Los Angeles Acting blog by David August: Stars and Hits Using Crowd Funding

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Stars and Hits Using Crowd Funding

While there are real issues with crowd funding for film and TV projects, the idea that name stars are "taking away" donations that would've gone to lesser known projects, if the star had never arrived, is not true or at least unlikely. It may be flawed zero-sum thinking. It is yelling into the wind.

It's possible established people and projects turning to crowd funding helps the less established. It makes crowd funding something a bigger group of people are aware of and more open too. It legitimizes the funding method for the mainstream.

Zero-sum thinking, a "someone must lose for me to win" view seems to be one of the key problems in entertainment (and possibly life).

Either way, run your own race, and fund as you need to, or choose to. Griping doesn't change things. If hits and stars use crowd funding, it only really makes a difference if you have influence over what funding options they use. If you don't, they fall into the category of things you don't control, and can't change by wanting them to change. So handle the impact of what is out of your control as best you can and move on. Easy to say, but hard to do. Break a leg and have a great weekend.

Update May 9, 2013: Kickstarter has chimed in with numbers supporting the famous-things-bring-new-audience-to-less-established-things idea, read more in my post.