Easier said than done. Wayne was working full time and getting married in February followed by the Honeymoon. The LA Web Fest http://lawebfest.com is in late March so so we decided not to shoot until after then. This would leave three months gap between seasons which I don't advise because content is key on the web. But we didn't have much choice. On the plus side it would give me time to figure out how to raise some funding. The problem was, I was struggling to afford the trip to Los Angeles for the festival let alone a budget for the rest of the series.
I decided to look into what most indie filmmakers are doing these days - Crowdfunding. This is a very viable option, especially if you have already established a fan base. If you are interested in using crowd funding to finance your web series then I suggest you make a pilot out of your own pocket first, get it out there, and crowd fund off the back of that. Your investors need to know what they are backing. I won't go into the details of crowd funding as it would be a massive blog, so instead I'll refer you to an excellent book on the matter, Crowdfunding for Filmmakers: The Way to a Successful Film Campaign
This book is essential if you are planning on crowd funding your film. It's all in the preparation and hard work if you are to have a successful campaign and this book explains it all. The one thing I will stress about crowd funding is that it is a full time job. So if you are already working full time you better be prepared to sacrifice any social life you have and potentially your relationship with your partner.
If I was to make it to LA I had to start earning money quick, which meant finding a normal job… which I hate. I had one freelance screenwriting job but that was not enough to live and get me to LA so I started as a bricklayers labourer. I lasted one and a half days. Not because the work was too hard but because the boss was a prick and the money shit. We had a massive verbal altercation and I walked off site. I felt like going to the pub and getting absolutely shit-faced but I called my sponsor instead who talked me down.
I knew if I worked a full time job and ran a crowd funding campaign I would probably bust under all the pressure. I had to make a choice. Go to LA for the Fest or raise funding for the rest of the series. After discussing with Wayne we decided that if we had gotten this far with no-budget lets just keep doing what we're doing. Cool. Then I landed a little acting gig in a commercial that would pay for my flights to LA. Sweet. The Gods were on my side again.
When you put in the hard work and take risks out of your comfort zone good things start to happen.
My next priority was to get a trailer made up to promote the show at the festival. This required expert editing and mixing so I turned to Kearon De Clouet for help. He advised to think of some trailers that I thought would suit McCracken and he could provide a quote from there. Again, I asked for mates rates, as we always do on no-budget. Turned out I couldn't even afford the mates rates. I asked a new friend of mine, James, who I met at a weekly group I attend. He directs and edits documentary's for SBS and he had watched McCracken after I told him about it which he loved. He had a gap between work projects and being the awesome bloke that he is he agreed to cut a trailer together for me for free. What a legend!
We met up and decided to take a look at some of the other trailers on LA Web Fest site. The first we viewed was a high budget series with a pretty serious looking trailer. It had quotes from critics from various publications such as "Riveting" - The Chicago Times, or something like that. We immediately thought, "wow, are we out of our league here?" Not at all. The fact that no-budget McCracken got into the fest up against these shows was a feat in itself. We just have to get creative. I have to hand it to James who had the idea of having critics quotes as well, but just made up ones from non-existant publications from tiny country towns or suburbs out west. I loved it. It was sort of taking the piss and fit McCracken perfectly. We decided on three quotes overall with the last being from McCracken himself, just to let the audience know we really are taking the piss.
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| LA Web Fest's Motto is "Make Your Own Luck" and should be yours too. |
This book is essential if you are planning on crowd funding your film. It's all in the preparation and hard work if you are to have a successful campaign and this book explains it all. The one thing I will stress about crowd funding is that it is a full time job. So if you are already working full time you better be prepared to sacrifice any social life you have and potentially your relationship with your partner.
If I was to make it to LA I had to start earning money quick, which meant finding a normal job… which I hate. I had one freelance screenwriting job but that was not enough to live and get me to LA so I started as a bricklayers labourer. I lasted one and a half days. Not because the work was too hard but because the boss was a prick and the money shit. We had a massive verbal altercation and I walked off site. I felt like going to the pub and getting absolutely shit-faced but I called my sponsor instead who talked me down.
I knew if I worked a full time job and ran a crowd funding campaign I would probably bust under all the pressure. I had to make a choice. Go to LA for the Fest or raise funding for the rest of the series. After discussing with Wayne we decided that if we had gotten this far with no-budget lets just keep doing what we're doing. Cool. Then I landed a little acting gig in a commercial that would pay for my flights to LA. Sweet. The Gods were on my side again.
When you put in the hard work and take risks out of your comfort zone good things start to happen.
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| Our Make-Shift Poster We Sent Off To LA Web Fest |
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| Documentary Filmmaker James Marshall Piecing Together the Trailer |
Here is the trailer, see what you think. For the resources we had, I think James did a funny and amazing job.
