If you’re in NYC on June 6th and thinking about possibly running a Kickstarter project, come to the second Kickstarter Open House! Kickstarter staff and successful project creators will be around to hang out and chat about whatever project ideas you have, big or small. Our first event in February was a blast, so we’d be thrilled to see you in June!
A peek at a few of the tools inside the Creator Dashboard, via Learn Along.
As New York Fashion week wraps up, we thought we’d share some of our favorite stylin’ projects that have graced the Fashion category.
Inspired designer? Start your own!
31 Kickstarter-funded films at SXSW.
We’re thrilled to announce that so far 31 Kickstarter-funded films are heading to SXSW! Congratulations to all of these amazing filmmakers and their teams — we can’t wait to see your work on the big screen.
Check out all of the selections on our SXSW Curated Page and stay tuned for more updates before March.
See you in Austin!
Narrative Feature competition
Improvement Club
Documentary feature competition
12 O’Clock Boys, Big Joy, William and the Windmill
Narrative Spotlight
Grow Up, Tony Phillips, Good Night
Documentary Spotlight
I Am Divine, Good Ol’ Freda, Medora, Continental, Rewind This!, TINY, We Cause Scenes, Mr. Angel
Visions
Our Nixon, Maidentrip, White Reindeer, Euphonia
Special Events
TPB AFK
Narrative Shorts competition
Boneshaker, It’s Not You, It’s Me, Mobile Homes, Sequin Raze, Shale
Documentary Shorts competition
SLOMO
Animated Shorts competition
Cicada Princess
Midnight Shorts competition
Child Eater
24 Beats Per Second
The Punk Singer, Finding the Funk, All the Labor
Texas High School Shorts competition
GBFF
Come on over.
Hey NYC! Ever had an inkling of a Kickstarter idea, but no one to talk to about it? Now’s your chance to bounce around any half-baked or fully-fledged Kickstarter project ideas with some cool local creators and Kickstarter staff. Come hang with us—we’re friendly, we promise!
The force is strong with this one.
The White House recently turned down a petition to build a Death Star, so this mysterious Kickstarter creator took matters into his own hands. Behold: The open-source Death Star!
Having backed 178 projects on the site, he’s hoping that a few might lend a hand in return. £19,000 down, £19,000,000 to go!
Kickstarter at Sundance.
We’re back from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival with lots of exciting news to share. Kickstarter-funded films earned major awards, picked up distribution deals, and delighted packed houses, and we couldn’t be happier for these dedicated filmmakers and their backers.
It’s been an exciting year for independent film on Kickstarter, and Sundance begins the new year on a high note. We’re thrilled to see so many talented creators recognized for their hard work. Congratulations!
Featured films:
This year, 17 Kickstarter-funded films screened at the festival, including features, documentaries, and short films.
Awards:
Five films headed home with top prizes, including double laurels for Blood Brother. Hats off for this amazing achievement.
Deals:
Several films left Sundance with distribution deals in tow. Looking forward to seeing them in theaters soon!
Press:
We could fill a book with all the positive press garnered by these 17 films during Sundance. Here are just a few of the highlights.
Congrats again to all the filmmakers, their teams, and their backers. See you next year, Park City!
America’s first ramen tasting menu.
Like a culinary nomad, chef Yuji Haraguchi has been slinging his delicious ramen all over NYC. After honing his craft in the back of a bar and at street-side stalls, this soup wizard is ready to kick it up a notch. Yuji is creating a pop-up “omakase” ramen restaurant, where his seasonal and experimental takes on the Japanese staple will be offered as a tasting menu for the first time in the States.
The best way to approach Kickstarter campaign is to think beyond money.
—Pete Nicks, creator of The Waiting Room, quoted on the PBS documentary blog. Great advice from three 2012 doc projects!
Clouds 4 EVA.
Endless LOLs in Kurt Braunohler’s new Kickstarter project to write jokes in the sky. A simple reward for $4,000: “I’ll marry you.”
Kurt is a man on a mission. Let’s all help him “hire a man in a plane to write stupid things with clouds in the sky.”
A project is born.
Here’s a crazy story about how the FlipBooKit came to life, from the creators’ most recent project update. There’s nothing better than the combination of hard work and great luck.
“A few months back, before FlipBooKit, this fellow from MAKE magazine named Matt Richardson met us at the San Mateo Maker Faire. He immediately took an interest in our mechanical flipbook art and there was enthusiastic talk of interviews, articles and kit ideas. That was June 2012.
Matt finished our interview in September, and with a little-twinkle in our eyes, we started imagining how to build a kit. ‘Why not launch a Kickstarter campaign on the publish day of the MAKE article in October?’
We came up with a name, purchased the DNS, and sat with a few guys at CRASH Space talking about box materials. After a week it all came together and our eyes were twinkling away. Then a phone call from Matt saying, “The article will publish in January, not October”.
(our plans were dashed)
Plan B
We were just about to postpone the project when Mark decided to call the folks at the NY Maker Faire. “Have a look at this art… there was gonna be an article… and we had this plan… Can we get a last-minute booth?” First we received a tentative maybe… then a YES! We were ON! We had two weeks to finish prototyping, build a booth, and create a Kickstarter campaign. Whew! You know the rest.
Now we can announce that the MAKE magazine issue is out!”
The lesson we learned from this? Kickstarter backers are cool. They’re quite understanding, as long as you are open and honest in your communications.
They understand delays, they understand that it takes longer to order 750 books than 100, and they understand that certain factors are outside of your control. What they don’t understand (and rightfully so) is a lack of communication. That’s why we tried to overcommunicate. We’d rather have people say “Okay, enough with the updates already!” than “What are those guys doing? I haven’t heard from them in forever.
—The 99 Shades of Grey post-mortem on their successful Kickstarter project.
The positives, even if I didn’t make a lot of (any) money (yet), have been incredibly positive. Kickstarter gave me more than I ever could have hoped when I first thought of self-publishing.
—Kelly Thompson, author of The Girl Who Would Be King, breaks down the struggles and triumphs of her Kickstarter project.
Black and white and read all over.
Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher, acclaimed editorial cartoonist for The Economist magazine, is celebrating 35 years of visual satire with a retrospective book.
Do it together.
Kevin Devine wondered if he could fund his next two records on Kickstarter. His fans said yes.
Thank you. I’m speechless. You are an amazing audience, supportive, generous, loyal don’t cut it. Thank you for an absurd & validating day.
