When Lokesh Kumar started seeking crowdfunding for his independent movie My Son Is Gay , he was hopeful of raising the ₹40 lakh required. He managed a quarter of that, despite putting out a trailer, a statement of intent and break-up of expenses. And so, the agency handling the funding refunded the money to those who opened their purses to help a young ambitious filmmaker realise his dream.
The film was put on hold, and Kumar went about scouting for new financial backing. Some days later, he was on social media when he chanced upon a post by a senior citizen who’d contributed Rs. 500 towards his film. “I gave money, but it’s gone. They never got back to me about what happened to the movie?” he had written. “I spoke to him and told him it had been refunded. But, his post made me realise how little we know about the responsibility that comes with crowdfunding,” says Kumar.
Kumar’s quandary is something that every filmmaker who walks the crowdfunding path faces. Though Onir did it with his I Am , and Pawan Kumar proved successful with Lucia , success stories in films are not very common. What filmmakers do admit in private is that an informal crowdfunding of sorts does exist, both for features and short films, and even theatre.
Pawan Kumar
Actor Vinodhini Vaidynathan, who dabbles in both cinema and the stage, says that in one sense, almost every experimental play put together is crowdsourcing of sorts. Someone provides the space, another the props, a third might chip in for costumes.
“So, you could call it a crowdsourcing of talent and resource rather than finances,” she says. Also, she asks, “Who’s the crowd?” It will work only if it is an organic process where things fall in place.
- Be clear about why you seek crowd involvement
- Be honest and transparent; meet delivery promises
- Choose a project relevant to the community
- Start work immediately and update investors
- Constant communicate progress and give due credit to investors
Crowdfunding in the theatre space worked beautifully some years ago, when evam staged Chennai-based Shekinah Jacob’s The Long Way Home in 2012. The play about child trafficking was crowdfunded through Orange Street. Says Karthik Kumar of evam: “This was a story that had to be told, but we knew it would have lesser commercial viability. Every time we staged it, the money went to organisations involved in rehabilitation of trafficked children. We raised about Rs. 3 lakh, of which a lakh came from a fundraising organisation in New Jersey.”
Karthik Kumar
It helps if you have a subject that must reach audiences at a subsidised cost, says Karthik. “Once funding was taken care of, we could stage it as many times as possible, without worrying about ticket sales,” he adds.
This model works well when there is a social angle to a creative output, he says. “It draws people who want to contribute towards live theatre, and who do it more for the goodwill than the profit.”
Director Karthick Naren, whose Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru scorched the screens when it released in the end of 2016, says he tried all options before he approached a sure-shot finance source – his father!
“It’s difficult to get lucky with this format unless you have some background in cinema, or have a body of work to speak for yourself. My budget was less than Rs. 3 crore, and my father managed to raise it with help from friends. Again, familiarity matters, because there’s the issue of trust. Will you invest in someone’s dream when you don’t know the person?”
Another issue is that you have to place all your cards on the table in case of crowdfunding — in this case, the script, says Naren. “I could not afford to do that with my film, because the surprise element was the basic premise of the film.” But, he’s open to the idea, once he makes a name for himself.
Sarjun KM, who directed the award-winning short film Lakshmi , says the biggest hurdle with crowdfunding is that the filmmaker is answerable to many people. “There are friends, friends of friends… ultimately, you have to answer everyone who has chipped in. And, there are bound to be varied opinions. So, in a sense, you lose the independence so vital to an indie film.” However, he feels a system where a director just focusses on the creative aspect and another person handles the funding will work fine for such projects.
Kumar, who later took the traditional route — his film has co-producers, including Anil Saxena from the US, and the technical and creative crew has pitched in too — says the crowdfunding experience was a learning process. “I pitched the idea, created a video, drew up a strategy, analysed successful campaigns… Ultimately, it is not just about the project; it is about how you project yourself and your contacts.”
