Okay, it’s nice to see folks who are trying to pursue their goal of making a film. And IndieGoGo seems like a potentially good way to help that process along.
But I’m stunned at how bad some of the filmmakers’ pages are. One in particular set off this short rant.
Misspellings? I would think that anything you are posting, especially in a solicitation of support like this, should at least be free of words not correctly spelled. And free of words that are correctly spelled, like “turn” when you obviously meant the bird, “tern.” Instantly, I suspect that the filmmaker lacks the intellectual and organizational skills to complete a quality film. The suspicion could easily be wrong, but why give rise to it?
Much worse, fatal actually in my book, is the nature of the text and the video on the page. It is hard to do one of these videos well, no question. This one was basically the filmmaker / writer talking to the camera. But what was my problem?
Mostly that there was very little real information about the project or the film. The title suggests a horror film and the text supports that but with no proof points at all. Both the text and the filmmaker (in the video) are saying that the film will be visually amazing, that the story is stunning and that great actors have been signed on to the project.
But, the video shows us exactly one still image suggestive of the look of the film. The video starts with a long production company screen card / animation, the title of the film, one image and than just a talking head. This is not a video that makes me confident the film will be visually attractive.
No team is mentioned or named either, and the filmmaker gives me no clue about his or her background, credentials, experience etc.
In other words, we are asked to believe a smiling face and a few assertions. That’s not the way to sell anything of value, at least not to me.
Jim McQuaid's reflections on indie film, writing and how life connects all of these things.
