Zach Braff’s Kickstarter has almost hit its target in just a few days. Usually it takes some pulling, milking, tugging to get those things funded but if you’re a celebrity, you don’t have to do much.
The main difference between this Kickstarter and others I’ve seen is that Braff has incurred scorn from many film bloggers – at least that was my impression from various tweets on the subject.
Here is how Braff puts it:
I was about to sign a typical financing deal in order to get the money to make “Wish I Was Here,” my follow up to “Garden State.” It would have involved making a lot of sacrifices I think would have ultimately hurt the film. I’ve been a backer for several projects on Kickstarter and thought the concept was fascinating and revolutionary for artists and innovators of all kinds. But I didn’t imagine it could work on larger-scale projects. I was wrong.
What’s the film about?
“Wish I Was Here” is the story of Aidan Bloom (played by me), a struggling actor, father and husband, who at 35 is still trying to find his identity; a purpose for his life. He and his wife are barely getting by financially and Aidan passes his time by fantasizing about being the great futuristic Space-Knight he’d always dreamed he’d be as a little kid.
When his ailing father can no longer afford to pay for private school for his two kids (ages 5 and 12) and the only available public school is on its last legs, Aidan reluctantly agrees to attempt to home-school them.
The result is some funny chaos, until Aidan decides to scrap the traditional academic curriculum and come up with his own. Through teaching them about life his way, Aidan gradually discovers some of the parts of himself he couldn’t find.
It was written by my brother, Adam, and me last summer.
It sounds interesting enough to me — but I could see why they might run into roadblocks with typical financing questions. Just spitballing here but maybe they would want a hot naked babe running around, someone to have sex with someone, or to have a happier resolution than the ones the filmmakers offer up? Who knows. But, despite the urge to hate on Zach Braff’s endeavor here, I am instead excited about the possibilities. When I was a young filmmaking student in the 90s I could never have envisioned a world where anyone could pick up a camera and make a movie digitally, and a world where you could actually (theoretically) crowdfund worthy projects.
One of the reasons European and other international cinema kicks our mother fucking ass when it comes to quality is that their funding doesn’t come from small minded people only thinking about the bottom line. In American film it always feels like the pressure is to have the big weekend opener or at the very least a movie that makes a hefty profit. The Oscar industry being among the few exceptions to the rule.
So why not crowdfund? Why not take the same amount of money a person spends on coffee to put their money on the line to help promote better films?
At the end of the day, it’s a win-win.