It's Summer Kickstarter Season! 3 Projects I'm Supporting

Yes, it's summer again....when thoughts turn to Kickstarting your latest creative endeavor. It seems that June through September is the high season for the website Kickstarter, where creative types like myself can crowd-source their projects to the people via Kickstarter, which has lately become popular via famous folks such as Zach Braff and the VERONICA MARS team. Even original indie guru Spike Lee has taken to the site with a somewhat vague proposal for a million dollar movie.

But all those celebs aside, I wanted to focus some well-deserved attention on a few truly indie projects that I'm supporting that are raising funds for some very worthy and entertaining projects. My good friend and collaborator David Zellnik wrote a wonderful new musical with his brother Joe called YANK!, which centers on the story of a gay soldier in WWII writing for the Army's in-house paper.  I have seen this show 5 times in various workshops and professional productions and each time I'm absolutely charmed and moved by it's story and music. Now they are recording a cast album and are raising 35K to do so. You can check out details and some snippets of the songs on their Kickstarter page here.

The other two projects I'm supporting are more in my wheelhouse--a short film and a web series.  The web series is the second outing by writer/director Adam Goldman, who made the incredible show THE OUTS (which if you haven't seen you should watch!).  His new show, WHATEVER THIS IS, follows the misadventures of two roommates who work on various film/TV gigs...a different one apparently for each episode. I went to the premiere last night at the Knitting Factory and it looks great, with the same sharp writing and quirky, realistic characters.

The other short is by a first time filmmaker Mark Allen, who I've known from way back in the day (like early 90s!) when he was well-known downtown go-go boy. Since then, he's been writing, performing and a regular on NPR. Now he's putting together his first short film which sounds sorta experimental and very cool, with details on his Kickstarter page too (along with a funny video starring socks!).

So check out their pages and video and give a little if you can. These days, the entertainment you get is the entertainment you support.

Another Celeb Crowd Funded Flim Is Blowing Up On Kickstarter

Last month, the creative team behind VERONICA MARS took to Kickstarter to raise funds for a long-delayed and underfunded movie reboot of the franchise.  In a little over 48 hours they hit their goal and, by the end of one month, had raised nearly three times their goal of 2M. Well, now Zach Braff has taken to Kickstarter with a similar goal and will probably make that in just over 36 hours.

Braff's Kickstarter debuted yesterday to a rush of donors and now has more than 1.7 million of it's 2 million goal. Braff is raising money for a quasi-sequel to his popular generational film GARDEN STATE, which has different characters involved but dealing with challenges of life in their 30s rather than their 20s. His Kickstarter video (like the one for VERONICA MARS) has some star power too with cames by his SCRUBS co-star Donald Faison and friend Jim Parsons. Some are deriding the fact that these sort of celebrity fundraisers are "ruining" Kickstarter but to me that sounds like sour grapes. It's a crowd-sourcing platform and if, as a celeb, you already have a crowd then why shouldn't they be able to tap into it too?  It seems to be what the site was built for.

The real proof, however, will be in the product when both these films come out sometime next year. Will they be better than if a studio had produced them, leaving final cut to the producers and not the creators? We'll find out streaming on iTunes next summer.