Foreword
I first met Richard “RB” Botto at the 2013 American Film Market Marketing summit, where I was invited to give a keynote address on “Crowdsourcing Your Audience.” At that point, about two-thirds of the room considered crowdsourcing a fleeting fad. But the remainder had already recognized that it was quickly becoming an essential element in the alchemy of content production, distribution and marketing. And even among those more farsighted attendees, RB was alone in his recognition of the need for a truly authoritative resource to help filmmakers understand just what crowdsourcing is and how it can become one of their most effective tools.
I am convinced that RB is precisely the right person to have written the first book on crowdsourcing for filmmakers: Founder and CEO of Stage 32—the world’s largest online platform for film and theater creatives—RB has over the years not only developed and applied best practices in crowdsourcing, but facilitated in-depth discussions among industry leaders about the power and possibilities of professional networking. The result is a book whose economy of thought is equal parts informative, inspiring and actionable.
As you turn these pages, I encourage you to read them not as an instruction book, but as a guide to help chart your own path and strategies. Crowd-sourcing is not just an initiative or a campaign, but a state of mind and proclamation that visionaries will become exponentially more powerful when they can harness the forces of mass collaboration and community. Having devoted much of my professional life to improving the reach and efficacy of crowdsourcing for filmmakers, I can attest that this practice is essential to building or enhancing a career on the bedrock of what you stand for and believe in.
Since the term “crowdsourcing” has become trendy over the past decade, many people regard this practice to be new or emerging. The reality is that crowdsourcing has been around long before we humans ever walked this planet. As the late great microbiologist Lynn Margulis said, “Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking.”1 The natural world, which has survived for epochs, contains multiple examples of this. For instance, a bee might seem like a creature that could easily fall prey to other animals, insects and natural forces. It has very little to protect itself from predators or the violent natural conditions it faces. However, by forming a community and working together through a well-organized division of labor that is based on the capability of each bee to conduct all the needs of the hive, bees have achieved a greater level of well-being and safety than any isolated creature ever could—no matter how strong, smart or cunning that creature might be.
As synergistic as bees are in this regard, they are not the only examples in nature of vulnerable individuals collaborating to form mighty and indestructible communities. Symbiosis, collaboration and mutual aid—the primary ingredients of what we call “crowdsourcing”—have acted as the catalyst for essentially all life that has evolved. We are the lucky ones who live at a time when, thanks to the impact of technology, our ability to network and collaborate on a massive scale has grown as rapidly as the transformation from horse-and-buggy to drone. Today, a message can connect with an audience to create a borderless community that multiplies by orders of magnitude into a movement. The act of marketing is no longer just about how loud and ubiquitous you can be, but rather about how engaging and meaningful you are. A new order of Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” has emerged in the virtual world: Only the most useful, relatable and/or engaging ideas survive. This book helps us understand the advantages of crowdsourcing, how others have effectively put them to work and how we can expect to see these techniques applied in the years to come.
Over the past several years, I’ve helped to create and grow Tugg, the crowd-sourcing platform that lets people choose the films that come to their local cinemas. I’ve often been asked, “What problem does this solve?” The answer to that question is true not only of Tugg but of nearly all film-centric crowd-sourcing platforms: They are designed to help filmmakers achieve their best work and reach their widest audiences. By helping lower the barriers to entry when seeking capital and a market, crowdsourcing creates bridges between creators and their fanbase. The closer these two cohorts become, the more successful and prolific filmmakers will be. The case studies and analyses in this book showcase the ways in which crowdsourcing is empowering film-makers to connect directly with their audiences, while removing many of the legacy middlemen that have eroded the potential for filmmakers to build a commercially viable infrastructure around their work—middlemen who have often obstructed filmmakers’ core messages from reaching their audience as well.
Even in our current media landscape, when a good idea is executed into a great film, a community of core fans is still needed to help lift the film above the cluttered marketplace and into the consciousness of a broader audience. While the efficacy of advertisements and reviews continues to decline, the impact of word-of-mouth marketing among peers within their own social networks continues to rise at an exponential rate. Crowdsourcing is one of your best instruments for cutting through the noise of today’s media environment and establishing a direct relationship with a core audience (who will not only be the first in line to see your film, but will bring along their friends, families and followers). After all, while the ways we can reach our audiences are more abundant than ever before, every ounce of your audience’s attention is being diverted by competing interests. Filmmakers and marketers are faced with the increasing challenge of securing a place in the public consciousness. Today it’s easy to be everywhere, but more difficult than ever to be somewhere. Crowdsourcing acts as a means to establish meaningful relationships with people who would otherwise be strangers, and enables those strangers to become advocates of your work and to reinforce your message.
That kind of lasting bond with your backers and evangelizers requires first and foremost a shared set of values and mission—and that, in turn, demands that you launch your crowdsourcing campaign with absolute clarity about both. As you consider the examples and anecdotes included here, I urge you to ask yourself fundamental questions about your own project: Who is your film for and why are you making it? Once you clearly identify your vision, message and target audience, it will become inestimably easier to locate audiences who share your passion for that vision and who can help amplify your message. Without this clarity, your crowdsourcing efforts will be rudderless; however, with a firm understanding of your project’s identity and mission, you will be amazed by how many share your affinity and want to help you achieve your goals.
Those lasting and influential relationships turn out to be among the most valuable outcomes of any successful crowdsourcing campaign. Without exception, when I speak with people who have completed a campaign, they marvel at the relationships they have developed with people worldwide who have shared interests and meaningful resources. For instance, some of the most successful initiatives we’ve had at Tugg have been executed by those who previously conducted crowdfunding campaigns on platforms like Seed & Spark, Kickstarter and Indiegogo. As a result of their crowdfunding campaigns, these creators learned to treat their backers not as metrics but as partners. When kept informed throughout the journey from production to distribution, backers evolve from supporters to sellers. The social capital these filmmakers sustained during the lifecycle of their film also now follows them as their journey continues, enabling eager participants to support their next venture. Their crowdsourcing campaigns acted as open calls-to-action to become involved in not just their content, but in their community— and not just as observers, but as contributors.
While the rewards of a successful crowdsourcing campaign are abundant, pulling one off is no easy feat. I cannot count the number of times I have been in a meeting with a creator or marketer who laments the difficulty of crowdsourcing. I cringe when I hear executives from crowdsourcing platforms try to sell their platform or the practice of crowdsourcing as “easy.” That attitude might get a lot of campaigns launched, but it will also lead to many frustrations and failures. As Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Anyone who fails to appreciate the scope of crowdsourcing is failing to prepare for the challenges of executing a successful campaign.
Instead, I encourage you to think of a crowdsourcing campaign as similar to a film production. Like a film project, you will need to set daily goals that build on one another, and, as with the highly organized division of labor on a film set, you will need to put together a core team of collaborators who will be able to shoulder the weight of the challenge. Together you can achieve what would have been impossible to do alone.
In other words, before you can collaborate with the masses, you will need to collaborate with your core team. You will need to lead its members to become the beehive that can collectively achieve what the individual could only imagine. Take it from me—someone who has devoted the majority of his adult life to evolving the practice of crowdsourcing: It may be incredibly hard, but the payoff will stay with you, growing and ultimately becoming a primary catalyst toward reaching the next level of your career. After all, the basis of crowdsourcing is that communities are infinitely stronger than individuals, and that collaboration is the most effective means to achieving what might otherwise be out of reach.
This book should simply be the beginning of your exploration of the potential and power of crowdsourcing. For while there are many great case studies and best practices to learn from, there are few boundaries to inhibit the ways crowdsourcing can pave the way for the most successful version of your filmmaking career. I suspect that in the years to come, those who have read RB’s insights with an open and creative mindset, those who find synergy in collaboration and those who innovatively integrate these practices into their work, will be the people in the position to write the next installment.
As John Lennon said, “A dream you dream alone is a dream. A dream you dream together is a reality.” With that in head and heart, I encourage you to keep reading with a curious mind.
Nicolas Gonda, Producer
April 2017