Show.. Me.. Your Crowdfunding Plan

Indie darling, director Charlie Kaufman recently broke all fundraising campaign records via crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, doubling the target amount for the animated adaptation of his play ‘Anomalisa.’ The result was a whopping $400k that saw Kaufman laughing - past all the Hollywood studio big guns – and straight to the bank. At the heart of the debate that ensued on social media platforms Twitter and Facebook was whether Kaufman’s success was a positive influence on the omnipresent lack of faith in crowdfunding.

Working for the argument was that a name like Kaufman’s can only help solidify conviction in the capabilities of crowdfunding. Opposing views expressed concern regarding the potential lack of willingness to contribute to campaigns without a recognised name attached and if directors with leverage like Kaufman’s even needed to explore crowdfunding as an option. With valid points being made on both sides, the smartest option would be to equip you with the top industry tips on how to launch – and hopefully, complete – a successful crowdfunding campaign:

Five Things on Thursday

My awesome friend, Tarek Es-bear, has adopted and adapted a new trend from the ever evolving digital hipster scene in the UK and introduced us to 'Five Things on Thursday.' Not unlike the roundups I've done in the past (like here, here and here), five things is meant to highlight the best of the best of your internet week.

So, I'm jumping on the numerical bandwagon (for this week at least) and recounting the top five videos/articles/one man Lord of the Rings shows, for your viewing pleasure:

 

1. Although I saw this a couple of weeks ago, and it is fairly old in internet terms, this short is pretty much one of the coolest, gutsiest and best made films I have seen thus far in 2012. Treading ever so lightly on a semi-apocalytpic, drug-induced mutation of a public announcement, check out 'The Gate' (dir. Matt Westrup).

2. You know those women, who are all (apparantly) about feminism, and girl power, not having kids and 'sticking it to the man'? Listen, I'm a Jordanian woman - if there ever was someone who was pro feminism, it would be me. But all this "marriage is crap" bullshit is ridiculous. Love is good, and personally, I'm a sucker for a good love story. Enter Jess & Russ and the latest example in this new, revamped online wedding invitation craze. It is LOVELY.

3. Film is what you make of it. Personal interpretation and value-systems dictate the success of a feature - alongside production prowess, budgets and execution, of course. In the past year, I've been exposed to some B-movies I would have never touched had I not made the friends I have. Although many of these are (putting it lightly) not my cup of tea (enter 'Green Slime'),  I have always respected the love some have for the genre. Although I could easily label some as sweaty jockstraps of an excuse for film, I don't, because a) that's mean, and b) I'm on this new zen diet where I try not to get worked up. Long story short, I know not everyone loved 'The Avengers', but I did and it is a wonderful two hours of escapism, alongside everything else (almost) that Marvel Comics have ever done. So here are a bunch of awesome geeks (including me - plug *cough* plug) talking about their favourite Marvel characters, embarassing photos included.

4. I love Guillermo del Toro. SO MUCH. So this week, I found i) a faun... having lunch... and, ii) Hellboy looking sad. Also, although James Cameron is meant to be producing, it appears 'At the Mountains of Madness' has been put on hold (thanks 'Prometheus'). Save it by joining the petition, here.
Note: Cameron lost one of the 'Pan's Labyrinth' notebooks that del Toro gifted him. Nice going, Jimmy.

Lunching faun

 

Image courtesy of Pacman on DeviantArt

5. The final link for this, my inaugural 'Five Things on Thursday' post, is courtesy of my 'Daddy Cross' friends who show us how NOT to do a crowdfunding video call-out. And Evrim Ersoy should reconsider a career in comedy.

M.I.A's 'Bad Girls' is Indeed, Very Bad

It blows my mind that the new M.I.A track ‘Bad Girls’ has made the splash it has. The lyrics are obtuse, the ‘singer’ fickle and the video, a crime against the work of scholars like Edward Said and Anwar Abdel Malik.

The song bounces between M.I.A’s crude lyricism - with delights such as ‘live fast, die young, bad girls do it well’ and ‘pull me closer if you think you can hang… don’t go screaming if I blow you with a bang’ – and ludicrous imagery of what I can only assume are meant to be youth from the Arabian Gulf, hanging out in the desert in bling-adorned thobes and burkas, churning out wheelies whilst M.I.A dangles herself out of the passenger seat. As they do.

The fact that some people have gone as far as to translate the driving hijabi’s and the singer’s passenger-side cruising as M.I.A saluting women’s driving rights in the Arabian Gulf is both ridiculous and laughable. We’re talking about the same girl who wants to ‘give war a chance’ and caused human rights organisations grief during the end of a 25 year long civil war between Sri Lanka’s government and the Tamil Tigers, labelling it naively as genocide.

It’s also the same girl that spoke to the New York Times about wanting to be ‘an outsider’ whilst munching on truffle-flavoured French fries and hanging out in her Los Angeles mansion, funded and secured by her fiancé, and son of the Warner Music Group chief exec. Edgar Bronfman, Ben Bronfman. So now we know how she continues to manage record deals.

This is also the same woman who indirectly called Lady Gaga unattractive & unoriginal. Lady Gaga sold 3 million digital copies of her latest album, Born This Way, and is officially the most popular personality on Twitter, with over 18 million followers. I’m not suggesting record sales equal good music, but ‘copying’ a fellow artist’s video (Telephone) and then feigning superiority is typical M.I.A. Spoiled.

The very concept of orientalism is embodied in the video. The division of us and them, i.e. traditional Khaleeji dress, dangerous stunt driving and desert landscapes versus the heroic ‘Western’ figure, standing up for Arab women’s rights, decked out in men’s & modern clothing – is obvious and horrifying. We have once again given the West the right to ‘orientalise’ us. What a shame that so many of my peers appear to have confused freedom of expression and artistic liberty with what is so clearly a cultural catastrophe. 

You can watch M.I.A’s ‘Bad Girls’ video, here.

You can watch a snippet of an interview with late scholar, and my personal hero, Edward Said, here.

You can read M.I.A’s PR disaster of an interview, here. 

Image via The Hooded Utilitarian.