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on May 10
Zacqary Adam Green
backed a project
Diamond Trust of London by Jason Rohrer
A turn-based strategy game for two players about spying, bribing, and loyalty. A boxed-copy cartridge release for the Nintendo DS.
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114% funded $90,118 pledged
- 1,305 backers
- Funded May 26, 2012
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on May 5
Zacqary Adam Green
backed a project
Lib-Ray: Non-DRM Open-Standards HD Video Format by Terry Hancock
A free software fixed media format for HD video, based on open standards, with metadata and localization but no DRM restrictions
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72% funded $13,824 pledged
- 238 backers
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on February 9
Zacqary Adam Green
backed a project
Double Fine Adventure by Double Fine and 2 Player Productions
An adventure game from Tim Schafer, Double Fine, and YOU!
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834% funded $3,336,371 pledged
- 87,142 backers
- Funded Mar 13, 2012
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on February 7
Zacqary Adam Green
commented on a project updateMy brother Alex runs Plaid Productions, and he's interested in hearing about what your editing needs are. They specialize in acapella recordings, but can do anything: http://www.plaidacappella.com/ I don't think they'd be able to do it for free, but definitely at a good rate.
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on October 6, 2011
Zacqary Adam Green
backed a project
Seder Masochism: Phase I by Nina Paley
An animated movie telling the story of Exodus, narrated by recordings of real Passover Seders.
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115% funded $4,146 pledged
- 67 backers
- Funded Oct 08, 2011
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on April 29, 2011
Zacqary Adam Green
Posted project update #4Episodes 2 and 3 Preparing For Production - Please Still Send Your Pledges?
For backers only
Post Comment
If you’re a backer of this project, please
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on March 25, 2011
Zacqary Adam Green
Posted project update #3The Show Must Go On
Post CommentThank you to everyone who pledged to this quixotic Kickstarter project. Please still give us your money, because we're still going to produce the show.
How to make sure we get your pledge:
Kickstarter will not charge, and has not charged, your credit card. Go to http://yfias.com and scroll down to the Donate button, or PayPal Plankhead@gmail.com to make sure your pledge gets to us. Please email me at Zacqary@plankhead.com if you'd prefer not to use PayPal.
You will still receive your reward. If you send us $100, you will get an associate producer credit. If you send us $50, you'll get the shirt. Same reward levels apply. You're free to send more or less than you originally pledged (but please don't make it less please please please please thanks).
In addition to taking viewer donations, we'll also be seeking grants, (non-invasive) sponsorship, and other methods of fundraising.
I do have some happy news, though:
As of this writing, the Your Face is a Saxophone pilot has been viewed nearly 4000 times on YouTube. With 43 backers (it says 39, but some people were pledging on behalf of others), about 1% of people who watched the pilot chose to pledge. This is better than most projects of this type achieve.
We hope all of you will still honor your pledges, despite the fact that we haven't met our $9001 goal. Yet.
Thank you so much for believing in us. We love you.
Oh, also...
I've decided on a whim that we're going to give everyone who pledged to the Kickstarter project a free hat. I have no idea what specific type of hat it will be, but it will be a hat. And free. And only for Kickstarter-backers.
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on March 16, 2011
Zacqary Adam Green
Posted project update #2Lessons Learned and Future Plans
So, we've got 9 days left and we're 17% funded. I'm gonna be realistic about this, folks. It doesn't look like we'll hit our target.
But maybe that's okay. First of all, this process has taught me a few things:
1. "Look, we're on BitTorrent and use Creative Commons!" is not a valid promotional strategy. Pioneer One beat us to the punch with the TV-on-BitTorrent thing. Everyone else is doing Creative Commons. It's not newsworthy anymore. Techdirt will not write about your radical new business model until you become wildly successful with it.
2. The Internet is not the best place to promote an unknown thing that runs more than 10 minutes. Overwhelmingly, the most support came from people I'd spoken to or met away from keyboard. If you have little to no reputation, you need to start offline.
3. Kickstarter is very hard to explain to people. The concept that your credit card won't actually be charged the moment you type in a dollar amount is difficult for many people to wrap their heads around. This leads to many people, for no rational reason, saying "I'll donate later", which, of course, means, "I'll forget about your project entirely within the next 12 hours." Not that it's their fault — the world is cruel, stressful, and extremely distracting. Even your closest friends may need to be reminded. A lot. Which brings me to...
4. Bugging people sucks. Badgering people over and over again to pledge started to make me feel just like the annoying advertisers against whom I was fighting with this show. It was depressing, demoralizing, and got tiring very, very quickly. There are definitely better ways of doing this; for example, live screenings get people excited right then and there, and willing to open their wallets. Speaking of which...
5. Kickstarter is too limiting for serious fundraising. There is no easy way to translate a tip jar full of cash into a Kickstarter pledge. We went for the rather awkward solution of David holding onto money from other sources and pledging it all on the donors' behalves (is that a real word?). We didn't really push that very much, though, because of its kludginess, and therefore missed a lot of opportunities to raise money in meatspace. Oh, and then there's that whole time limit thing...
6. The Kickstarter time limit does not help your fundraiser go viral. You all have nine days to prove me wrong on this one, I suppose, but the desperate motive for backers to tell all their friends to pledge money RIGHT NOW seems to be overhyped. It's an angle you can use in your own promotion efforts, but it doesn't magically get everyone to tell their friends. Furthermore, sometimes an opportunity for fundraising arises after the time limit ends — for example, we'll be screening YFIAS at the NYC Anarchist Film Festival (don't worry, "anarchist" is just a scarier term for "left-libertarian"; no Molotovs will be thrown), but that's not till the second week of April.
But anyway, to continue point 5:
5a. All of the people who are only raising a portion of their money on Kickstarter are doing it right. Unless you have a major online following already, Kickstarter is not a basket in which to put all of your eggs.
So, all that said, here's what's going to happen:
The failure of this Kickstarter fundraiser will not prevent Your Face is a Saxophone from being made.
There. Big text, so you can see it.
As it says in Plankhead's mission statement: The motive is not profit; the motive is culture. We will not allow concerns about money to stop our work. Money is a problem to be solved, not our end goal. And it's not an insurmountable problem.
Now, in terms of solving that money problem, we will still honor your pledges in the (likely) scenario that our funding goal isn't met. If you send us the money through PayPal, check, cash, or any other method, you will still receive the reward to which you're entitled. We'll put that money towards Your Face is a Saxophone, and continue to raise more over a longer period of time. Details on how to get the money to us will come in the next few days, and I hope you'll all still be willing to contribute.
Thank you all for your support. Boogity.
Zacqary Adam Green
Post Comment -
on February 16, 2011
Zacqary Adam Green
Posted project update #1It's Been an Interesting Week and a Half
Post CommentFirst, I would like to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to the 34 people (26 directly on Kickstarter, 8 through other payment methods) who have pledged so far. You're all amazing people.
For me, personally, though, it's been a turbulent experience. Here's the thing:
- We got to 7% funding in the first three days. Ecstasy.
- Wait a minute, why are the pledges stopping? Panic.
- Oh my god, Creative Commons featured us on their Kickstarter page! Bliss.
- Whoa whoa whoa, why is this not leading to people pledging? Terror.
- Yes! New pledges! Okay, we're back on track! Happiness.
- And now there aren't any more. Depression.
- Awesome! Suprbay and TorrentFreak featured us! The BItTorrent community will love this! Glee.
- But they're not pledging. Melancholy.
- This new site called YouTipIt.org wants to do a cross-promotional thing with us! Jubilation.
- Okay, so that's gotten us some support, but at this rate we still won't reach our goal. Aggravation.
- Hey, there are all these pledges coming in! And some of them from people I don't think I've met before! Elation.As of this writing, the next kick in the face has not yet occurred, but I assure you, gadies and lentlemen, it will most certainly happen soon.
Anyway. The takeaway from this is that we're off to a great start, but we need to up the pledge rate if we're going to hit that goal. In the next few days, I'll be doing some more away-from-keyboard pathetic attempts for attention, in order to attract the kind of audience who might not be Internetting in the same part of the Internets as I am. However, I do still need your help:
- Keep telling your friends about YFIAS. If they know about it, get them to pledge. Be annoying. Take a screenshot of Vin's angry face, print it out, and staple it to their face if you have to.
- The best response I've gotten was from a live screening. I'd like to organize more. If you're in the New York/Tristate area and have a group of people who'd enjoy a screening of the pilot with Q&A with the creator, email me at Zacqary@plankhead.com.Thank you, my saxo-faces. Let's show the world we can make great TV without dirty Charmin toilet paper ad money.
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on February 14, 2011
Zacqary Adam Green
backed a project
REDD (A Red Riding Hood Action Horror Movie) by Patrick Prejusa
In 2211, a young girl must fight Lycans, Zombies, and Vamps in order to save a Village from the evil force known as The Grandmother.
Funding Unsuccessful (03/26/2011)
Zacqary Adam Green
Long Island, NY
I'm the founder of Plankhead, a company devoted to the production, promotion, and proliferation of public media (or, less pretentiously, we make stuff, donate it to the world, and scream loudly about it). I spell my name with a "q" because I'm insane. In my spare time, I'm a purple fox named Xerxes.
Definitely count me in to continue contributing on this! I want to see more, damn it.