January 2010
21 posts
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Creator Q&A: One Nine Nine Four
One Nine Nine Four is a full-length documentary chronicling the rise of punk rock music to the mainstream in the year 1994. Filmmaker Jai Al-Attas moved halfway around the world for the project — relocating from his home in Australia to the heart of the scene in downtown LA — but it was worth it. His finished film features never-before-seen concert footage and intimate...
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1000 Times Yes
Last June, music critic Christopher Weingarten made a big splash with an exceptional rant about the state of his profession at the 140 Characters Conference. It was blogged and reblogged everywhere. Here it is in case you missed it:
We bring this up because last week Weingarten launched a Kickstarter project that will turn his Twitter record reviews into the ultimate rock critic fetish...
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Progress Report: McGregor of The Report
The Report is a bi-annual, hand-bound combination journal/cassette compilation/DVD featuring musings on music, culture and just about everything else. Paying aesthetic tribute to the DIY ‘zines of a punk-yesteryear, creator McGregor (of popular indie music blog Chocolate Bobka) will be assembling each package by hand — even offering to throw in extra goodies for backers like homemade...
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Sharing in the Creation
“We live in a society in which many of our entertainment choices are made for us by large corporations who hard-sell us what they think we want see, hear, or consume. It’s a top-down approach, and a closed system, that does not allow for any of us to have a voice in what is being produced.
With this film, it’s the exact opposite. The $13,500 raised thus far, as you all know, is not from...
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Selling Intimacy
“What you can sell — what you better be able to sell — is intimacy. It’s interactions in public. Souvenirs. Limited things of value. Experiences. Memories. People will pay for those things, IF: your art is actually great and if you make it possible for them to buy them.”
— Seth Godin in an interview with Derek Sivers
I spent the past week at Midem, a music...
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The Kickstarter 500
At midnight last night, exactly nine months after Kickstarter first launched, Gailey’s Send a Postcard, Get a Postcard became Kickstarter’s 500th successfully funded project. Amazing!
The successful projects tab now runs a gaudy forty-one pages and encompasses hundreds of albums pressed, shoots booked, films completed, postcards mailed, books printed, and dreams fulfilled. It’s...
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Creator Q&A: Dear Mr. Watterson
It’s been over ten years since Calvin and Hobbes — a comic strip about a mischievous six year old and his imaginary pet tiger — was retired from syndication, but an overwhelming, cultural affection for creator Bill Watterson’s work endures to this day. Just ask filmmaker Joel Schroeder, whose own love of the comic inspired him to begin work on the documentary...
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The Monster Book Makes Us A Letter
Christopher Howell is making a Monster Book. He plans to create 26 different monsters for it — one for each letter of the alphabet, and each one accompanied by a unique Raison d’être. The Monsters are made using linoleum block printing (he has a pretty handy how-to video on his blog), and a $10 pledge gets you a hand-made print of any monster-letter you want. Since we outgrew being...
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Creator Q&A: Lumi Co.
Stephen and Genet are a pair of LA-based designers who have engineered a new textile printing capability they call “The Lumi Process.” With it, they’re able to print vivid, photo-realistic images on natural materials, like denim and raw leather, without any chemical treatment or processing. Lumi Co., their collaborative brand based around the technology, will feature a line of...
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Kickstarter at Midem
Later today I’m flying to Cannes for Midem, the annual music industry conference, where I will be presenting Kickstarter. If you’re a Kickstarter creator, backer, fan, or just someone who’s interested in what we’re doing, please come say hello! You’ll find me speaking at Midemnet at noon each day, and I’ll be attending Tuesday’s Topspin meetup as well....
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The Winter Sounds Are Heroes
The Winter Sounds are a band from South Carolina whose Kickstarter project to make a new record was successfully funded in December. As one of their rewards, the band offered to not only write a song about a backer, they promised a music video as well. Today we happened upon two of those videos, and we haven’t stopped smiling since.
The first is for Elizabeth Johnson:
The second is...
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When Projects Explode
Four days ago, Meaghan O’Connell and Melissa Gira Grant launched Coming & Crying, a project seeking $3,000 to publish a book of essays about sex. Within 48 hours, they hadn’t just reached their goal — they had doubled it. Today they have nearly 200 backers and more than $6,700 in funding. How? Projects can explode for any number of reasons. When Allison Weiss launched her...
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The Kickstarter Awards: More Creator Picks
Earlier this week we asked some Kickstarter Award winners to answer two questions:
1. What’s your favorite Kickstarter experience so far? This could be something that happened as part of your project, a particularly cool exchange you had with another project, whatever you want. 2. What’s your favorite Kickstarter project(s)? And if you’d rather swap in another adjective for...
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Reward Showcase
In the past six months our mailboxes have been deluged with more amazing stuff than ever before, all thanks to assorted Kickstarter projects. Here are a couple recent favorites.
The Wonder City is a graphic novel by Courtney Zell and Justin Rivers that re-imagines New York’s entire history. It’s long been one of my favorite projects, and this past week I received a lovingly packaged...
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The Kickstarter Awards: Creator Picks (Cont)
Earlier this week we asked some Kickstarter Award winners to answer two questions:
1. What’s your favorite Kickstarter experience so far? This could be something that happened as part of your project, a particularly cool exchange you had with another project, whatever you want. 2. What’s your favorite Kickstarter project(s)? And if you’d rather swap in another adjective for...
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The Kickstarter Awards: Creator Picks
Earlier this week we asked some Kickstarter Award winners to answer two questions:
1. What’s your favorite Kickstarter experience so far? This could be something that happened as part of your project, a particularly cool exchange you had with another project, whatever you want. 2. What’s your favorite Kickstarter project(s)? And if you’d rather swap in another adjective for...
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The Kickstarter Awards: Best in Show
For the past week we’ve been counting down the best projects, updates, and moments in Kickstarter’s 2009. We highlighted projects according to various metrics, some hard-to-categorize standouts, and sentimental favorites. We’ve really been blessed with an abundance of riches to share.
In the final edition of our inaugural Kickstarter Awards, we’re unveiling the big prizes:...
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The Kickstarter Awards: Sentimental Favorites
Project That Makes Us Feel Like a Kid Again (Film Edition): Dear Mr. Watterson: A Cinematic Exploration of Calvin & Hobbes by Joel Schroeder Raise your hand if Joel Schroeder’s Calvin & Hobbes documentary made you either: a) Seriously consider buying a Calvin & Hobbes collection b) Call home and ask your mom to mail you your old C&H books (I did both.)
Project That Makes...
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The Kickstarter Awards: The Uncategorizable
Yesterday we looked at Kickstarter standouts according to the stats. Today we’re celebrating some of the great uncategorizable projects and rewards. Projects that made us laugh, made us pledge, and confused the hell out of us, too.
Reward We Backed Just to Find Out What the Hell It Is: “Irradiated Candy,” Nuclear Fusion in a Bubblegum Machine Jacob, Leticia and Elanie are...
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The Kickstarter Awards: By the Numbers
2009 was Kickstarter’s inaugural year, and it was a special one. Great projects were greenlit, amazing rewards were mailed, and a whole new way of funding creative projects began to take shape.
This week we’ll be examining some of the standouts from the past year, highlighting our favorites and a slew of notables. We’re kicking things off today with Kickstarter By the Numbers.
...
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Ways to Use Kickstarter
Last week as copies of his Kickstarter-funded novel Annabel Scheme were arriving around the world, Robin Sloan posted a project update announcing something called The Remix Fund — $1,000 set aside from his Kickstarter earnings to help fund and reward interesting remixes of his novel. He shared links to download the book — free — as a PDF, and a simple submission form to suggest...