Comment by InclinedPlane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by InclinedPlane | Hacker News Reader

It seems like much of the "backlash" comes down to speculation based on bad information and a generally negative attitude about "the rich".

If you use google it'll tell you that Zach Braff is worth over $20 million. Where does that come from? No clue, it might just be speculation, but it's out there. A lie with its pants on, to paraphrase Mark Twain. In his reddit AMA he specifically refuted the notion that he was worth anywhere near that amount. According to wikipedia, most of the time Scrubs was merely a top 100 show, it seems safe to say that Braff never had the opportunity to negotiate upwards on his contract and overall lifetime royalties from the show are not as impressive as some folks imagine.

More importantly, I think the assumption is that the kickstarter is the only funding for the project, though Braff has also stated publicly that he is kicking in a lot of his own personal funds.

There have been many times where I've seen widespread accusations of a "massive cash grab", either related to kickstarter campaigns or elsewhere, and most of the time it's so hilariously wrong it's just sad.

I'm not sure whether this stems from a poor understanding of business fundamentals, meaningless hatred of people who are successful, or something else.

More importantly, I think the assumption is that the kickstarter is the only funding for the project, though Braff has also stated publicly that he is kicking in a lot of his own personal funds.

Bear in mind that there's also a signaling mechanism at work here. Lots of people on Internet forums will say, "I want to see Garden State II or Season 3 of popular TV show X" or whatever. But talk is cheap.

Kickstarter, however, lets people put their money where their mouths are: instead of saying, "I want to see or read X," you can say, "I want to see or read X so bad that I'm willing to pay $10 to make it happen." That $10 is much louder than 10,000 posts on the Internet.

I dunno. You're right on the poor understanding of the fact, but think those are convenient (albeit incorrect) reasons for haters to use.

But Braff has access to the money. That's pretty clear. The methods of access are misunderstood, that's all.

Agreed. He made the point many times in the video that yes, he could get a movie funded, but he thinks that a Kickstarter funding mechanism is a superior alternative. He presents some arguments to that effect. I have no idea what the state of film funding is, but I figure Braff is a lot more in touch with it than I am.

I think some people are frustrated that he's using the superior alternative in funding, but is planning to distribute via traditional methods... so donors pay for the movie twice, once to get it made and then once again via the theater or bluray or dvd or whatever.

In a weird way, Braff get have his cake and eat it, too. Full creative control and ownership via people giving him money with no strings attached and then the product he ultimately makes will be injected back into the Hollywood system.

More power to him for figuring that out but I'll have no part of it.

My problem with that is that nobody has yet MADE a solid alternative to traditional movie distribution. His options are basically traditional or give it away for free/donations. Television has gained the fun alternative of getting published by Hulu or Netflix, but there simply isn't money in that for a movie people will only really view one time. Since he obviously doesn't want to go broke here, and is funneling a lot of his own money in, why should he give it away? The people donating KNOW they aren't getting advance tickets, so this is a case of it really not affecting the pissed off people.

iTunes sells videos, and if you're determined you can strip the DRM. It couldn't be that hard for them to offer a DRM-free option.

Right, and in the meantime he is "selling off" a large part of the risk, while keeping a large part of the reward.

Now, on one hand, people investing in Kickstarter should be or need to learn to be aware that they are "investing", and with that, comes risk.

But on the other, here is someone who could make this happen, arrange financing, etc, but sees this as a way to be more "independent" (which, coincidentally, also means, "doesn't have most of the royalties and profits sent to the studio but instead to him"), who is asking us to put up the bulk of the risk (shared amongst many), and see very little seeds of the project (and certainly none of the reward).

The $20 million figure is not based on nothing there's a lot of public information about how much Braff made from scrubs (e.g. $350k per episode in the 2007-2008 season.)

The fact is he doesn't need this Kickstarter to make this movie, he COULD do it himself. But he doesn't want to risk ONLY his own money. So he's taking advantage of the public.

Right, the season that was 11 episodes? At best that accounts for about $2 million after taxes, assuming his agent takes nothing and without taking into account any expenses. Where's the rest?

Scrubs may be a popular show among a certain cohort, it may be highly acclaimed, and it may be quite popular in syndication, but people tend to forget that while it was running it had mediocre ratings and it was effectively cancelled twice.

You have no clue how much money he has, your accusation that he's "taking advantage of the public" is just baseless libel.

That's $2.5 million before taxes, agents, etc. for one season out of 9 and not including syndication money or the fact that his previous movie made $35 million box office plus DVD sales, etc.

Give me a break with this horseshit. The dude obviously has many, many millions of dollars.

plus, I think you don't take the "getting the idea checked if it really could fly" part of a kickstarter campaign in account.

You don't need to raise $2 million to focus test your movie idea. Come on, man.

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