With the help of a brand new twitter account (@clickerWeb) to track and discuss the fast and furious developments from the web series community, one new trend has jumped out above the rest: crowdsourced funding.
While a handful of high profile and well-funded web series like The Guild and The Legend of Neil wrap up their current seasons, there are dozens of independently produced series using inventive methods to secure their own financing. These tools, including Kickstarter and Indiegogo, are quickly changing the web series landscape, right down to how an idea is conceived.
The trend really exploded this summer, highlighted by a creative effort from popular series Anyone But Me, who put together original video for a “Web-a-thon” to spur donations for a third season. The final tally of $33,098 came from more than 800 donations, quite an impressive haul for an independent series. Executive Producer/Writer/Director Tina Cesa Ward credits the energy of their most devoted fans:
“We had fans from all over the world posting fun promotional fliers for the web-a-thon everyday, making videos pushing the fans to give, a stellar fan site was created by our super fans at www.AnyoneButMeFans.com and we also had many repeat contributors. At times we’d tell contributors they’ve given enough but the next week would come and yet another contribution. It became clear that many ABM fans couldn’t live without another season. They had the power to make it happen and in Spring 2011 they’ll get their Season 3.”
Elf Quest
The newest crowdsourced success story is an original effort by veteran web series creators Stephanie Thorpe (After Judgment) and Paula Rhodes (A Good Knight’s Quest). Their plan is to create a fan fiction teaser trailer for a comic book called Elf Quest, originally published in 1978. After setting up a detailed page on Indiegogo “fellow fans found out about the project through facebook and twitter.”
The additional promise of casting some well known actresses from the web series community including Taryn Southern, Jessica Rose, Taryn O’Neill, Casey McKinnon, Cathy Baron, Angie Cole and more also helped immensely. As word of the cast leaked out a flurry of donations helped the project cross its modest $5000 goal in under a week’s time. For more details see Digital Chick’s casting breakdown. The page remains open for additional donations to go directly towards improving the quality (better lights, better sound) of the trailer and paying the hard working crew.
On the ease of using Indiegogo, Thorpe says “Indiegogo has been fantastic for us. We know other projects have been successful too: Taryn Southern’s movie, SOLO the Series raised money for six more episodes, and on Kickstarter GOLD the series made DVDS of their first season with donations.” With Elf Quest added to the list, Thorpe and Rhodes can dive head first into the creative process, including finding enough elf ears to go around.
Vampire Mob and More
Another popular practice for web series looking to get into crowdsourced funding is the production of a trailer or a first season as a proof of concept. The web series Vampire Mob (think vampires meets The Sopranos) is taking that approach having recently completed a first season. Creator Joe Wilson shot the first season in his free time on a ten year old non-HD camera and would love a second season, explaining that money is tight “for new gear or for all the other expenses that are part of the deal when you’re a totally indie show, like feeding the 19 actors!”
His advantage, much like the Elf Quest creators, is a built in fan base. And Wilson sees his fans, the “VMob” as particularly loyal. They’ve already stepped up to “start a closed-captioning project and [to translate] the show into French for subtitles.” In terms of donations it’s also paid off nicely as Vampire Mob’s season two campaign has passed $3000 in donations with a few weeks left.
So what’s the overall success rate of these fundraising campaigns when done through third party sites? A new survey of over a hundred web series fundraising efforts estimates that only 38% reach their goal. But with over $250,000 raised for those studied series, there’s most definitely a large and growing sum out there for the taking. If you’re an aspiring creator looking to get going with your own fundraising, check out Tubefilter’s great how-to article. Or if you know of more crowdsourced success stories, let us know in the comments.
