Kicking out Kickstarter

The Boys of Summer - Second Base, sequel to the award-winning first documentary, began principal photography on March 13, 2014. We need your help. Please visit our home page to learn more, donate and share it with your friends and family.

Kickstarter is a great concept. But after failing twice to reach my funding threshold my advice is don't let anyone ever tell you it's easy to raise money through that portal. I've been chasing money for my films for nearly 20 years. I've sat in numerous conferences, conference rooms, across from CEO's of major companies and fools who wished they were…but as I sat there and listened, I guess that speaks toward my being a beggar who can't yet choose.

Kickstarter works like this:
You have an idea.
You post it using their website, which is very clean, easy to use and professional looking.
They consider your project, often kicking notes back to you about adjustments you must make to meet their guidelines before you can "go live".
If they approve you (and it's not a slam dunk), you're off and running…on your own.

There's a lot of social media hype and buzz about various projects that get funded via kickstarter. They're not lying - loads of interesting and worthy projects do.  But, in my experience, it's not nearly the democratizing fund-raising zeitgeist it gets hyped as. Loads of projects not on kickstarter or any other social media based fundraiser get funded, too, you just don't hear about them as kickstarter, the brand, is what's driving the story, not what's being funded. Yes, you have an easy to click portal where people can follow you, particularly linking in via social media - and I don't for one second doubt the potential (vs. guarantee) of social media. You also have the potential to have people recognize you for being part of the kickstarter community as there is a real brand name with real value there. But the bottom line is, back to marketing 101, you still have to drive the traffic. And know this: the longer kickstarter is around, the less fresh and interesting it is and the less likely, I'm guessing, people are to donate due to novelty of the brand and its concept.

Some people are put off by the restrictions kickstarter has around its projects. You can't have any affiliation with a charity or non-profit, for example. They also take a hefty 5% of all moneys you raise, if you reach your threshold and Amazon (the banking end of Kickstarter) tacks on another 3-5%. That's a fair chunk of change. All of this is not to say I dislike Kickstarter, but I don't simply believe the hype around it anymore. You want to raise money? You go to the people you know, shake hands with the people you don't and cold call, cold call, cold call.

So for my money, time and effort, I'm going a new/old route: I'm putting up a PayPal button on my site. I will track the amount raised for our project. PayPal caps you at $10,000 for donations, which is exactly how much we were trying to raise via kickstarter anyway (even if we only would have received
$9.000 - $9,200 had we reached our $10,000 goal (yes, had we gone over $10,000 kickstarter would have "allowed" us to keep raising money, too, bless their hearts…and they and Amazon would have kept taking their cut…do to their hearts what you will)). PayPal takes 2.9% +.30 per transaction -- less than kickstarter/Amazon assuming the donations are more than $1.

If you'd be so kind, the button is up and accepting donations by clicking here now. As always, thank you.

Spring Training - Cactus '14 (part four)

The Boys of Summer - Second Base, sequel to the award-winning first documentary, began principal photography on March 13, 2014. We need your help. Please visit our kickstarter page and share it with your friends and family.

Our final play for spring training involved a few things: first off, the closing night at the Nine Conference. The baseball/academic conference, which is run by Trey Strecker of Ball State University, is a great grouping of mostly university professors who get together annually during spring training to share their latest and greatest in how baseball impacts society. I was honored to speak on the documentary film panel Thursday night and sorry that I didn’t participate in anymore events until this one on the closing night. It was, however, very enjoyable.

George Gmelch, Professor of Anthropological Studies at the University of San Francisco, discussed his career as a minor league prospect with the Detroit Tigers in the 1960’s and contrasted what the game looked like then to how it looks now. I was fortunate enough to sit down with him for a few moments on Sunday morning. I will post a few clips from that interview soon.  

The takeaway from the weekend was one of empowerment, a feeling one only gets when he goes on the road. Add a family to that mix and it becomes all the more potent. I was very proud of my two and four year old for handling themselves as well as they did and embracing the adventure. This trip set a new mark for us as a family – with this, we will be able to reach out and explore new areas and landmarks via cars. Ten years ago, my father and I did just that when we travelled to all 30 MLB parks for the original Boys of Summer. Road work is tiring stuff – and incredibly powerful. Seeing places, meeting people, having your entire world view shifted…incredibly powerful indeed.

One of the greatest parts about this trip was the vehicle – not just our literal little family minivan trickster, which held up admirably, but the metaphorical vehicle that is baseball. Baseball brought us down to Phoenix. A quest for renewal. A desire to see winter put to bed and the Boys of Summer reawakened. A chance for hope to rise again, in the face of long, seemingly impossible odds. To see grass grow. To listen to the crack of the bat. To hear leather pop as the ball smacks into the lower pocket of the web. Nachos, hot dogs, pretzels, get ‘em while they’re hot and make sure to thank Grandpa with a hug and a kiss.

We don’t have a single donation for our kickstarter campaign, which is the bare minimum money that’s supposed to get us to the six parks we need to see this summer to complete the structural elements of the sequel documentary. In Field of Dreams, it was said if you build it, they will come. I do believe we have built it, now we must let more people know it is here so they may come. I appreciate your help in that regard.

Thank you and play ball!

Please visit our kickstarter page and share it with your friends and family.

Kickstart Boys Of Summer - Second Base

The Boys of Summer - Second Base, sequel to the award-winning first documentary, began principal photography on March 13, 2014. We need your help. Please visit our kickstarter page and share it with your friends and family.

This also opens up a new phase of research for me. I start each morning with 60-90 minutes on a spin bike. I know what you're thinking: "boring!" Me too. Until I hooked up a little DVD player to the front of the bike and started watching movies as I sweat. It's a great way to make time fly and I literally experience the film differently because of the heightened state of my body during the work out. More on that in other blogs. For today, I bring my first review of what will be exclusively baseball movies over the next few months.

The Final Season

Release date: 2007

Starring: Sean Astin, Powers Boothe, Rachael Leigh Cook

Sometimes a review goes outside in, like a great slider. That’s how this movie works. If you get past the obvious plot devices early on, what starts to emerge are the things that work in many sports movies: overcoming long odds, discovering one’s self, redemption. All those elements are here. And while they may not be put together in the most artful form, the payoff is still resonant and meaningful. There is something about Iowa and baseball and it is captured well here. Perhaps “The Field of Dreams” got there and planted the seed first or most deeply. Perhaps it’s because the state, itself, represents the heartland, kindness and “American values” in so many ways. Maybe it’s corn, farmland and the base of our economy and trade these commodities give us. All these elements provide grounding for what many Americans would like this country to be seen as. Others would argue that this depiction isn’t “the truth” of what America is. I tend to agree with the doubters – but only in so far as a literal depiction is valuable. The problem with “the truth” is it’s subjective. So the minute one person offers it, the next set of eyes is going to change the parameters. Art, and narrative filmmaking as an art, has a great way of getting beyond the literal truth to depict something bigger, more resonant and metaphorical.

While The Final Season doesn’t offer “the truth” about baseball, America or the events it is based on, it offers a certain, specific truth that worked for me. I cared about the outcome. I felt for their triumphs and losses. I was happy they won. And that’s no more a spoiler than telling you the Titanic sunk.