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An arts extra: the astonishing power of Kickstarter

UPDATE 3:30 p.m. The campaign has cleared $1 million the same day it launched.

Here’s a follow-up of sorts to the big story I did on Kickstarter.com fundraising. This doesn’t really have a local tie unless you’re a fan of the short-lived television show Veronica Mars (it ran from 2004-2007 on UPN/CW) but if you need to see something astonishing today, step back and watch what happens when someone aims a Kickstarter.com campaign at a large Internet fan base. Creator Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell, lead actress of the series,  have launched a $2 million campaign to make a movie. The page went up today and raised more than $200,000 before noon.

Time Magazine critic James Poniewozik sees this as an important experiment in continuing television series that died too soon.
Mike Allen
March 13, 2013 - 12:52 PM

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Dusty | March 13, 2013 at 8:22 pm

    I have mixed feelings on this sort of thing. I’ve seen other major celebrities running big kickstarters and I always feel like they’re taking away funds from projects that need them a lot more.

    Eliza Dushku ran a kickstarter to make a film about a trip she went on. She already had all the footage. It seemed to me it was a celebrity just trying to get comped for a vacation.

    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1168918241/eliza-dushkus-untitled-albania-documentary

  2. Mike Allen | March 14, 2013 at 1:17 pm

    Yeah, I see where you’re coming from, Dusty. There’s no doubt in my mind that a Kickstarter launched by someone with a ready-made fan base easily accessed via Internet has a huge advantage over tinier but equally worthy projects. My question would be whether a project like this “crowds out” smaller stuff though, as in my experience it’s all about who you can reach to begin with.

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Mike Allen blogs about the regional arts community, as well as those curious and quirky things that can only be classified as "culture."

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