Yep. I think this business model shares in the same family as the Ponzi scheme. “Paying it forward”, as it were, but with other people’s money.
CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar 2 - Electric Boogaloo-Fanboys gone WILD-too many hyphens
- Thread starter jespah
- Start date
I suspect crowdfunding will remain unregulated unless (a) the political landscape in the US changes quite a bit (as in parties of deregulation are voted out) and/or (b) a significant number of people are killed, badly injured, or shoved into bankruptcy by something or other. Otherwise, regulators barely seem to give a damn.
Then again, when Zuckerberg testified before Congress, many reps didn't know diddly about how the 'net works. It may need a generational shift in leadership, too, before a regulator (probably the FTC or the SEC) starts to bring the hammer down.
The state lawsuits against crowdfunding at least started off as the DA's office going after someone, or it was a class action suit. See: http://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-makes-crowdfunded-company-pay-shady-deal
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/pre...project-creator-settles-ftc-charges-deception
https://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2017/06/coolest_cooler_settles_with_or.html
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...ibackpack-investigation-indiegogo-kickstarter
There are only going to be more and more cases like this. There's also no Lemon Law for crowdfunded products.
It is quite the risky investment proposition, and you don't even have anything like the FDIC keeping people from losing their shirts if the project runner(s) skip town.
Unless you know the person doing the crowdfunding, tossing cash into crowdfunding is just about the equivalent of tossing it into a wishing well, with more or less the same expected results.
Most of the places I shop won't charge on pre-orders until the item has shipped. Does Anovos take the money as soon as you put in your order?
Same goes for crowdfunding campaigns. I thought usually if it was for some kind of production or product that needed to reach a certain amount, they only charged you when they reached that goal and started production.
I've bought from Anovos a few times, and yes they take your money before starting production, as soon as you put in the order. I'm waiting for a gold TOS tunic that I'm supposed to get this fall, and the First Contact gray and black jacket that I should get this summer. Both of these I paid for last year, and have already been charged for them. It takes so long for Anovos to produce the item, that buying from them could hold up the production of your film until you get the costumes from them.
At times I get frustrated with Anovos, especially with my last order for items that were in stock. So I don't de-rail the thread, if you want to know about that, feel free to pm me. I'm glad to talk about it.
Oh and before I forget, WHERE'S THE MOVIE ALEC?
OK, I've never really done crowdfunding, so I wasn't sure how common all that was.
Them taking the money before they actually make the stuff would make me a little nervous, although they are high profile enough I would like to think they wouldn't be able to get away with taking the money and not delivering.
My concern is that this shows what n00bs they are and how they could possibly be miscalculating or flat out missing other costs which could lead to more budget creep.
They've been doing it for years now, and it has finally bit them in the butt. There's a class-action lawsuit against them that just got filed. You can read through the sordid history of Anovos's nondelivery here. I recommend starting at the end and reading backwards, because there's 300 pages and counting.
I always believe everything AP says. In Bizarro World.
Yikes. I admit, I only kinda skimmed the links, but I see now how bad they are.
I don't understand why Lane (and AP for that matter) don't call around for local ST fans within a reasonable driving distance that have their own uniforms and prop memorabilia to meet to have fun playing Trek.
That and experiment with dialogue and camera angles and lighting and editing and so on and so forth beforehand if their hearts are set on wanting other people's money. Fortunately I won't be one of the people funding them.
Where's the movie, Alec?
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I've worked a number of shoots with 1st-time directors and had to pull their asses out of the fire (not always successfully) because they didn't know what the hell they were doing. That's no slam on them, just a slam on their not understanding the complexities of what they're getting into and biting off more than they can chew. All you have to do is work on a few shoots in almost any capacity to get a handle on what can and does go wrong. I have met a number of guys and gals who make one short and then try to immediately make a feature. Almost none of them ever succeeded in getting to the finish line, and the one who did ended up with a very flat picture.
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What I frequently suggest to people like Lane is to grab their phone and shoot the script with people in their street clothes in any old locations just to get a feel for how complicated it is to get all the necessary coverage and see if it will cut together. That's not a waste of time, it's basically rehearsal. For instance, I always table read my scripts with actors because I immediately discover problems and can fix them in the script polish or—on a rush shoot—at least before we get out in front of the cameras. I do this even on quickie one-day shoots, because then we fix dialog issues and answer actor questions first thing and that half hour spent doing the run-through saves easily twice that time in front of the cameras and makes editing easier.
[/soapbox]
[soapbox]
What I frequently suggest to people like Lane is to grab their phone and shoot the script with people in their street clothes in any old locations just to get a feel for how complicated it is to get all the necessary coverage and see if it will cut together. That's not a waste of time, it's basically rehearsal. For instance, I always table read my scripts with actors because I immediately discover problems and can fix them in the script polish or—on a rush shoot—at least before we get out in front of the cameras. I do this even on quickie one-day shoots, because then we fix dialog issues and answer actor questions first thing and that half hour spent doing the run-through saves easily twice that time in front of the cameras and makes editing easier.
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Heh. Well, sadly, the Kickstarter arms race in fanfilms has convinced lots of wanna-be filmmakers that they have to spend beaucoup bucks to make anything, and that others should pay for them to play Star Trek. I made Stagecoach in the Sky (LINK) for maybe $1K (mostly rentals for the location, grip gear, costumes, etc.), and it's 8 minutes long and was shot in one day, and that came out of my pocket. (I did not have production insurance on that because it was for a 48 Hour film contest and we were in a location that had insurance, but even if I'd sprung for that it would have maybe made the budget $2.5K total. Even with a decade of inflation it would only cost like $4.5K now.)
When I took project management in school, we studied a bit about film making, as the producer (IIRC) is essentially a project manager.
Managing projects isn't easy. You're not born knowing how to do it.
What you're suggesting regarding doing an impromptu rehearsal makes sense to me as well as an inexpensive option to see what needs improvement. After all these are ST fan films. People do them for fun so if a click of ST fans can come together teaching themselves some basic skills as they go along so why bother with crowdfunding and do it for fun and as a learning process.