Kickstarter / Bandcamp / etc - C or D?

http://whatculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/1-ENGINEER.jpg

Anyway, the $40 mil I got was from a google search of "what is Spike Lee worth" or something. I figure a fraction of a fraction of that, which was still generous.

There's no argument against Spike Lee Kickstater except that very few people seem to want to see Spike Lee movies.

Looking here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Lee_filmography

There's not a year since 1986 without some Spike Lee joint or another.

there's 1987

and 1993, and 2007

the 'celebrity net worth' sites out there always seem to have wildly specious estimates based on the assumption that entertainers and athletes all invest wisely, signed nothing but perfectly fair contracts, and spend frugally.

setting aside what you think about Spike or the artistic potential of his future projects, it's pretty crazy that filmmakers who at their best deservingly command million(s) per film end up being told that they should be SPENDING that much to make a movie, not getting PAID that much. whether he has the audience to fund this particular movie, well, that's literally for the people to decide at this point.

Josh hates Math

It's also kind of funny that it's ok for random nobodies to ask for money for projects that might not ever see the light of day, but if a professional with a proven track record asks for money people get all offended by it.

Josh hates Math, Johnny hates Jazz.

It is a shame that Spike can't get greenlit. I'm not offended by the Kickstarter at all. Good for Spike. My point was just that the guy has kept plenty busy. We're not lacking Spike Lee joints with the exception of, fine, 1987, 1993 and 2007. Three years out of a little less than 30.

Also good for Spike for making me think, huh, what is Jim Jarmusch up to? The answer? A vampire movie! Filmed on location in Detroit, Cologne, Hamburg and Tangiers!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/dd/Only_Lovers_Left_Alive_poster.jpg/220px-Only_Lovers_Left_Alive_poster.jpg

The only thing Spike assured of his next movie is that it would be "not Blacula," but maybe he should reconsider.

would you please stop calling them joints

Spike's last wide theatrical release, Miracle At St. Anna, was 5 years ago. since then, he's done one limited/festival release narrative film, filmed a Broadway musical, and did 3 documentaries that aired on HBO, ESPN and ABC, respectively. and the closest he got to another big theatrical release was when he was shopping around a sequel of his last hit, Inside Man. that's not really the profile of 'guy who has no problem making the movies he wants to make.'

That's not really what I said. I said he's a guy who has no problem finding work, which means he gets paid. I mean, "one limited/festival release narrative film, filmed a Broadway musical, and did 3 documentaries that aired on HBO, ESPN and ABC" isn't bad for five years, is it? With the "Oldboy" remake a relatively high profile 2013 release? And "Oldboy" budget was $30 mil. I suppose Spike Lee might consider that mercenary work, but frankly, I couldn't imagine anything more mercenary than making "Inside Man 2."

I am so confused bc I don't even see where Spike complains. He complains a little bit about movie trailers. But he simply says he started to think of Kickstarter as a viable option for funding his own projects when his film students pointed out that other large projects (Braff, veronica mars) were funded. Is his use of Kickstarter for film funding equivalent to a complaint?

and someone like Spike doing a kickstarter makes more sense to me since a dinner reward with Spike actually has some value set by what his already established career means to the person kicking in the funding. When an unknown offers something like dinner for a ridiculous amount of funding, I'm always wondering who the fuck besides their mother would enjoy such a dinner.

It's also kind of funny that it's ok for random nobodies to ask for money for projects that might not ever see the light of day, but if a professional with a proven track record asks for money people get all offended by it.

― wk, Friday, July 26, 2013 2:55 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

otm

I think the idea is that the proven track record means they've had a shot already, some success, vs. random nobodies, who are trying to circumvent a system that's mostly shut its doors to them. In the case of music (this being ILM) I suppose there's a stronger case to be made for musicians asking for money. The budgets are relatively modest to make a record, and there's been a demonstrable decrease in money to be earned from traditional record sales, because many of the same fans that might consider donating have also been downloading their records for free. This is less of the case with movies and TV. There is downloading and some degree of shrinking profits, but there's still so much stupid money in those fields, and the reason studios don't greenlight people like Spike Lee is not because they lack the funds but because they're so greedy they keep pushing all that money into fewer overinflated projects. Which of course becomes more of a risk the bigger the budgets and commitments get. So Spike, like Soderbergh, is right to be disappointed in the current model, but Spike, like Soderbergh, is worth untold multiples (whatever the amount) of the aforementioned random nobodies, which makes asking for money appear a tad unseemly, however well-intentioned. But if he can reach his goal (Soderbergh chipped in $10k) and keep things pretty transparent, then it could be really useful catalyst for those clamoring for a return to better days in studio-sanctioned indie film. Or an alternative to them.

Apologies if already mentioned, but Helen Marnie from Ladytron offering a used swimsuit as an incentive to donate to her album recording is some next-level creepiness/desperation.

http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/marnie

i'm surprised it sold after she noted "Will have it laundered of course!"

separating wheat from chaff on bandcamp is the pits.

i mean...would you go randomly listening to stuff willy nilly? i'm sure most of it's wack! i sometimes jump around the 'baltimore' tag on bandcamp to see what's going on the city but even then i gotta discriminate and be selective.

yeah, i was browsing by "location" tags.

animal collective dude still hasn't done shit

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/legupmgmt/deacon-animal-collective-at-the-festival-in-the/comments

Apparently he has done shit, just hasn't finished shit

I sorta feel like Zelig when I come across someone in the NYT who sold me his James Brown box set

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/yancey-strickler.html

Kickstarter - D
Bandcamp - C

Just my two cents

So i just saw a Kickstarter for someone who is buying every copy of Speed and then wants to change his van and I drive around the country giving tours of his collection (because that's a good plan?). I'm not posting a link cos I don't want to give this guy any more publicity than he is already getting from me mentioning it. Is this what we've reduced ourselves to? Is this the bottom of the barrel? People that have no marketable skills beyond consuming? Privileged idiots relying on public charity to fuel their consumer addiction?

"Is this the bottom of the barrel?"

probably not

and then wants to change his van and I drive around the country giving tours of his collection

Nope, you've lost me there. You're driving around the country with this Speed guy?

No, he does that was a typo.

If he did the tours while always keeping his speed above 50, I'd deem this a worthwhile project

So I really like Bandcamp but my problem is I just write and record songs every now and then and don't have a pre-planned album, hence every time I add a track I have to add artwork and it's more or less posted as a digital single. Can you set up and in-the-works album, like there will be a page with this album and every time I come up w a new song I can put it in, maybe tweak the set listing, etc. Does anyone here use bandcamp and has done this? Seems like it would work.

Well there's the pre-order approach...also, Dominique did the song-a-day thing last year, organized into overall monthly albums.

I'm probably going to have it at $0 (with option to pay if they want) until it's complete. You can change that sort of thing after the fact?

i guess you could create a square band logo image to plug in where the image goes? or take the album cover (or a placeholder mockup image with the album title) and throw 'coming soon' or 'from the forthcoming album...' over the image? xp

you can change anything you want after the fact (songs, price, art, etc)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/garth-brooks-to-launch-digital-download-service-ghosttunes-1.2830131

GhostTunes, a name that grew out of Brooks’s nickname "G," launches Tuesday.

Memo to "G" - Unless you're Oprah, hubris is a lousy basis for corporate branding. And GhostTunes is a terrible name.

The site encourages artists to offer discounts to boost their sales and returns 80 per cent of sales to musicians, labels and publishers, compared with 70 per cent allotted by iTunes and Amazon.

Or uh, the 85-90 per cent allotted by Bandcamp, who don't encourage their artists to devalue their work.

The GhostTunes CEO is Randy Bernard, who formerly ran the Professional Bull Riders Inc. organization, as well as the IndyCar auto-racing sanctioning body.

Awesome.

Do you realise that from the 1st of January there are new EU VAT rules for digital services coming in which mean that VAT will now be payable in the buyer's country rather than that of the seller.

This also means that EU residents will need to be VAT registered to sell any amount to other EU countries as the local VAT-free thresholds won't apply. There is a "one-stop" scheme to help with VAT registration in all 28 countries(!) but you will still need to do quarterly returns ans deal with collecting information on customers and complying with Data Protection rules and so on.

Why do I mention this here? Because among many kinds of "services" it applies to selling music through Bandcamp. BC are doing as much as they can to help with this but until they can change to a system where they process the payments and pay the tax directly this is the situation. It also of course means that downloads will cost that much more.

The new rules were ostensibly designed to discourage large companies putting their services through countries with low VAT (i.e. Luxembourg) rates and allow for a more equal playing field for smaller business. In practice it's going to be next to impossile for many small businesses to realistically trade under those rules. Oh incidentally Luxembourg is getting 1.1 billion euros in compo over this and upping its VAT rate anyway.

Basically it's a massive fuckup. I should emphasise that BC are being characteristically sound as about this and should have a new system in place shortly. In the meantime if you think it affects you as a musician / label / music buyer or in other areas of digital stuff please look into it.

Please excuse typos - on a tiny phone screen here.

The reason music downloads come under e-services is the definition is along the lines of "primarily automated systems". The rules were drawn up in 2008 and obviously the nature of online music has changed since then.

Unfortunately for these beaurocrats they have also incurred the collective wrath of the downloadable felt craft designs massive so I don't see it ending well for them.

Wow this sounds a mess. Now this would affect purchasers of Bandcamp stuff based/released in Europe even if they're here in the States, say?

No it shouldn't affect prices for US buyers as far as I know. Some other non-EU countries are part of the scheme though I think

It's pretty confusing and most of the relevant bodies seem to be under/misinformed and offering poor information.

I know a lot of small UK ebook publishers are freaking out/giving up because of the rules.

This is a good article about Kickstarter: www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/zpm-espresso-and-the-rage-of-the-jilted-crowdfunder.html

Also my sister's husband has a Kickstarter going right now for a prospective business and it's stressing me out. They've raised a lot of money but still have a big chunk to go in the next couple of days.

I'm seeing something weird in my Bandcamp stats. I haven't really been very active (I put up an EP a week or two ago but didn't really promote it much) but this is my "Buzz" chart for the past two months:
http://imgur.com/I8RSsLY
The spikes around June 22 are when I put up the EP. But the other spikes all have either 65 or 66 direct visits, and they're exactly two weeks apart. They don't correspond to any actual listens to my music.

bandcamp question -- how to delete a tag on a track? a friend was trying to help me get my shit together on bc and she put a nonsense word there (no idea why) and now i can't get rid of it

Edit > Tags in the lower right

Thaaaank u

i still can't find the spot to delete tag -- i can add them in the edit screen but i can't get to this one nonsense tag to get rid of it
everything else has made sense and been more or less easy, but this is driving me nuts!

oh i guess you can set tags at artist, album, and track level. so try editing at each of those.

i did! i still can't get rid of it.
so irritating.