I’m not going to lie, I’m obsessed with the idea. It feels
like a comic book idea transplanted into television, which is only a good
thing. The production company has chosen Pozible, an Australian Crowd funding
website in order to get a budget to film however many episodes they have
planned. It could just be a pilot, to show off. Crowd funding is one of the
gifts that the internet has given us, and I believe one of the new ways to finance
both film and television among many other things. Kickstarter, for example
showcases ideas from films, novels, magazines, theatre, inventions, photography
and board games. I am not going to say that Crowd funding is easy, you have to
sell your idea to people but not give them the idea for free.
Living in a democratic nation, we are given choices. We can
vote for our governments at ballot boxes, vote with the pound and vote with the
remote. To be honest with you, I’m not a fan of some of the things people are
willing to vote with their remote, we have some shite television and a lack of
creativity to get anything interesting made. With crowd funding, not only can
you get production costs for a small amount of money from a lot of people, you
are already building an audience, packaged for a presentation at whatever
television channel.
It feels that most television shows don’t get made because
of the budget, or the idea is different and people will not believe that it
could work. What production companies want is small budget, good writing, good
cast, high ratings. An example of this to me would be the anti-sitcom Louie on
the American channel FX. It focuses on Louie CK’s life and the first season was
made on a budget of $250,000.00, Louie stars, writes and sometimes directs and
edits. His salary and everything else was in that 250,000 dollars. It is worth
watching, and would’ve sucked if the team who made the show accepted 300,000
dollar budget, because they would start getting notes from FOX executives, if
you get the opportunity to do something you want to do, for less money and no
censorship, I would do it.
Another form of funding these days comes from joint
production companies, such as BBC and HBO collaborating on Band of Brothers or
Rome. They were big and are still great shows to watch today. They are
particularly lucky to be able to do their own thing and HBO are now notorious
for making expensive television, which was why Rome only had two seasons, they
didn’t have enough money at the time. But now, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk
Empire and The Pacific are grand stories being made to great acclaim. Hollywood
budgets for Television shows.
Another step in this direction and slightly newer is
companies such as Netflix getting involved, an internet rental company that can
ensure its distribution rights on such things as Lilyhammer and the return of
Arrested Development. Times have changed for sure.
If you can’t find a company to sell your idea to, just go
somewhere else and you might get it made. It worked for Ché Part I and II by
Soderbergh, no American companies wanted to get into bed with him (not
surprisingly) but he got the money from Spanish and German production
companies. I quite like those films.
It feels like crowd funding is similar to charity, it goes
to a good cause and you see the benefits, but you won’t benefit from it
yourself. It’s like a tailor made scholarship, a grant. Charity and crowd
funding of course have different agendas.
It’s not the gifts that grab people’s attention, it’s the ideas.
Someone will want to see it, it just doesn’t have to be supported by the big
production companies.
Novelists are pushing themselves away from publishers, to an
extent, I think TV and Film may as well.
