6 ms·

Hold on, the original Garden State cost only 3.5 million to produce. You're telling me Braff doesn't have 3.5 million to finance this thing or get a loan from a

Hold on, the original Garden State cost only 3.5 million to produce. You're telling me Braff doesn't have 3.5 million to finance this thing or get a loan from a traditional outlet/rich friends/George Harrison's Estate? It sounds like this is his pet project, with him starring, and him getting most of the profits, but he wants his fans to take all the risk? Seems off to me. Granted, he may not want to personally take on the risk, which is understandable, but its a personal vanity project no one is demanding. Just bankroll it, Zach. Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere.

jwallaceparker 14y ago
> Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere. Shouldn't the users of Kickstarter determine whether a project is worthy? You have personal reasons for not funding this project but seem to suggest that other people shouldn't be allowed to fund it either. If Kickstarter users think they're getting value for their money, let them fund the project.
lttlrck 14y ago
I had similar thoughts when David Braben was raising money for Elite: Dangerous. Perhaps these are just side-projects and they (and their rich buddies) have better things to risk a few million on. In other words they aren't that wealthy.
muellerwolfram 14y ago
how do you know he isn't putting any of his own money in as well?
- mbreese 14y ago
  Very true... when this thing goes over budget for the digital effects, I don't think you're going to see him hit up Kickstarter again. Personally, I'm willing to put up some cash to see another one of his movies made.
gzp 14y ago
> but its a personal vanity project no one is demanding. I'm not sure about that. It seems about 10,000 people are demanding it, as of noon Pacific time. > Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere. Ah, but these are not exclusive! Celebrities bringing their mass appeal to make more people aware of Kickstarter is exactly what will make it so that smaller players have a higher future chance of being funded through the platform.
VikingCoder 14y ago
> no one is demanding If that were remotely true, you'd have a point. 10,928 people have spent an average of $73.88, proving there's a demand.
incision 14y ago
>It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere. Not sure how I feel about this. Kickstarter does seem to cultivate a wonderful image of taking backers who support projects "to help them come to life, not to profit financially" and connecting them with creatives to enable "their dream to create something that they want to see exist in the world". [1] It's all very "feel good" and I can understand the feeling that established people or projects are taking advantage of the platform, masquerading in a way. However, it's a bit of a "So what?". People want to put their money into this and feel a part of it. That's not necessarily helping or hurting anyone else who wants to use the platform. I'd be really interested in seeing what the trends among backers are. How many small versus large projects the average person funds, whether there's an trickle down exposure to more needy projects from the large overfunded ones, stuff like that. 1: http://www.kickstarter.com/hello http://www.kickstarter.com/hello
- drzaiusapelord 14y ago
  I wouldn't mind so much if there was a reward structure in place. GS made like 30 million dollars in gross profit. Okay, so if I give Zach 10k of my money and he makes 10x on his investment, why am I not going to get 100k from him? Oh right, because its kickstarter. It exists under the guise of this "help us kick this project to life" but for Zach this is just a "get money, and dont give investors who made it happen anything back other than tchotchkes." Kickstarter's reputation could be hurt if it just becomes a way for the well off to connect with investor rubes who are being ripped off and don't realize it.
  - incision 14y ago
    >I wouldn't mind so much if there was a reward structure in place. GS made like 30 million dollars in gross profit. Okay, so if I give Zach 10k of my money and he makes 10x on his investment, why am I not going to get 100k from him? Oh right, because its kickstarter. This is why I've generally only backed things I believe are genuinely novel and in need of support. I recognize backing as a donation, not an investment. I'm all for the creation of a true "crowd" investment platform, but I imagine the administrative and regulatory aspects of a such a service pose a big challenge. >It exists under the guise of this "help us kick this project to life" but for Zach this is just a "get money, and dont give investors who made it happen anything back other than tchotchkes." While I have no clue about the costs involved in making movie and I don't know who this guy is, I've certainly seen projects which fit that bill and yes, it's absurd. As far as I can tell, Kickstarter has done very little to prevent misleading projects other than added guidelines for hardware projects last May. For instance, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping people from creating projects that only deliver the titular product as a stretch goal - blatantly misleading. >Kickstarter's reputation could be hurt if it just becomes a way for the well off to connect with investor rubes who are being ripped off and don't realize it. I don't know, as long the people get their tchotchkes eventually they're likely going to be happy. I think the imminent danger to Kickstarter's reputation is having a large notable project go completely sideways. Suddenly, thousands of people who thought they "pre-ordered" something are going to realize that they actually just gave their money away and Kickstarter doesn't guarantee anything.
runjake 14y ago
> Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere. Why not? This movie is a product, and the funders are the consumers of said product. If the product project meets its goal, the consumer gets its product, and Zach gets rich(?). If the project doesn't meet its goal, then we can assume there isn't enough demand for said project. Sounds like a typical business. Kickstarter isn't an investment hive. I don't know much about Zach or his work, but the project is already almost at $1m (50%) funding with 29 days left. Pretty impressive demand, so far.
frogpelt 14y ago
It does seem wrong. Kickstarter will have to solve this problem themselves. If Barack Obama (or any other well-known, progressive politician) decided to start some sort of campaign drive there it would probably raise millions and millions. But he already has millions and can campaign elsewhere. I fear that Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites are headed for this type of take over by people who already have funding and funding sources unless they specifically make rules against it.
webwright 14y ago
He's worth about 22million (according to a google search). I imagine much of that might be tied up in stocks/real estate, etc. 3.5M is not a trivial sum at that level of wealth. He could certainly borrow it (with interest), but why? Fans aren't taking risk-- they are buying something that they want. Rich/influential people can dodge most risk. Example: the top 7% of the US had their net worths soar 28% from 2009-2011. The rest of us lost 4%. (source: http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-economy-wealth-20130423,0,3711482.story http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-economy-wealt... )
- wmf 14y ago
  Fans are taking the risk that the project will not be delivered.
  - namwen 14y ago
    But if it's not delivered they get their money back. . .
    - incision 14y ago
      >But if it's not delivered they get their money back. . . Nope. Backers get refunded if a project doesn't meet the stated funding goal [1]. Once the goal is met and the money has been collected it's between the backers and the creators. [2] "It's the project creator's responsibility to complete their project. Kickstarter is not involved in the development of the projects themselves." 1: Seems to me that lowballing the base goal while piling on a bunch of stretch goals would be a questionable way of gaming this as a creator. 2: http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accountability-on-kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accountability-on-kickstarte...
      - namwen 14y ago
        Touche'. I did not know that.
        14y ago
jonnathanson 14y ago
This is Zach himself running the Kickstarter campaign (at least as far as I can tell). This isn't a stealth marketing campaign by a Hollywood distribution company, using Zach Braff as the front man. This is Zach the person. He may be a celebrity, and he may have tens of millions in the bank -- but if there's an interesting way to validate demand for his movie, market the movie, and partially finance it, why shouldn't he try? It's smart business. Now, I understand the argument that the Zach Braffs and Rob Thomases of the world pose a danger to the future of truly independent artists and filmmakers. As I see it, there are two potential dangers here: 1) that they raise the creative and marketing bars beyond the level of the average Kickstarter artisan's ability to compete; 2) that they attract big companies, who will start subverting the Kickstarter spirit by using it to market, pre-sell, and finance Hollywood productions. Of these two dangers, #1 hasn't seemed to materialize just yet (though the jury's still out). If anything, the presence of big names on Kickstarter seems to be shining more of a spotlight on the site -- and the rising tide may lift all boats. Danger #2, however, remains distant but possible. One can only hope that the market is smart enough to reward the deserving and punish/withhold from the undeserving. But we'll see. In the meantime, I see no reason to limit Kickstarter to projects and people "who can't get funding elsewhere." Kickstarter should be a free marketplace for ideas. The quality of the ideas should drive the level of funding the ideas receive. If established filmmakers and stars want to trade off of their brands to get a leg up, so be it -- it seems to provide real value to their fans. Remember that there are real people in the "crowd" behind crowdfunding. If thousands of real people want to pay real money to see X product brought to life, why should we stop them? If anything, Kickstarter may provide a real alternative to Hollywood financing for creatives who don't want to play the Hollywood game if they can help it. Aren't we supposedly rooting for that?
podperson 14y ago
In general, the rule in film production is to do it with someone else's money. If you think this is unfair -- do you think employees of a company should have their retirement investments entirely in the company stock? A star or director is risking his/her reputation (and time) to make a movie, it's not entirely reasonable to expect him/her to double down with his/her own money. My issue is that fans aren't being asked to take a risk, or even buy the product on spec -- they're being asked to DONATE.
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
“You're telling me Braff doesn't have 3.5 million to finance this thing or get a loan from a traditional outlet/rich friends/George Harrison's Estate? It sounds like this is his pet project, with him starring, and him getting most of the profits, but he wants his fans to take all the risk? Seems off to me.” According to Braff, the $2 million he’s asking on Kickstarter won’t be enough to cover the entire production. On Twitter: @zachbraff: 2 things for pple who are very upset about this Kickstarter campaign: I'm putting TONS of my own money into it. And then there’s this Buzzfeed article[1]: How much of your own money are you investing? “I don't know. It will depend on how much we raise, and who I do end up casting. Let's say we raise our goal, which is $2 million. If we only raise that, that's not enough to make the movie. There will be some element of selling some foreign [distribution rights] to meet the difference, and where that falls is where I will be splitting the difference. I'm going to make this movie in August come hell or high water. Wherever we fall short, I or some element of foreign sales will split the difference.” [...] “There's always going to be detractors. The people who would say, "Fuck him, he should pay for it himself," I don't expect those people to be the supporters of this project. I get it. But if you scroll down [on the Kickstarter page], you'll see the person who's like, "Garden State meant a lot to me, I'm dying to see what this guy's up to next, I'm in." Those are the people I'm making the movie for. It's not a scam. If I wanted to make dough, I'd go back and be on another TV show.” [1] http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/zach-braff-on-why-kickstarter-is-the-next-best-thing-to-actu http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/zach-braff-on-why-kickstar...
kragen 14y ago
If it turns out nobody wants to watch the movie he wants to make, at least not hard enough to pay for it, maybe he shouldn't try to make it. If he bankrolls it with his own money, and it turns out that nobody wants to watch it, it's probably because it was a bad idea. Kickstarter lets you find that out, with some uncertainty, without wasting a year of the lives of dozens of people.

jwallaceparker 14y ago

> Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere. Shouldn't the users of Kickstarter determine whether a project is worthy? You have personal reasons for not funding this project but seem to suggest that other people shouldn't be allowed to fund it either. If Kickstarter users think they're getting value for their money, let them fund the project.

lttlrck 14y ago

I had similar thoughts when David Braben was raising money for Elite: Dangerous. Perhaps these are just side-projects and they (and their rich buddies) have better things to risk a few million on. In other words they aren't that wealthy.

muellerwolfram 14y ago

how do you know he isn't putting any of his own money in as well?

mbreese 14y ago
Very true... when this thing goes over budget for the digital effects, I don't think you're going to see him hit up Kickstarter again. Personally, I'm willing to put up some cash to see another one of his movies made.

gzp 14y ago

> but its a personal vanity project no one is demanding. I'm not sure about that. It seems about 10,000 people are demanding it, as of noon Pacific time. > Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere. Ah, but these are not exclusive! Celebrities bringing their mass appeal to make more people aware of Kickstarter is exactly what will make it so that smaller players have a higher future chance of being funded through the platform.

VikingCoder 14y ago

> no one is demanding If that were remotely true, you'd have a point. 10,928 people have spent an average of $73.88, proving there's a demand.

incision 14y ago

>It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere. Not sure how I feel about this. Kickstarter does seem to cultivate a wonderful image of taking backers who support projects "to help them come to life, not to profit financially" and connecting them with creatives to enable "their dream to create something that they want to see exist in the world". [1] It's all very "feel good" and I can understand the feeling that established people or projects are taking advantage of the platform, masquerading in a way. However, it's a bit of a "So what?". People want to put their money into this and feel a part of it. That's not necessarily helping or hurting anyone else who wants to use the platform. I'd be really interested in seeing what the trends among backers are. How many small versus large projects the average person funds, whether there's an trickle down exposure to more needy projects from the large overfunded ones, stuff like that. 1: http://www.kickstarter.com/hello http://www.kickstarter.com/hello

drzaiusapelord 14y ago
I wouldn't mind so much if there was a reward structure in place. GS made like 30 million dollars in gross profit. Okay, so if I give Zach 10k of my money and he makes 10x on his investment, why am I not going to get 100k from him? Oh right, because its kickstarter. It exists under the guise of this "help us kick this project to life" but for Zach this is just a "get money, and dont give investors who made it happen anything back other than tchotchkes." Kickstarter's reputation could be hurt if it just becomes a way for the well off to connect with investor rubes who are being ripped off and don't realize it.
- incision 14y ago
  >I wouldn't mind so much if there was a reward structure in place. GS made like 30 million dollars in gross profit. Okay, so if I give Zach 10k of my money and he makes 10x on his investment, why am I not going to get 100k from him? Oh right, because its kickstarter. This is why I've generally only backed things I believe are genuinely novel and in need of support. I recognize backing as a donation, not an investment. I'm all for the creation of a true "crowd" investment platform, but I imagine the administrative and regulatory aspects of a such a service pose a big challenge. >It exists under the guise of this "help us kick this project to life" but for Zach this is just a "get money, and dont give investors who made it happen anything back other than tchotchkes." While I have no clue about the costs involved in making movie and I don't know who this guy is, I've certainly seen projects which fit that bill and yes, it's absurd. As far as I can tell, Kickstarter has done very little to prevent misleading projects other than added guidelines for hardware projects last May. For instance, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping people from creating projects that only deliver the titular product as a stretch goal - blatantly misleading. >Kickstarter's reputation could be hurt if it just becomes a way for the well off to connect with investor rubes who are being ripped off and don't realize it. I don't know, as long the people get their tchotchkes eventually they're likely going to be happy. I think the imminent danger to Kickstarter's reputation is having a large notable project go completely sideways. Suddenly, thousands of people who thought they "pre-ordered" something are going to realize that they actually just gave their money away and Kickstarter doesn't guarantee anything.

runjake 14y ago

> Kickstarter being used by well funded celebrities who just want to minimize their risk to zero seems wrong to me. It should be for startups and good ideas that can't get funding elsewhere. Why not? This movie is a product, and the funders are the consumers of said product. If the product project meets its goal, the consumer gets its product, and Zach gets rich(?). If the project doesn't meet its goal, then we can assume there isn't enough demand for said project. Sounds like a typical business. Kickstarter isn't an investment hive. I don't know much about Zach or his work, but the project is already almost at $1m (50%) funding with 29 days left. Pretty impressive demand, so far.

frogpelt 14y ago

It does seem wrong. Kickstarter will have to solve this problem themselves. If Barack Obama (or any other well-known, progressive politician) decided to start some sort of campaign drive there it would probably raise millions and millions. But he already has millions and can campaign elsewhere. I fear that Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites are headed for this type of take over by people who already have funding and funding sources unless they specifically make rules against it.

webwright 14y ago

He's worth about 22million (according to a google search). I imagine much of that might be tied up in stocks/real estate, etc. 3.5M is not a trivial sum at that level of wealth. He could certainly borrow it (with interest), but why? Fans aren't taking risk-- they are buying something that they want. Rich/influential people can dodge most risk. Example: the top 7% of the US had their net worths soar 28% from 2009-2011. The rest of us lost 4%. (source: http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-economy-wealth-20130423,0,3711482.story http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-economy-wealt... )

wmf 14y ago
Fans are taking the risk that the project will not be delivered.
- namwen 14y ago
  But if it's not delivered they get their money back. . .
  - incision 14y ago
    >But if it's not delivered they get their money back. . . Nope. Backers get refunded if a project doesn't meet the stated funding goal [1]. Once the goal is met and the money has been collected it's between the backers and the creators. [2] "It's the project creator's responsibility to complete their project. Kickstarter is not involved in the development of the projects themselves." 1: Seems to me that lowballing the base goal while piling on a bunch of stretch goals would be a questionable way of gaming this as a creator. 2: http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accountability-on-kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accountability-on-kickstarte...
    - namwen 14y ago
      Touche'. I did not know that.
      - 14y ago

jonnathanson 14y ago

This is Zach himself running the Kickstarter campaign (at least as far as I can tell). This isn't a stealth marketing campaign by a Hollywood distribution company, using Zach Braff as the front man. This is Zach the person. He may be a celebrity, and he may have tens of millions in the bank -- but if there's an interesting way to validate demand for his movie, market the movie, and partially finance it, why shouldn't he try? It's smart business. Now, I understand the argument that the Zach Braffs and Rob Thomases of the world pose a danger to the future of truly independent artists and filmmakers. As I see it, there are two potential dangers here: 1) that they raise the creative and marketing bars beyond the level of the average Kickstarter artisan's ability to compete; 2) that they attract big companies, who will start subverting the Kickstarter spirit by using it to market, pre-sell, and finance Hollywood productions. Of these two dangers, #1 hasn't seemed to materialize just yet (though the jury's still out). If anything, the presence of big names on Kickstarter seems to be shining more of a spotlight on the site -- and the rising tide may lift all boats. Danger #2, however, remains distant but possible. One can only hope that the market is smart enough to reward the deserving and punish/withhold from the undeserving. But we'll see. In the meantime, I see no reason to limit Kickstarter to projects and people "who can't get funding elsewhere." Kickstarter should be a free marketplace for ideas. The quality of the ideas should drive the level of funding the ideas receive. If established filmmakers and stars want to trade off of their brands to get a leg up, so be it -- it seems to provide real value to their fans. Remember that there are real people in the "crowd" behind crowdfunding. If thousands of real people want to pay real money to see X product brought to life, why should we stop them? If anything, Kickstarter may provide a real alternative to Hollywood financing for creatives who don't want to play the Hollywood game if they can help it. Aren't we supposedly rooting for that?

podperson 14y ago

In general, the rule in film production is to do it with someone else's money. If you think this is unfair -- do you think employees of a company should have their retirement investments entirely in the company stock? A star or director is risking his/her reputation (and time) to make a movie, it's not entirely reasonable to expect him/her to double down with his/her own money. My issue is that fans aren't being asked to take a risk, or even buy the product on spec -- they're being asked to DONATE.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago

“You're telling me Braff doesn't have 3.5 million to finance this thing or get a loan from a traditional outlet/rich friends/George Harrison's Estate? It sounds like this is his pet project, with him starring, and him getting most of the profits, but he wants his fans to take all the risk? Seems off to me.” According to Braff, the $2 million he’s asking on Kickstarter won’t be enough to cover the entire production. On Twitter: @zachbraff: 2 things for pple who are very upset about this Kickstarter campaign: I'm putting TONS of my own money into it. And then there’s this Buzzfeed article[1]: How much of your own money are you investing? “I don't know. It will depend on how much we raise, and who I do end up casting. Let's say we raise our goal, which is $2 million. If we only raise that, that's not enough to make the movie. There will be some element of selling some foreign [distribution rights] to meet the difference, and where that falls is where I will be splitting the difference. I'm going to make this movie in August come hell or high water. Wherever we fall short, I or some element of foreign sales will split the difference.” [...] “There's always going to be detractors. The people who would say, "Fuck him, he should pay for it himself," I don't expect those people to be the supporters of this project. I get it. But if you scroll down [on the Kickstarter page], you'll see the person who's like, "Garden State meant a lot to me, I'm dying to see what this guy's up to next, I'm in." Those are the people I'm making the movie for. It's not a scam. If I wanted to make dough, I'd go back and be on another TV show.” [1] http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/zach-braff-on-why-kickstarter-is-the-next-best-thing-to-actu http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/zach-braff-on-why-kickstar...

kragen 14y ago

If it turns out nobody wants to watch the movie he wants to make, at least not hard enough to pay for it, maybe he shouldn't try to make it. If he bankrolls it with his own money, and it turns out that nobody wants to watch it, it's probably because it was a bad idea. Kickstarter lets you find that out, with some uncertainty, without wasting a year of the lives of dozens of people.