$2 Million for ‘Veronica Mars’ Breaks Kickstarter Records
variety.com
variety.com
Currently at $2,335,670 with 37,676 backers and 29 days to go.
There are some really creative and interesting rewards for higher contributions. Personalized video message from the cast, personalized video message from Kristen Bell (much more expensive, obviously!), voicemail recordings, name a character after someone, have a local theatre rented out for a private showing possibly before the screenings, after-party tickets, be an extra, or even have a speaking role.
I presume that ultimate reward means this movie is outside the purview of SAG-AFTRA, as any speaking roles in SAG productions absolutely, positively must be performed by SAG guild members. This is going to be an official Warner Brothers product, and I wasn't aware WB was not fully in bed with SAG-AFTRA.
EDIT: What's up with Bell? She doesn't seem to understand the concept of Capital Letters aNd WHerE thEy bELONG In A Sentence. Or she's just being coy.
When I saw the $10k thing I was wondering if it included a SAG background performer voucher.
"All new members pay a one-time-only initiation fee, plus the first semiannual dues at the time of joining. The national initiation fee rate is currently $3000.00 (initiation fees may be lower in some states). Annual Base dues are $198.00. In addition, work dues are calculated at 1.575 percent of covered earnings up to $500,000."
Also, Bell may have just made a typo re: capital letters. If you are expecting perfect grammer from the internet, you'll cry yourself to sleep every night.
Good question, actually. The only actual weird capitalization she used, "LoVe to you ALL", is actually an in-joke-- "LoVe" refers to Logan/Veronica shipping[0] in Veronica Mars fandom. She's maybe hinting at a possible romantic plot to the movie, maybe just playing around.
Under Taft-Hartley rules they can't exclude other people from participating as long as they join up.
7,000 signatures is a lot of signatures. The cast will probably be spending every free moment writing their names.
They have plenty of money to "risk" and invest, and presumably will see the lion's share of any positive outcome of this initiative.
If and as such, I'm not favorably inclined towards their using the mechanism to... mitigate risk (yet further), I guess. It takes away from projects that don't have a "sugar daddy" sitting in the wings.
P.S. Or, even if it doesn't "take away" from other projects seeking funding, I'm... somehow still offended. Especially in light how how these same "big name" studios use severely restricted distribution options and other controls to screw over not only fans/customers but the shows that depend upon them.
Warner Brothers using Kickstarter -- or, "forcing" their property to do so? It just stinks, to me.
Outside of that, making movies using other people's money is what studios do. It's the core of their very model. Isn't it better if it's from the fans than some ROI obsessed hedge fund?
I might be more in favor if the restrictions on the resulting product were loosened. As it is... I guess I kind of feel like the players you name are getting the fans to directly fund production, while still walking off with all the profit.
And, regarding restrictions on the finished product... We'll see. But, I'm not optimistic.
Prove me wrong, VM! :-)
In this case, the intellectual rights are already owned by Warner Brothers. In the next film, perhaps Joss Whedon wants to create a new sci fi movie with Nathan Fillion in a universe that hasn't yet been purchased by a major studio. (Replace director/actor with your choice).
Hopefully this will be yet-another-alternative for non-Hollywood American entertainment to be produced.
If I understand correctly, passing the one million mark was sufficient to bring in WB backing. Since this would probably only cover a fraction of the production costs, it feels as if they [Warner Bros] really just wanted some market research validating interest in the product.
> Warner Brothers using Kickstarter -- or, "forcing" their property to do so? It just stinks, to me.
I know where you're coming from, but I don't feel the same way. The alternative, in this case, was literally nothing. The production would not have been greenlit, and fans would be left without a potentially interesting movie. Kickstarter has made this project a reality, and that's no small accomplishment.
Also with the huge success of Avengers, Joss is going to be busy directing big budget sci-fi/fantasy/awesome movies for a while.
With low budget Shakespeare/awesome movies mixed in between,
e.g. his just-released Much Ado About Nothing, briefly reviewed here (and the trailer's embedded):
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/03/08/173808228/joss...
(Firefly fans: Nathan Fillion is in this one.
As is Clark Gregg (aka Agent Coulson from The Avengers) and other actors from other Whedon projects).
http://danharmon.tumblr.com/post/23339272200/hey-did-i-miss-...
It is directly analogous to the writer/publisher world. It's not to say distributors won't exist, but the part they play will be significantly different.
The Kickstarter article is well written and there are some very interesting pledge rewards on the table.
"You will get a speaking role in the movie. Here’s the scene — Veronica is eating with the man in her life. Things have gotten tense between them. You are the waiter/waitress. You approach the table, and you say, “Your check, sir.” We guarantee you will be on camera as you say the line. Unless you go all hammy and ruin the scene and we have to cut you out, but that would be a sad day for all of us. Just say the line. Don’t over-think it. You’re a waiter."
(animators in Japan typically make below minimum wage as a result of being paid per drawing, which in turn is a result of the tv stations taking an undeservedly huge cut of the revenues)
Is it really surprising? Wouldn't you pay 10K for a speaking role in Star Wars? I imagine there are many people who would pony up for the opportunity to have a speaking role in a movie (regardless of the movie), and certainly most hardcore fans of Veronica Mars would want a chance to be part of the movie.
Also I wasn't surprised so much by the transaction of a speaking role for $10k as I was surprised that someone dropped that kind of money on Kickstarter and made the decision to do so within hours of the campaign's beginning. That's an intense impulse purchase.
http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/03/13/veronica-mars-movie-kickst...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-...
But it seemed to me some idiot somewhere who worked on the second season saw it had a strong female lead and thought that meant she should be a dick and wrote the later seasons like that.
It amazes me how Hollywood just doesn't get strong female characters.
To me VM == virtual machine, and cons==convicts. I realize context changes that, but I like browsing from the https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments section of HN, and I find it rude that many HNers feel the need to use common Reddit acronyms not found anywhere else. For people that find Vim shortcuts so simple, one cannot easily fathom the time savings is worth the confusion (however temporary).
I find it rude that you would choose to use such an irrelevant definition of "cons" on HN given the general subject matter of this forum.
Just kidding - who gives a shit? The extra 0.5 seconds it took to parse the contextual meaning of an acronym I am not going to sweat, and I am certainly not going to call someone rude for daring to use a subculture-specific word in a way I would not normally.
I suppose this is a bit of the curmudgeonly attitude I fear I am acquiring (i.e. get off my lawn), but I do take offense to people mangling the language and the lingo (like talking about a blog rather than a blog post, which seems to be on the rise).
As a rather poor typist, among people I perceive to be great typists, this bothers me. Perhaps I was just looking for other curmudgeons or pedants to show me how they deal with this issue. I also try to proofread my comments, and I appreciate the same.
P.S. I also do not understand, "to the rest of the cons is a command line tool."
[Edit to clarify: I estimate I spend 1 hour and half on this type of thing per year on HN; normally, I just downvote, and move on. I just found out ITMS == if that makes sense. I thought it was Itunes Music Store.
Instead of mentioning Vim, I should have said most people on HN appear to be able to treat the keyboard as an extension of their body. I cannot, maybe I'm abit jealous there, but if typing is so simple why save a few keystrokes at the risk of confusing those with whom you wish to communicate?
I did preface my comment with an admission that it was both pedantic and off-topic (on an original post from variety.com concerning a topic with which I'm completely unfamiliar).]
What language and what lingo? Do we need to establish a canonical "this acronym means exactly and only that" definition?
It's one thing to get mad at bad grammar or poor spelling, it's quite another to get riled up over a legitimate use of a word simply because that's now how you normally use the same word.
The English language is messy, your borg-like desire for millisecond-level perfection is hard to understand, but not so objectionable until you started calling others rude for not living up to your standards.
OP wasn't spelling poorly, nor did he/she use poor grammar - you're literally complaining about someone using an acronym in a way you do not normally use it.
Browsing HN via /newcomments inherently places every comment out of context, and I realize it is my choice to browse that way. I also strongly disagree that my complaint is without "an iota of validity." As to your last point, I am pretty much a loner, so that's not off base.
I apologize for being insensitive to this possibility.
I don't even have to estimate. It's less than 16 minutes in a year. I spend more time washing dishes every day.
The word "con" being used for convention is so widely used (PyCon, ComicCon, GenCon) that it's almost approaching "con is short for convict"-level popularity.
While I agree with the spirit of your answer, a command line tool? Really?
If anything would be more aligned to the "HN standard", it would be the Lisp "cons" (functions / cells).
You're not entitled to your own ignorance, and not everyone uses language the same way you do. Please lighten up, open your mind a little bit to that, and grow a thicker skin.
Veronica Mars doesn't fit strictly into those categories, but the fanbase seems to have substantial overlap with genre fandom. It's jargon, but not particularly uncommon in its area of relevance.
See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science_fiction_convent....
Almost every single lexical object is overloaded with multiple meanings, so it is incumbent upon an addressee to put in a modicum of effort to use context in interpreting communication. There's really no other way to get by.
I assume those viewers are predominantly US.
For a show with a 3M fan base, of which I would guess most are US based, its not hard to imagine that a few percent of those viewers (or their parents) would chip in $25
Consider Kickstarter marketing that pays for itself.
And then I read this : " This reward will ship to backers in the US only". Sadness sadness... I would have paid more if that meant I could have received anything for backing them up.
Your average cable TV drama costs upwards of $2M/episode, with Game of Thrones costing $4-$10 million/episode. Harry Potter has a big following, so it might make $10M all up - enough for a set and a pilot, maybe.
TV pilots are produced as one-offs (often independently financed) and then shopped around to networks as a way to obtain funding for a full season.
So it's a small step from that to saying "We'll finance this show if you can produce a pilot on your own."
warner bros is covering the distribution and marketing.
38 K people just raised $2 MM in 12 hours.
I think you're thinking about this all wrong.
I'd pay $10 to watch a new episode of Sherlock right now. Even if I have to wait 6 months for production. They can have $100, if I get 10 episodes. And if you can ONLY get episodes by paying for it, I think it'd scale.
There's a difference between exploiting this pent up demand in a one-off, and trying to fund a long-term regular series at that kind of cost.
You might be able to get $10MM to produce said Harry Potter show, but I don't think the support base is there to repeat it week over week over week.
At a lower budget level, definitely.
I think this could very easily be done directly from the fans.
The main obstacle in the case of something like Harry Potter would be that big funding sources would be stumbling over themselves to fund it anyway.
Somewhere in there, there's a crossover point to where the venture's profitability is obvious even to those not interested in the content.
My point is that the price that people are willing to pay for content decreases as you create more content. People might be willing to pay $50 to revive a movie from a long-dormant property, but would they pay the same $50 for the equivalent amount (2-3 episodes?) of a regular-run show?
My bet is on no, at least for now - this may change in the future.
This applies to more than just shows IMO - Chris Roberts (of Wing Commander fame) was able to raise a tremendous amount of money for his revival of the space sim genre - would he be able to raise even close to that amount if he went by, say, a yearly release?
Even if they did, that's EACH person you're talking about - if the content is popular, its base of consumers has gone up dramatically. If you double your viewers, but each is willing to contribute 40% less, that's still a net gain.
$10M doesn't create a TV show. It certainly isn't going to create a movie with well know actors like Veronica Mars - there are definitely other parties kicking in for this.
[1] http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-vid... [2] http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/#... [3] http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/#chart-d...
...I somewhat disagree. If you're financing a film of an existing property with a lot of goodwill around it (i.e, Veronica Mars), with a short shooting period (2-3 weeks, which is what they're talking about here), then you'll probably be able to get your cast to work at union rates along with points/profit participation.
US TV tends to be on the expensive side, but that doesn't mean you can't produce quality TV for less. In the UK the BBC tends to budget around $750,000-$1,000,000 per episode for prime-time drama, which gives you a good ten episode season for your $10 million.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver_%28Veronica...