By Keri O’Shea
As threatened, here I’ll be continuing my look back on the main developments in the horror world over the past few years, and here, I come to one it has been all but impossible to ignore…
I refer, of course, to the phenomenon of Kickstarter et al; I’d also suggest that crowd-sourcing couldn’t have got where it has without the parallel hike in influence of sites like Twitter, but however it’s come to pass, in any given week it’s highly likely that at least one new hopefully-crowd-sourced project creeps onto my radar. Of course this isn’t exclusive to horror – it’s occurred right across the rather broad horizon of the arts, as old funding sources dry up and as the option of getting others to chip in becomes more established as a done thing – but perhaps, with horror as a known starting point for a lot of careers in film, horror fans may get more of these requests than most.
Make no mistake: there have been several crowd-sourced projects in recent years which have caught my eye. For instance, when an assembly of filmmakers like Jörg Buttgereit, Andreas Marschall and Michal Kosakowski decide to join forces on a project, asking for some fan support along the way, it’s very easy to see how they manage to hit their respectable target. We do occasionally feature Kickstarter appeals here on Brutal As Hell – although, considering the collective number of appeals we as a team routinely hear about, we don’t tend to post about it often, even though it’d be an expedient, easy way of generating fresh content and keeping the site lively. I believe I can speak for my colleagues when I say that there are good reasons why we don’t do this, and I’d like to discuss them here.
To return to the Buttgereit/Marschall/Kosakowski crowd-sourcing story, I thought this could be worthy of support because, in the case of each director, there is clear evidence of pedigree, as well as an openness about the project they have now completed. In some cases, the only sticking point is in wondering what in the hell we have come to, when even established (okay, cult) directors can no longer find the modest funding they need via other methods. Clearly, times have become difficult for filmmakers, and speaking particularly about the UK here, although it’s likely to be the case in other parts of the world, the (never frivolous when it came to horror) Film Councils are seemingly less likely than ever to cough up, as arts budgets are stripped back and a tenuous economy makes people in all walks of life more cautious about their expenditure. So far, so understood – and the crowd-sourcing phenomenon does at least afford an extra option to get shit done. However, one of the reasons that we don’t often get behind crowd-sourced projects on the site is that the sheer volume of them, and the nature of the beast makes it very tough indeed to sort the wheat from the chaff. Even attempting to do so can be an exhausting, even embittering experience. It is also a new system which is fraught with risk and flaws and, as more and more people hop on the bandwagon, there’s scope for things to get a hell of a lot worse.
One of the first flaws which comes to mind for me relates to the question of good grace. The Kickstarter charm school seems to have a lot of drop-outs, because surely, however keyed up you are by the film you want to make, when the first thing you say to a stranger is ‘give me your cash’, you’ve forgotten your manners. Social networking is a relatively new arena, sure, and the code of conduct there hasn’t been clearly established – but still. C’mon. It’s worth thinking about these things in real-life terms. Would you go around a party begging money from people, simply because you have enough in common to be at the same party? I’ve lost count of the number of tweets I’ve received doing just this, because I’m a horror fan. I look at the account, and the only tweets deriving from that account are the same, stock, ‘HEY! Support [unexciting zombie flick where someone’s friends wander around in bloodstained button-up shirts]’ – and a link to where we can do just that, if we have zero quality control.
That is a personal gripe, granted; there are more serious criticisms to make of the crowd-sourcing model though, and they relate to its fundamentals. When you pledge money to a scheme like this, there is absolutely no accountability whatsoever – and that, I am sure, appeals to just the wrong sorts of people, and will continue to do so until such time as any culpability is built into the model. At the time of writing, what you’re really doing with most of these schemes is betting on a horse where there’s no guarantee there’ll even be a race, let alone any possibility of you getting the returns you want. Even if there’s an end date by which time the requisite amount has to have been pledged, what happens next? If someone raises £10,000 for their vampire flick and decides at that point that they’d sooner make a comedy with the money, what can their funders do? If the film fails to materialise at all? Nothing, beyond complaining about it. We don’t even know where the cash is going to go – to a business account, or a personal one. Also, with the best will in the world, people’s circumstances change; the most earnest director in the world may find he can’t make the film after all. In all of these cases, paying people back is discretionary.
I am aware that the counter-argument here would be that people are offered the choice to pledge a little or a lot, and sure, most people can afford to give away £10 here or there, if they so wish. It’s just that the economic downturn has perhaps made us all a little bit more aware of what we’re doing with our money, just as it has with the usual funding bodies. It affects us all, and some more than most. We’re also being asked to speculatively pay for something before we have any idea of the quality of it, and as my recreational funds are limited, I’d prefer to know a little about the movie I’m paying to support, rather than hope and pray that my money pays for a film which a) gets completed and is b) to my tastes, and all the sweeteners in the world which I may get for stumping up don’t stop me noticing that crowd-sourcing takes a large amount of the financial risk away from the very people who stand to gain, if a film is successful. It’s a puzzler, and it’s unfair, although it masquerades as fair and fan-friendly. It’s not sticking it to The Man; it’s being The Man.
…And you certainly have to raise an eyebrow at some of the blatant misuses of Kickstarter in recent years. Some of the worst of these originate outside horror, thankfully, but we have had the likes of married-to-millionaire, singer Amanda Palmer getting huffy when asked why she wasn’t using any of the $1.2 million she raised on Kickstarter to pay any of her musicians; or why multi-millionaire perennial bellend and party to plagiarism Spike Lee was Crowdsourcing his movie, rather than pay for it himself. Hmm. Within horror, and without naming names, many Twitter users may have become aware of a certain ‘filmmaker’ who has been collecting money for years now for his film project via earnest, exclamation-mark laden 24 hour Twitterthons. Years later, there is still no film, plenty of outrage when questions are raised and, call me a pessimist, but I doubt that anyone will ever get their money back…
Well, it seems highly unlikely that this is a phenomenon that we will see the back of any time soon. Create a model like this which allows people to easily gather donations from those who show willing, without having to vouchsafe them anything for their cash, and it’ll roll and roll. As crowd-sourcing is here to stay, it’s also entirely likely that we’ll see more of the outrageous behaviour alluded to above; we should, though, probably try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There have been some positive outcomes, and there will probably be more. However, I for one would welcome a tad more jurisdiction from the crowd-sourcing model.
Whilst a system of reimbursement or (heaven forbid) rewards would be harder to moderate, it would encourage many people to participate. Offering the maximum accountability to those who are effectively throwing their money at something in blind hope of an entertaining, engaging – hell, a completed outcome, would be welcome. Those collecting cash this way would do well to be realistic, too: concentrate on small, realistic targets for close supporters who want to see what you can do next, rather than going cap in hand to people who will probably only remember you for being rude enough to do that. Don’t have close supporters because you haven’t made anything yet? Sorry – but perhaps you’ll have to pay for it yourself, as difficult as that may be. Don’t spam us; that’s rude too. And for those happy to contribute cash to Kickstarter, all I’d say is – be as prudent as you can be. We don’t need a gazillion more lazy, derivative horror movies, after all, however they get made…