What expensive camera obsessions are doing for filmmaking

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@chrispahlow
[ ...If people have donated money to my film project does that mean I’m not allowed to spend any of my own money on other things (whether film related or not)? I don’t think this viewpoint is realistic or fair at all. ]

As long as you had openly and clearly ( realistically ) had told your potential donors ( share holders ) about your intentions and those” Other ” related activities at the time you were fetching for their money – then it’s all fair and honest.
i’m not sure if you can put aside your relationship with Koo in this case. Would you donate in a project as willingly if you knew the person begging for your money has many other parallel stuff going on? Would you donate to a project if you knew the producer is keeping HIS OWN investments out of it ?

i have nothing against Koo personaly. My concern is the future of Crowdsourcing. It’s a wonderful thing going for ALL of us. We are the guardians. Let’s prevent than cure. Already some ugly patterns taking shape in Kikstarter. Soon it will be very difficult to earn the trust of crowds if we continue taking matters too lightly with crowds trust.
Yes, Koo and others need to through in their own assets in the project. That’s over and above their best efforts to accomplish what was promised. If we don’t take care of Crowsourcing soon enough a few crooks and liars will pack in a bunch goods from trusty crowd, vomit some half digested product and walk away. Then the true artist, entrepreneur, … whom is ready to give his life for a project will have a tough time to prove his/her honesty.

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[Guest newone]

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You are the one who has a lot of correcting to do – starting with giving the donators back all of their money. You are in this for you and you alone – that shows through clearly in your writing. There have been filmmakers prosecuted for inappropriate expenditures stating they were need for the movies in states giving tax credits and they denied using funds inappropriately initially and either plead guilty or were convicted – so filmmakers are not above using funds inappropriately and in some cases the “movies” appear to be fronts for other purposes. Your purchase goes against what you stated on kickstarter by a long shot and should result in you giving back all money – you of course don’t seem to be the type who would. And there’s a difference between people hating and people expecting responsibility.

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[Guest newone]

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The whole project is questionable to me. On kickstarter he says he needs $15,000 explicitly to rent a Red camera. He never mentions he has money or funding to buy the camera already, which he had to have known when he posted his request on kickstarter. Now, essentially, the $15,000 he raised to rent the Red isn’t needed, but it doesn’t appear that he’s giving it back to those who donated it specifically for what he requested it. He stated on here and nofilmschool that the money came not from kickstarter funds (but from his funds or another). It’s very shady to me. Did he actually have the funds or is he using kickstarter funds to buy a camera for himself – which isn’t what he said he’d do. Again, he needs to return the $15,000 and I think he has a lot more explaining to do. He appears way more interested in self-promotion than actually making a movie. I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t get made and I won’t be surprised by anything the money gets spent on.

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[Guest hdslr4ever]

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Like Crazy – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1758692 shot on Canon EOS 7D
Act of Valor – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1591479 shot on Canon EOS 5D + 7D +1D
I Melt with You – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1691920 shot on Canon EOS 5D

Take your pick this is just the beginning…

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[Guest Rosebud]

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Finally, someone who sees the light! Let the darkness befall everyone else.

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[Guest moebius22]

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Maybe EOSHD or some of the more experienced posters can answer this, but do you really need a RED camera to film a sports film (with requisite movement) well.

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[Guest Rev_Benjamin]

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Why take a swing at Koo? The cost justifies itself, the scarlet is a new development, people should be proud of Koo for being smart and investing his own funds into this. It’s nobody’s business what he wants to do with an extra 20k – and you commenters are all talking like you’ve “been there, done that”. Newsflash – you’re commenting on a dslr weblog. Not an alexxa forum. Not an epic forum. Not to your buddies at Warner. No. A blog on the internet. I would assume most of us here are indie, AC2′s or PA’s on studio sets at best, and nobody’s “been there, done that” with everything. But troll away, I guess…

And EOSHD writer, your post reads as if it were written by a passive-agressive middle schooler unfamiliar with the nuances of ‘No offense, but…’. You seem to be angry at him for essentially leaving the dslr community and stepping up his game into the big-boy territory of 4k… it’s like you have abandonment issues.

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[Guest OverCranked]

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Hmmm… If you constantly turn your back on things that displeases you … you will be turning a lot during this life time. I can imagine all your shots with that GH2 comes from pretty flowers and chubby babies.
Stick around man ! maybe you learn something. Information comes from PDF files and manuals in the boxes of gizmos. Learning comes from interaction with people. It’s fortunate we don’t agree or know about others opinions. Otherwise life would be death sentence in a garden.

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[Guest Koo]

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Alright, fine, I’ll bite. Something resembling a response here:

http://nofilmschool.com/2011/11/im-ordering-scarlet-x-some-clarifications/

And apparently I need to clarify this again:

I’M NOT USING THE KICKSTARTER FUNDS TO BUY THIS CAMERA.

Also, when I wrote that we’d be renting a RED, the EPIC was $58,000. Since then RED announced the $10K SCARLET, do you want me to go back and revise my Kickstarter page that I wrote two months ago? Oh, wait, sorry, you can’t revise a page once a project is complete. And it was a “rough” budget anyway if you read.

studio17b, here’s a web series I shot (and, you know, co-wrote, directed, edited, etc.) a few years ago:

http://thewestside.tv

Final thought: we are all here to make movies or be creative in whatever our chosen field is. Harping on this is not productive for anyone.

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[Guest OverCranked]

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Well said ! i like your wisdom.

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[Guest irc]

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quote from his kickstarter page:

“Renting equipment: my equipment isn’t good enough to shoot this movie. Especially because there are a lot of SLOOOOOWWW MOOOTIIOOONN shots. We’re going to shoot it on something called a RED camera, which can do great slow-mo. But we have to rent it, because a fully equipped RED camera with good cinema lenses costs more than this campaign’s entire goal! So at $500/day for a camera package (a conservative estimate), a 30-day shoot = $15,000.”

This is what newone is referring to when he questions why koo was building up cash to buy a RED camera but still puts this in the reasoning for the 115k.

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[Guest studio17b]

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Overcranked:

I would agree with you, but with a caveat. Which is that the film-maker knew his film would cost $140,000 in total to make, which includes equipment rental or purchases (and really, which film doesn’t need that?). In which case spending that 20k “of his own money” (but really, once you have public money in the pot then that 20k no longer technically is “your” money) is morally acceptable.

Otherwise, if he knew the film was only going to cost $120,000, then I would say he’s misappropriating the funding and endangering the communal spirit of Kickstarter, as you say. That’s because he managed to save his own money because people gave him enough to cover what he needed to make the film. If he already had the 20k, and the film was only going to cost 120k, then morally he should have put that 20k into the pot along with the donations.

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[Guest studio17b]

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Could someone point me to shorts that Ryan Koo have already shot? I’m interested to see his style. Searched on Vimeo but couldn’t seem to find any. Cheers.

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[Guest studio17b]

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I think the question is, did Koo know that the film was going to cost $140k instead of $120k? Because if he knew it was only going to cost $120k, then to me his buying the Red “with his own money” is not a correct statement, because he could afford that camera only because people funded his film 100%.

Another way to see it is like this: a public lottery gave me funds to buy some new testing equipment to increase the quality of my manufacturing production. I use those funds to buy the test equipment. The money I saved by not having to fork out the funds out of my own pocket enabled me to buy a new building. But the question is, was I right to ask for the public to pay for my test equipment so that I can afford to buy my own building instead?

Did the people who donated to Man Child know that they are financing 100% of his film, or did they think he was putting in his own money into the venture as well (and therefore sharing the risk with them)?

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[Guest Rev_Benjamin]

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His kickstarter campaign and his own funds are entirely different buckets. If I have $2k in the bank, and I want to crowdsource $1k to make a short film on a $1k budget, so as to not risk my own funds, it’s my perrogative to do so. It’s nobody’s business how much money I have or how much I’m willing to put in on top of what I get from DONATIONS. If you’re not what the money will be used for (the production of a film) then do not donate. According to his own accounting, he’s SAVING the production $30k by using $20k or so of his OWN FUNDS.

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[Guest sc_200f5185b2cba2a0a2b775121674ff8d]

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Seems like there is a lot of jealously on these boards because someone ended up with a brand new RED.
The rules of crowd funding are simple.
Projects are listed. Read it. If you like it, pay money and receive the following perk.
THAT’S IT. There’s no auditing, no balancing books, and no control over what the filmmaker does with the money, so get your nose from where it doesn’t belong. If you’re jealous because a filmmaker is buying a RED, go do your own crowd funding then.

Don’t trust the filmmaker? Don’t donate!

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[Guest sc_200f5185b2cba2a0a2b775121674ff8d]

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Yeah and I need to read more clearly, having gone to college and studying that field… Not as bad as Andrew though. I’ll correct, I didn’t mean to slant Art Adams. He actually had nothing to say about Koo…

“I find it interesting that Ryan Koo of Nofilmschool recently pre-ordered the new Scarlet-X for $10k…”

ANYONE familiar with Koo’s kickstarter campaign and accompanying campaign video would NOT find this “Interesting” as he stated in his video that he was shooting on RED. He already made that decision. But of course research (journalism 101) escapes you…

“Of course he can invest how he sees fit but isn’t the generously donated $120k better spent on the actual film? Hell knows why he felt he needed it.”

A real journalist would have contacted the filmmaker and asked him why he made that decision(again journalism 101). Its obvious that you did not do this. So instead of giving readers the reasoning behind that decision, they read your ignorance, “Hell knows knows why he felt he needed it.”

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[Guest moebius22]

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You don’t have to stoop to ad hominems to make your point.

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[Guest sc_200f5185b2cba2a0a2b775121674ff8d]

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Art Adams writes a critical article about a filmmaker without researching the filmmaker first. While studying journalism I was taught that we research the subjects of our articles before we write them.

“I find it interesting that Ryan Koo of Nofilmschool recently pre-ordered the new Scarlet-X for $10k…”

ANYONE familiar with Koo’s kickstarter campaign and accompanying campaign video would NOT find this “Interesting” as he stated in his video that he was shooting on RED. He already made that decision. But of course research (journalism 101) escapes you…

“Of course he can invest how he sees fit but isn’t the generously donated $120k better spent on the actual film? Hell knows why he felt he needed it.”

A real journalist would have contacted the filmmaker and asked him why he made that decision(again journalism 101). Its obvious that you did not do this. So instead of giving readers the reasoning behind that decision, they read your ignorance, “Hell knows knows why he felt he needed it.”

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[Guest OverCranked]

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i wished Kikstarter would setup a promissory agreement ( not necessarily a Legal note ) for STARTERs to agree with. In that they should out line some moral outlines about the Kikstarter usage. This agreement should be visible to all parties participating in any project. By this we will reduce this kind of chatter.

How about we ask Andrew to start an article in the form of draft to serve this important need !
We can all chip in and form the first constitution for Crowdsourcing. We will be the Illuminati, the forefathers ( Masonic or not ) that wrote the constitution for the Global Village .

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