pool of people who might back me in the future, so that I can do more and do it better.

I'm pretty sure that there are more than 8,000 people a week who would enjoy Digi2000, and more than 13,000 that would enjoy Found Footage if they saw it. That's the real challenge; getting the word out there. Of course, I had the misfortune to have had a profile, which diminished in the eight years I was away from the public eye...

Anyway, I really hope Blomkamp's experiment works, because it could potentially lead to other movie makers doing the same, and create a true alternative to a system that is built on compromise and trying to please everyone with a stake in it; a system that is mostly controlled by people who've careered their way up a management or production ladder.
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WRONG!
Don't get me wrong: I do love my day job - not least for the fact it pays my mortgage. I get to work with a lot of talented, creative, people, I love seeing the stuff I write get made. But like any job there are frustrations and compromises. The reality of working in the media is very different from the fantasy of it. 

So far, the crowdfunding I've been on the receiving end of - through those of you who back me on Patreon, and those who have backed me on Kickstarter - has had none of those same frustrations or compromises. If I could somehow work full-time in a crowdfunded capacity, I'd do it in a shot.

That said, it might be that what I do is too niche even for that. I mean... Found Footage is weird. And if even I think Found Footage is weird, then it's probably weirder than I perceive it as. It'll never be for someone who thinks Michael McIntyre is worth the cost of the license fee.

The downside, for me anyway, is an almost overwhelming sense of responsibility to all those who support me. I don't want to disappoint. I know it's not that different to, say, someone who runs a corner shop being supported by their customers, I suppose, but it feels different somehow. Perhaps because what I'm offering isn't a physical product as such, or perhaps because my backers have invested more than their money - they're investing their faith.

Plus, the more I unleash my imagination, the bigger my ambition gets - which is why I've now ended up funding a lot of Found Footage out of my own pocket. A lot of the Kickstarter fund went into things which are necessary, but aren't readily apparent on screen. I want to at least make it look as if all of your money is up there. I want to reward you with something that feels worth it. I want to connect and share the process with you.

When you get a TV show or film commissioned, ballsing up means you might be letting down investors or a channel, but really... there's something more remote about it, if you don't deliver. With crowdfunding, your audience are your backers, and there's direct contact. I love that side of it - for me, and I hope for those who've backed me, it feels like we're all in this together. We all want the same thing. But also, the buck stops with me more than it would with a TV commission.

I implore you, though, if there's something you love - something you think you'll get pleasure from - that is available to support through Kickstarter, or Patreon, or Indiegogo, or whatever, please consider backing it. Yes, it means laying out money... but what would you pay for a new game or a DVD that you've had no direct hand in giving birth to?

Not only will you make the creators happy, not only will you get an end product that you hopefully enjoy, but you also get the pleasure of being part of its creation, of knowing that you made it happen. It's better than making an actual baby!
THE FINALE
So... if you want to back me on Patreon, please do.

​Alternatively, you can send a one-off donation via PayPal to digitiser2000@gmail.com - which will go into the budget for the Found Footage finale, and help us pay for thing such as two nights accommodation for the cast and crew, travelling expenses for cast and crew, the two-day exclusive hire of a major filming location, van hire to get the props, set, costumes and equipment to the location, and myriad small expenses... all of which are adding up to a big chunk of money. 

100 people pledging £1 equals £100. That would almost pay for the van. Fortunately, all the writing, directing, animation and editing are done for free...!

Or if you don't want to support me, and think I'm taking the piss... here are some of the things I think you should support:
​
Our Type - a book containing the best of the legendary gaming website Way of the Rodent.

Consolevania - brand new episodes of the best video games show ever made.

Horsenburger - support the world's greatest teletext artist as he creates new images daily!

​
Chris Coltrane - the friend-of-Digi is creating political comedy for nice people!

Buh... buh-bye now!
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24 Comments
Jareth Smith
29/6/2017 11:25:52 am

Good luck, Mr. Biffo! I remember reading what I fought were the last Digitiser in March 2003 with that worm having a bad time of it, but it was a mighty pleasant jolt to see Digitiser 2000 stumble back into "da scene".

As for crowdsourcing - never done it. I might try and make my plans for Titanic 2 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger a reality with Kickstarter, though.

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Mr Biffo
29/6/2017 11:28:52 am

Cheers, ears...!

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Terragher
29/6/2017 11:29:45 am

I've crowdfunded 3 projects. Naively completely fleeced once, under-delivered (but refunded) once. And yours. It's a gamble.

Yours is the only one I don't regret. I'm learning to gamble better.

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Mr Biffo
29/6/2017 11:36:14 am

You need to back more people like me who feel an excessive sense of guilt-induced responsibility.

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Nick
29/6/2017 11:38:07 am

Lovely stuff.
I like to view crowdfunding as a bit like visiting a museum. You don't have to pay but if you've enjoyed it and would like to come back (and can afford it) it's nice to chip in a few quid.
I certainly much prefer it to any form of paywall.

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Biscuits the 'Daddy Warbucks' style philanthropist
29/6/2017 11:52:22 am

Yours remains the only project I've ever backed, and I consider it a fiver well spent already.

What I like about it is, whenever I see an update or an article like this, it really does make me think 'Hey, that thing WE're doing has got an update, alright!' - despite contributing a mere five squid. I was delighted when you posted that image showing you had bought multiple plastic arses online- I essentially contributed one of those!

The only other two I was tempted to contribute to were the Hoops Barkley sequel (fiasco, probably never happening) and a metal cylinder that cuts drugs up in an exciting way (successful, for sale and expensive), but they both wanted too much money for a pauper such as myself

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Spiney O'Sullivan
29/6/2017 01:43:37 pm

I'd forgotten about H00pz Barclay chapter 2. What's been happening with it?

Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden was a work of art.

(Also I too recently finally chipped in some money for Found Footage. Not a huge amount, but it's my first ever input to a crowdfunding project. Crowdfunding is great when it works, and a sad lesson in reality when it doesn't. My only real issue with it that is that Broken Sword 5 and Broken Age really tested my dedication to watching through the end credits. It was almost as bad as an Ubisoft game...)

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Biscuits
29/6/2017 03:24:10 pm

It pains me to say it but the last anyone heard was a tweet from one of the devs in 2016 saying that all the kickstarter money had run out, so it's probably not going anywhere...if I was a small studio with a bit of cash I would chuck it their way! They have a cult following for sure. Nobody has heard from the brilliant, enigmatic 'cboyardee' for as long, he kind of vanished with the project...

Spiney O'Sullivan
29/6/2017 04:45:22 pm

That's a shame. I was looking forward to more slamming and/or jamming.

Sadly that's always the risk with these things. I think people vastly underestimate how hard it is to make a game, and also need to understand that crowdfunding, even when started with the most genuine intentions, is a gamble, not a preorder. Crowdfunding is great, but it's opened up a sort of investing to people who often don't have the risk-taking mindset it requires. Unless there's good proof that the product is very likely to be finished, or you feel that you're paying a subscription based on a person's previous record, you should only put into crowd-funding what you wouldn't miss terribly if you dropped it down the drain tomorrow.

The backlash over Broken Age was interesting, as for the first time a lot of gamers got to sort of experience being a stakeholder in a games publisher, and ended up sympathising with Tim Schafer's ex-boss Bobby Kotick (though part of that was a Gamergate thing due to Tim Schafer going after them).

Personally I really liked Broken Age...

Darcy
29/6/2017 12:13:41 pm

Crowdfunding is great if you know the right people and/or have an established platform. A few people suggested I try it once. After six months, I had a single backer!

But then I suck at self-promotion and my writing is niche as hell (think A Midsummer Night's Dream meets Brave New World via Shin Megami Tensei). It doesn't help, of course, that writing is one of those things people like to see professionally validated - the stigma of self-publishing still lingers, even now. And I don't even write novels, which confuses EVERYBODY.

Also, a lot if people I know (including a number of artists) are generally antagonistic towards crowdfunding (REAL artists don't BEG, they WORK HARD and use their HARD EARNED MONEY to support their ambitions), so me playing the crowdfunding card didn't exactly go down well...

But yeah, when it works it's great, and if I earned more than I do, I'd be supporting way more artists than I currently am. And hopefully, in time, it will become a (socially acceptable) standard.

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Jol
29/6/2017 12:22:42 pm

A lot of crowdfunding does rely on there being an inbuilt audience for the product. I only fund a couple of things - Digi2000 and Consolevania - and that's because I was familiar with the people involved and the content they'd produced in the past. Would either of these things, in their current form, be possible without that existing audience?

Generally though I'm all for crowdfunding as it's opened up a way for certain stuff to be made that wouldn't be possible without it. It's also quite nice knowing that I'm supporting something I consider deserving and worthwile. It definitely gives me a sense of... not ownership, obviously, but maybe being part of it? Maybe it's how people feel when they join a political party, except without the shame. But hey I get to give a bit back to this thing I used to read every day for like 10 years of my school life, and I can write bullshit comments at the bottom of it!

Crowdfunding is also miles better than giving Sky £90 a month for 500 channels of shite just to watch Game of Thrones and Crystal Palace vs West Brom. It now feels like we're finally moving (slowly) to a more granular way of paying for and receiving content. A lot of this is due to broadband being so good now, as we can cut out the middle men / set top box providers and get our content online, but crucially still through our TVs. So now we can go directly to the content creator, or at least a smaller and more targeted provider, like Shudder or Crunchyroll. Or Digitiser2000 obviously.

Re: tin rattling - Any chance you can get some mugs back in stock? I'd like to give you some more money and getting a shiny trinket in return makes it a bit more justifiable to Her That Knows Better.

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Kara Van Park
29/6/2017 12:34:10 pm

Another patreon to consider - Gaming Mill's YouTube channel.

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Biskies
29/6/2017 12:40:27 pm

Gotta be worth a quid or two, wonga! etc.

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RichardM
29/6/2017 01:11:29 pm

I think it helps a lot when the creator has pedigree - as Mr Biffo does - but I suppose the risk is that people expect more of the same. Crowd fund the Chuckle Brothers to say "To me, to you..." forever - which would be shit. So it pleases me that Found Footage isn't more Digitiser, rather the debauched contents of Biffo's brain that Digitiser and Biffovision hinted at. Or something.

Really looking forward to seeing it.

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DEAN
29/6/2017 01:33:16 pm

Found Footage is the first bit of crowdfunding I've ever been involved with.

I did it because I felt I owed you a debt of gratitude. Your writing has made me laugh for so long and yet, aside from your book (which I remember you saying you didn't receive any money from) I've never directly paid the fiddler, so to speak!

When I discovered this wonderful place, I was overjoyed! So much back catalogue to read through. Needless to say, I spent a long time roaring with laughter and was delighted that you were back in the saddle. You're a gifted man and a tremendously influential and inspirational writer for me personally. When you announced your Kickstarter for Found Footage, getting involved was the least I could do and absolutely, after Biffovision, of course I had 100% faith in you.

Anyway, Paul, you deserve every success and I'm proud to have helped you in some way. The experience has certainly opened my eyes to crowdfunding, and absolutely 100%, if you feel passionate about something and you can help make it a reality, you really should.

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Mr Biffo
29/6/2017 06:49:15 pm

Thanks, Deano. You hopefully know just how much I appreciate it.

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Col. Asdasd
29/6/2017 01:38:10 pm

I still think we're not getting crowd-funding completely right.

Here's the situation as I see it: Given the reach of digital media and its ease of replication, creators can reach huge audiences (good) who for the privilege of consuming the content on offer will cough up the product of diddly and squat (bad).

At first we thought loss-leading content funded by ads would be the future. But ad revenue is a like a capricious worm, i.e. you can never tell which direction it's going to move in, and it's liable to dry out suddenly if it strays too far onto the pavement.

Then we had the crowd-funding revolution which did indeed move some lucky creators towards a more sustainable lifestyle. But compared to the total size of the audience, it's a model which still depends on a relatively small number of people chipping in a relatively high amount of dollah.

Did anyone ever read Scott McCloud of Understanding Comics on this subj,? He once posited that once there was a truly frictionless, universal, one-click system for making payments on the internet*, a majority of people would quite happily chip in a couple of pence to access a website for a month. A website that got a million monthly views would then make a tidy £240,000 a year. Which would pay for 8 people full time a decent wage.. if we magically hand-wave aside all other costs.

All this may seem a bit like utopian fairy thinking. And it probably is. But I wonder if we don't reach a tipping point somewhere in the future where the needle shifts to dramatically more people paying significantly less for things, not so much out of pure altruism but because the sums are so tiny they barely bear thinking about. It would, I suspect, open the doors even further for people wanting to lead a creative style'o'life.

* Something which is surely coming.. any day now.. is paypal really the best the *entire* world can do on this front?

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Tinfoil Matt
29/6/2017 03:28:11 pm

Paypal are immoral would-be tyrants, I sincerely recommend closing your account

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Chris Wyatt
29/6/2017 02:16:42 pm

Vega+ is a prime example of crowdfunding gone wrong. Things are very bitter in the online Spectrum scene right now, and I wonder if it's the precursor for the end of WoS, but we shall see.

So it's a shame to see all the negativity around crowdfunding in the Speccy forums. People seem to dismiss the idea completely, just because they backed one wrong horse.

I think crowdfunding is great, as long as you are happy to accept the loss. If Found Footage turns out to be a flop, or if it gets canned (not suggesting it's likely), but if the whole thing did go tits up, it wouldn't bother me. I would just be happy to take the loss, and happy that I supported what looks like a promising project.

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David W
29/6/2017 05:47:36 pm

The Vega+ situation is complex, especially with the World of Spectrum association, but it didn't dampen enthusiasm for crowdfunding the ZX Spectrum Next.

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Chris Wyatt
29/6/2017 07:14:05 pm

Has for some people (but they're morons)

Evil Keg link
29/6/2017 02:47:19 pm

I'd much rather pony up £10 to Digi or Found Footage than, say, some chugger on the streets with a big smile and a bouncy manner.

At least I know that if Mr. Biffo gets my tenner, it'll CERTAINLY be spent on silly nonsense.

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Mr Biffo link
29/6/2017 06:48:48 pm

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patters
29/6/2017 11:11:01 pm

Come on lads he's putting in his own money. We can't let him pay for that snow machine all on his own.

But seriously, the Steve Wozniak song alone has more than earned another donation :) I hear it in my head every time I see a picture of him now.

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