How Kickstarter Can Make You A Better Screenwriter
by CARSON REEVES
So the other day I was sent a link to Melissa Joan Hart’ s Kickstarter project page. Melissa was high on the recent successes of fellow Hollywood middle-folk Kristin Bell and Zach Braff after getting their movies funded on Kickstarter. And hey, so were the rest of us! Movie-making was finally being decided by the consumer and not some dopey producer who didn’ t know the difference between Dog Day Afternoon and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Yeah! Power to the people!
For those of you who think the internet is stupid and therefore haven’ t used it this year, Kickstarter allows you to set up an online pitch, via text, video, pictures, valentine’ s day cards, or whatever else you can think of, and then assign a target amount of money you’ re trying to raise for your venture( in this case, a movie budget) and then let people send you money so you can try and reach that goal. Zach Braff, for example, who wrote and directed the indie mega-hit“ Garden State,” has been frustratingly trying to raise the money for his new movie without giving creative freedom over to Generic Producer A-D, who would sell their left kidneys if it meant Zack casting actors like Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez in key roles. In order to avoid those casting catastrophes, he decided to raise the money himself so he could have total creative emancipation. And he succeeded!
But here’ s the thing. Zach Braff had all his cool funny friends appear on his video and for the most part, he was funny and cool, too. Melissa Joan Hart on the other hand …..? Not cool. Not funny. I mean she has her MOTHER in the pitch video with her. Rule number 1. When you’ re doing a Kickstarter campaign, DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR MOTHER IN THE PITCH. You’ d think that’ d be obvious but I suppose the tool is new enough that people haven’ t figured out all the nuances yet. For that reason, watching the Melissa video go down was sort of like watching a bad, slow-motion Gangnam Style impression. I mean here’ s the logline she listed for the project, titled“ Darci’ s Walk Of Shame”:“ An impulsive act has Darci face enormous hurdles to get back to her sister’ s wedding & avoid her family witness her first walk of shame.” Umm, what does that even mean?
But it gets really bad in the“ prizes” section, something Hart even promotes in her pitch video as being better than the wack prizes former successful campaigners Veronica Mars and Zach Braff promised. For $ 100, you get two of the cast members of Darci’ s Walk Of Shame( people whose identities we don’ t know yet) to follow you for ONE YEAR on Twitter. That’ s right. You get two unknown struggling actors to follow you for one( AND ONLY ONE!) year on Twitter! The description of said prize makes it very clear, however, that one of those people will NOT be Melissa Joan Hart. Nope, she can’ t be bothered to click a button on her Twitter feed that says“ Follow.” Far too stressful. It’ s no surprise that of the 2 million dollars Hart was trying to raise to make her movie, she only made 50,000.
Okay, you’ re probably wondering why I’ ve turned today into“ Make Fun Of Melissa Joan Hart” day. Truth is, Melissa seems like a really nice girl who was a little misinformed about what kind of people and projects Kickstarter rewards, as well as how to put together a snazzy pitch. The reason I bring Melissa’ s struggles up is because it got me thinking about screenwriting. Specifically how Kickstarter can help screenwriters. Now you’ re probably thinking I’ m going to go into this whole spiel about putting your script up on Kickstarter and trying to raise money for your movie yourself. No, I’ m actually telling you to do the opposite.
You see, one of the most common complaints I hear from screenwriters is how frustrating it is to be on the outside. How producers keep rewarding these crappy screenwriters with produced credits, buying up project after project of theirs, while they’ re sitting here with a much better new spec that( in their opinion) is worth a six-figure sale. Why won’ t more people give them a
90 | WGSA MAG June 2013