Indie filmmakers are always looking for money, and as I wrote in my last post, as conventional forms of financing for indie films continue to dry up, the enterprising producer discovered an unprecedented new resource for money: they are going online and frames their audience. This online solicitation called "crowd-funding" or "tribal funding." This leaves the audience that cares most about a film's "tribe" – plays a major role in getting it done. Interesting idea – so exciting to work actively even my background includes traditional film financing, I have been examining how crowd-funding can work either on its own or together with traditional and alternative film financing models. To see some of the places in the trunk and crowd- financial position, please visit Biracy, IndieGoGo, Investedin, kickstarter, Rockethub and Massify. These places are cool, hip, innovative – absolute – and some of what they offer might help manufacturers get their projects off the page and in produktion.Et site, Trampoline Systems, publishes a blog on crowd-funding, together with definitions and information. Who has the best platform and the best ideas? These are my suggestions on how to use crowd-funding as've got the best ideas out there, and what strategies to avoid: DVD sellers. Some of these websites tout the strategy for pre-sale DVDs to investors as a way to bring together film financing. This could have worked a few years ago, but DVDs are becoming extinct. DVDs as a sell-through is down to 15%, while DVD rentals are up 7%. But video on demand (VOD) is the fastest growing segment of home entertainment. I own a Blu-Ray player and I think Blu-Ray looks amazing (especially "Coraline"), but I do not buy them, I just Netflix them. The only exception to this family film / animation: children love to pop in the same disk and watch it again and again. It is therefore their revenue projections for the U.S. home video is 100% higher than other genres. But again, I use Netflix's Watch Instantly feature for unlimited viewings of "Dora" and "The Wiggles." Pre-selling video downloads will not cut it – it's worthless. Donation. For documentaries and social issue films, online donations accelerate (or bypass) the traditional charity circuit. At Indie GoGo (recently nominated for a Webby), "The Seventh Gay Adventist," a documentary sponsored by the San Francisco Film Society, has raised nearly $ 10,000 over the last six months from 27 donors. In this case, crowd funding to replace or supplement the grant writing and other fundraising efforts. But if your project needs significant money by $ 250,000 or $ 500,000, this process would take several years; online option is like putting out a house fire with a water pistol. It is the right idea, it's just taking too long to proceed. Swag Fatigue. Another strategy is to reward funding sources with gifts like coffee mugs you get from your local PBS station during pledge drives or license plate frame from your alma mater. But people are tired of swag, with the exception of the fan-boy movie with a built-in cult status. In this case the producers if they could include an exclusive, collectible reward of some value as an actual cell from an old-school animation, a "gift with purchase" might be a good strategy. One hurdle here is for indie filmmakers to licensed characters and properties that generate huge interest. People do not want kitsch, they want cash. SEC is Watching You. Since the SEC regulates investment and restricts recruiting to "qualified investors" within the state lines, indie producers can not simply open a PayPal account and begin to sell investments in their films. Given how busy the SEC is cleaning up the real problems – 80% of employees must work alone at Goldman Sachs – I'm not sure how close they are to follow the development of crowd-funding, but no independent producer I know is too large to fail, so filmmakers are not immune from investigation. It takes only one article about a poor pensioner who lost her savings, investing in films online to gather the wrath of regulators. Club Funders. One possible way to circumvent this could be that the local crowds to create local, transmission capacity investment clubs (clubs, if investors all live in the same condition) and raise sufficient capital, so the club is the company itself becomes accredited. This to me is a smart entrepreneurial move for motivated business player. Take It Outside. Another good feature is the creation of offshore-based crowd-financial firms (as in the British Virgin Islands or Costa Rica), where income is generally not reported. Many large manufacturing companies keep their Projects' intellectual property rights offshore, and it is possible crowd-funding could be "outsourced" too. Buzz Killers. As I wrote recently on my blog, FilmClosings.com, YouTube hits to your trailer and general Internet buzz does not necessarily mean a strong return on investment (see "Kick Ass"). Online buzz can do for a nice chart / graph in your business deck, but not misinterpret this as something that can be converted into hard dollars. Similarly, the strain of interest in a movie, can not be translated into the trunk investments. Sweat Equity. The Biracy Project uses an innovative crowd-funding strategy: work now on a movie and get paid later, when (and if) the film makes a profit. This allows film crews to earn money and experience in indie projects. It feels "win-win to me, and I think people at the head of Biracy, David Geertz and Phil Botana, can make it work. I'm not sure what kind of tasks they are reserved for the audience, but it can not be anything too critical, because the filmmaker still have to re-check their work. Finishing Funds. Vlad Vukicevic of RocketHub.com shared idea FilmClosings that the best use of crowd-funding was to use the money for post production: visual effects, editing, soundtrack. This seems like a great idea for several reasons, primarily the film is already complete enough to give investors a good feel for what they are investing in and a sense of security that the film will actually be completed. Finishing agents could be a small sum of money to go through a financial place, and could be raised over the project duration with filmmakers posting daily papers and reports from the set. At present, I believe it is the best use and has the best chance of crowd funding. Combo Funds. I am researching possibility that crowd funds could be used to raise the first critical 20% of the equity that most movies need (along with a strong business plan) before they can attract traditional funding. In this scenario, replace the amount of "friends and family" investors always get burned on most filmmakers' first films. I think that this avenue could help pull indie filmmakers out of "no funding" abyss while avoiding rookie mistakes by doing business with friends and family in the first place. These are just some of the ideas out there and this is my view on these possibilities, I welcome comments and input. One of the more interesting ideas I've seen lately came from a reader comment to me on Twitter: @ NoRestrictions told me, "We will be crowd-funding for an iPhone app that donates a portion of a movie sale to a related cause / charity / org dealing with a social problem in history. "It's a very cool idea. Ultimately, if crowd funding will work, it is necessary to appeal to the most basic investor emotions: greed and selfishness. Why disinterested investors support a project? Because they see a potential head for their money – and it is the producers job to make sure that happens. You may not reinvest a producing kredit.Børn at Circle of Peace School in Uganda were asked, "What would you buy with $ 50?" And their preferred response is an online exhibition of the same name. Buying any of the pictures for $ 50, which, along with being enough for iPods and crocodiles are also spending a year teaching. The gallery can be found at 50Dollars.org and a nice trailer is included below.