We’ve been helping Ben Kalina prepare and launch his campaign to raise finishing and outreach funds for his latest film, Shored Up. He’s also making his own terrific efforts to get the word out about the film. One example of this is an email newsletter sent out through the A Sea Change team to all the film’s followers. In the newsletter, I’ve seen the best definition yet of what Kickstarter is all about: it’s an online tool that democratizes creativity and activism, bringing the power to support important films and other creative projects to everyone. Exactly. So, now that we’re in the knock-down-them-walls mood again (first Berlin, then Egypt, now “Wall” Street), let’s keep that community feeling going and knock down the financial restrictions that make it difficult for films with a relevant message to be completed and get out to their public.

As a continuation of my research on and interest in the success factor of certain film crowd funding campaigns on KS, I stumbled upon another source of information–a film called xoxosms that raised funds both through Cinereach and KS. Here are some of her words on the subject:

I chose Kickstarter as my crowd-funding platform because I knew it would be a good tool to rally potential supporters that were already in my network, but I was also drawn to the sense of community on the Kickstarter website. I spoke to Justin, who handles PR at Kickstarter about the “stumble upon” factor of their website and learned that over 100,000 new backers to Kickstarter campaigns return to support other projects. Additionally, 44% of all projects launched through Kickstarter reach full funding. There is also a weekly newsletter and snappy blog that highlights projects, and helps them stand out. – Nancy Schwartzman, filmmaker

I’m currently reading her write up on her crowd funding campaign and would strongly encourage others to do so as well, on the Cinereach blog: Crowd funding a short doc.