Propelled by the cult following of the Veronica Mars television show, producer Rob Thomas broke records with his Kickstarter campaign for The Veronica Mars Movie Project. It’s the fastest campaign to reach $1 million, the campaign with the highest number of backers, and the highest funded film project at $5.7 million. Warner Bros. is releasing the film nationwide this Friday, March 14. In the wake of Veronica Mars’ success, other filmmakers have followed, hoping to repeat its success. Some like Zach Braff’s Wish I Was Here campaign succeeded, raising $3.1, others like Melissa Joan Hart’s Darci’s Walk of Shame failed to hit their mark.
Since 2009, when Kickstarter went live, 33,597 film and video campaigns have launched and $164 million have been raised in crowdfunding producers’ dreams. The financing may be spread across the entire film or allocated to a specific portion of it, like post-production.
In an industry where getting a film funded is no small feat, Kickstarter’s success rate is a robust 40 percent. At any given time there are hundreds of projects in need of funding.
SSN wades through the campaigns to find the ten best and brightest that still need funds to meet their goals. Any of these could provide you with your next breakout hit or your next big talent. Click on the title in blue to go to the Kickstarter page.
Being George Clooney (Doc)
Project By: Paul Mariano
About: A documentary about audio dubbing Hollywood films for foreign markets featuring the international voices of George Clooney.
SSN Insight: As international box office has expanded its share of the box office pie for American releases, more and more of them are being dubbed. For major stars like George Clooney, often the same person voices him in specific languages. As one voice talent says, “The audience knows Clooney and me as one man.” This film delves into the unseen world of foreign-language dubbing in a light-hearted manner akin to the film In a World…, which earned $2.9 million on a $1 million budget. This project could easily translate abroad and pick up most of its audience internationally as U.S. audiences rarely hear dubbed voices. Trailer production values are pro and director Paul Mariano’s last film, These Amazing Shadows, was a 2011 Sundance Select.
Enemy of Man (Period)
Project By: Vincent Regan
About: A re-telling of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth starring Sean Bean, Rupert Grint and Charles Dance.
SSN Insight: First time director Vincent Regan has attracted name talent including Game of Thrones’ alums Sean Bean and Charles Dance, who look right at home in Medieval period garb, cutting through enemies on the battlefield in this re-telling of Macbeth.“A lot of the time we expend energy trying to make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear with some of the scripts that are sent to us,” Dance says in explaining why he chose this project, “and this seems to me like a bit of a silk purse.” Harry Potter lead Rupert Grint is also along for the ride. The reel gets high production marks for its crisp cinematography and textured castle interiors. Although he chooses not to modernize the Shakespearean jargon, Dance does minimize the dialogue and shrewdly ups the action. This film would be easily marketable to the Game of Thrones’ audience, which averaged 14 million viewers last season.
Crushed (Thriller)
Project By: Megan Riakos
About: A young woman returns home after her father dies in an accident at the family winery. When his death is ruled a murder and her mother becomes the prime suspect, she must uncover the truth.
SSN Insight: This Australian based production features Aussie talents Les Hill (Underbelly), Roxane Wilson (Home and Away), Aaron Glenane (Drift) and Jamie Irvine (Anzac Girls). The mystery thriller’s vineyard setting piques interest and offers a refreshing change from the oft-used Midwestern locations of American horror films. The high-quality cinematography maximizes the vast, eerie vineyard locales, reminiscent of cornfields, and the protagonist’s isolation. As noted in the campaign, this film passes the Bechdel Test: Its writer-director and three leading cast members are all women. Thriller and horror films like Halloween, Carrie and The Descent have proven that female leads can carry genre films. Along with Aussie producer Megan Riakos, Robbie Miles from Sam Worthington’s shingle Full Clip Productions is on board, and they’ve tapped 50/50’s Cate Rann as their production designer.
Kin Fables (Fantasy)
Project By: Seb & Ben McKinnon
About: A collection of three vignettes each with their own original fable.
SSN Insight: Filmmakers Seb and Ben McKinnon are true, new-generation artists that have built a comprehensive, immersive world by leveraging a variety of media formats including film, graphic novels, music albums, paintings and illustrations and enhanced photography. This campaign is only to finish their film project: a series of three original fable vignettes. The McKinnons have a clear vision of a mystical land in the shade of Snow White and the Huntsmen with music that has a Loreena McKennitt vibe. Their first short, Kin, was a Vimeo staff pick and won Best Cinematography at the Fantasia International Film Festival. The McKinnons talents could certainly be well utilized on commercials and music videos as well as in art/production design on features. Hire this team now to bring their singular vision to the big screen or your next fantasy film to life.
Miles (SciFi)
Project By: Oliver Daly
About: Miles, a teenage dirt bike rider has stumbled upon Max, an infant specimen of the most advanced military creation in history. The creature quickly develops into something highly intelligent and nearly unstoppable.
SSN Insight: This campaign is for a proof-of-concept film. The feature would be akin to How to Train Your Dragon if the Vikings’ lands were replaced by the Southern California motocross scene and the dragon was a military weapon in the form of a menacing robot dog. The current film clips are in the vein of District 9 with a teenage edge. To lend authenticity, the filmmaker has chosen teenagers in the motocross scene who’re skilled at bike stunts, thus potentially attracting the Project X crowd. Instead of the over-trodden alien-invasion storyline, the filmmaker wisely opted for military tech as the encroaching and dangerous invader. The film raises questions about the dark side of rapid military technology advances and how technology could merge with life à la RoboCop. The film is ambitious, and its concept hits. If pursued, the film would benefit from a graphic novel interpretation during development to heighten interest.
Crow Hill (Spy Thriller)
Project By: Rubidium
About: Two federal agents pursue a stolen hard drive containing a computer virus as it's passed between members of a radical environmentalist group who plan on using it to attack a nuclear facility in the U.S.
SSN Insight: The producers of Crow Hill have already successfully completed another campaign for their web series Silent City.Based on true events, this feature concerns the creation of a virus on a flash drive designed to destroy Iranian nuclear devices. The film takes the idea a step further, speculating what would happen if that drive went missing on the streets of Brooklyn. Writer-director Rubidium Wu has a clear, assured voice. The cinematography is pro and the concept is smart and well thought-out. While having unknown talent can be a hindrance to sales, SSN recommendation is to remake the film with a $20-30 million budget akin to Haywire or The International with known talent or hire the filmmaker for your next spy thriller.
The Last Roadhouse (Doc)
Project By: Lisette & Ryan Cheresson
About: Off-grid and generator-powered, historic Middlegate, Nev. is threatened by rising diesel costs—an omen of America's fuel-dependent future.
SSN Insight: We’ve been flooded with green initiatives in recent years in light of rising energy costs and pollution. While celebrities can afford to purchase Teslas and solar panels, going green for the rest of us can mean expensive upfront costs. Alternative-energy costs are skyrocketing and the off-grid Nevada community is struggling to pay its bills. The film showcases regular people fighting to keep the lights on with an all-American can-do spirit. With Duck Dynasty’s ratings continuing to remain high, this documentary would target the same fly-over audience. As the community highlighted doesn’t comprise millionaires, it’s relatable to the vast majority of the country. If not a feature doc, this would make for an insightful reality series on A&E or similar cabler.
Joseph’s Reel (Romance)
Project By: Collie McCarthy
About: Before dying, an elderly man is allowed to relive one day of his life. He chooses the day he proposed to his wife.
SSN Insight: If you could relive one day of your life, which would you choose? Everyone on the planet has an answer to the question, which makes the subject of this short film instantly relatable and a natural for a social media campaign. In the film, an elderly man can relive one day with the caveat that he must follow the script of that day. In a film whose ending would otherwise have been foregone, its central hook embeds it with anticipation for the lead’s choices. Who knows? The ending could in line with that of Source Code, in which the lead gets to live on in an alternate reality. The film hasn’t been shot yet, but the concept is enough to warrant a full-fledged feature in the vein of The Notebook meets About Time.
Fort Tilden (Comedy)
Project By: Sarah-Violet Bliss & Charles Rogers
About: A nutty comedy about Allie and Harper whose journey to the beach at Fort Tilden, New York City’s secluded seaside nirvana, is needlessly complicated. Premiering at 2014 SXSW Film Festival.
SSN Insight: The film is getting buzz thanks to its win of the grand jury award for Best Narrative Feature at the South by Southwest Film Festival this year. The film is garnering plenty of laughs and perhaps a distribution deal at the Austin fest due to its off-beat humor, a mix of Girls and Clueless, of the two Brooklynite twenty-something women in a quarter-life crisis. The Brooklyn location choice was an easy one for the filmmakers as Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers met at NYU Graduate Film school and call the city home. Production values in the Kickstarter trailer are indie level but the funding will finish out color correction. Should distributor buy the rights, release it on digital or VOD and market it leveraging good social media, the revenue would be on the low end but with the under a million budget, the ROI would be in the black.
Honorable Mention (Short)
The Curse of Don Scarducci (Comedy)
Project By: Chris Fondulas
About: Life is good for Don Scarducci, a rough-and-tumble New York mobster, until the day he discovers his intolerance to gluten.
SSN Insight: In the vein of The Whole Nine Yards, the reel is hilarious and yields heaping spoonfuls of comedy from the premise: What would happen if the toughest, nastiest, hard-hitting dude out there found out he had celiac disease?” Director Chris Fondulas tackles that question with the help of friends he made during his seven years as a Boom Operator on 30 Rock. He’s called on the comedic talents of Jack McBrayer, DP Andy Voegeli (Breaking Bad), composer Giancarlo Vulcano (SNL) and still photographer Lloyd Bishop (Tonight Show). Fondulas also cast real-life mobster Neil Parisi in the lead role of an Italian mobster who discovers he has to go gluten-free. “Anyone who’s ever been there knows,” Fondulas says, “you’d probably rather get whacked then have to deal with this.”