Project:Phoenix (and Kickstarting in general)

I don't often join internet trends... but when I do, I join ones that have:

- Zombie apocalypses... and who doesn't love a good zombie apocalypse?
- Sherilyn (Twin Peaks) Fenn being badass
- Lee (Catwoman '66) Meriwether being generally awesome
- Pauley (NCIS) Perrette providing music
- a pretty good script (thus far)

...and other such benefits. Here's the link to Project:Phoenix...

http://www.indiegogo.com/projectphoenix

More to the point, I decided - just for once - to actually put my hard-earned money where my mouth is for one of these things.

You may have endured me ranting/whining about my recent misadventures in Hollyweird. But I only stuck with it that long because I believed - still truly believe - that collaborative filmmaking, from funding to scripting to filming to edit to FX to promo to distribution, CAN work. WILL work, at least for smaller films.

An example: say I've raised a few bob through my funding programme and I'm ready to go. I need to film a zombie scene that's at least theoretically in San Francisco, but can't afford to go. I could:

- find one of my Fans to shoot establishing shots for me, and drop them into a project bin
- find another Fan (or a fan of the first Fan) who's good on After Effects to composite it
- find there's a whole bunch of Fans willing to flashmob Union Square as zombies

The editing tech for that is out there, though it just needs to be brought together with the funding mechanisms and group filesharing tech.

Even just as a fundamental alternative to relying on the kind of leechxecutives I ran into to beat the drum for funding - a fair chunk of which you'll never see - I think it's a fundamentally fairer and more honest way of doing business.

At least it would be: like any new hippy neighbourhood, the sharks have already moved in. One film-funding site (who shall remain nameless) not only charges a percentage of funding raised at the front end, but forces you to use their own video sharing service at jaw-dropping $,$$$ rates... and then can charge an unspecified percentage of all future profits in return for their nebulous promotional services.

So basically, in return for paying for an overpriced Kickstarter, you get the privilege of having known and feared leechxecutives rip you off, use you for their own glory if you do well, ignore you if you don't, and keep a percentage lien on your property...forever. Yeah, that seems like a good idea.

Rant over,and now to the question: whaddya think of Project:Phoenix - and would you ever sign up to be a Kickstarter?