Crowdfunding: Idea worthy

Crowdfunding: Idea worthy

Saumesh Thimbath

When everything from camera to projection to promotion went the digital way, filmmaking has become a lot easier and less troublesome. And gone are the days when a filmmaker had to run pillar to post to get financing for his/her project.

Crowdfunding – pooling in finances from interested parties – got a fillip with social media expanding at an unimaginable pace. One bunch who finds themselves on the benefitting end are the indie filmmakers, who are ‘independent’ because they try to say things that a majority of producers wouldn’t even care to listen to. That is when social media comes in to the indie filmmakers help with support from people who might be geographically detached but closer in sensibility.

The trend is catching up in India too and one of the early examples has been Onir’s ‘I Am’, where the director raised the entire budget of the movie, which was 3 crores, from friends and online contacts. ‘I Am’ went on to win two national awards.

In 2013, irked with production houses, Kannada filmmaker Pawan Kumar, called for contributions for his next venture ‘Lucia’ through his Facebook account and blog. ‘Lucia’ was screened at the London Indian Film Festival and left behind a trail of good critical and audience reviews. Indie filmmaker in Malayalam, Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s new film, ‘Oralpokkam’ which stars Tamil poet Meena Kandasamy in a lead role, has raised the budget of 30 lakhs through social media sites. The shooting of ‘Oralpokkam’ is underway in Kedarnath.

Owing to the novelty of the method, many filmmakers look at crowd funding skeptically. Some sense a threat to their ideas and for others the lack of any established models is source of concern. But these fears, in all probability, are borne out of the unfamiliarity with a novel platform. One factor behind the success of the digital and social media platforms has been its mutual reinforcement and support. Moreover, the lack of any established models make it a fertile field for creative experimentation. As far as the entertainment industry is concerned, this looks like the way forward.