Tips from Gary Hastvita

Yesterday, a meeting was held at the Polytechnic Museum with the American documentary filmmaker Gary Hastwith, who successfully used the method of public funding for all his projects. His lecture “Crowdfunding and the Society of the Future” and the display of the design trilogy Hastvita were organized by the Beat Film Festival team in collaboration with Planeta.ru. For an hour, Gary shared his experience, answered questions from the audience, and also talked on Skype with co-founder of the Kickstarter site, Charles Adler.



Operators of "Planet" recorded the entire lecture from the beginning to the end, and soon we will post a video with a Russian translation, but for now we will briefly describe what was discussed.

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The main idea that Hastvit tried to convey was that crowdfunding is not begging: “You don’t ask for money, you invite people to become part of your project.” Crowdfunding is co-creation, and the main task of the authors is to involve the target audience in order for the campaign to become entertaining for both parties: it would be interesting for shareholders to follow the project’s dynamics and feel part of it, and creators are interested in communicating with the audience and getting priceless from it feedback For example, for its “Olympic City” photo project, Hastvit and a partner announced a vote on the topic: “Which city that hosted the Olympics should be included in your photo project?”. The first place, oddly enough, was taken by Moscow with a large margin, the second - Berlin and the third - Tokyo. And this is one of the reasons for Hastvit’s visit to Moscow.
The second topical thesis: “crowdfunding is not magic!”, As many think ... This is not a magical act and not a generator of easy money, you need to work hard, proving the uniqueness, consistency and necessity of your idea, project. Goals must be modest.

Hastvit also noted an important component of the crowdfunding system - the credibility of the authors of the projects. “Perhaps this is what the Russian lacks?” There should be established, recognized artists, artists who would use crowdfunding to implement their projects, then things will go in Russia. We need to create a critical mass of interest so that people see the projects that have taken place. ”

On Skype, Charles Adler spoke about the trends in the world of crowdfunding, and how the nature of projects has changed over the past three years. Adler noted that “project authors do not always understand what cultural mechanisms are involved in crowdfunding,” and that “now project authors are increasingly analyzing their risks on Kickstarter rather than looking for like-minded people,” as was originally intended. And as it seemed to us, this is not particularly pleasing to him, since all the co-founders of Kickstarter are creative people and are engaged in various types of art.

At the end of the lecture, Gary answered questions from the audience. We learned that Gary is a big fan of David Lynch, that he does not watch television and does not understand why he is needed at all, and why he needs a distribution system, if he has Internet access and can build relationships directly. And also that “good graphic design is my weakness, the project immediately looks more real!”. Speaking about the future of crowdfunding, Hastvit stressed that he can solve many problems, including social ones. It is good that more and more platforms for public funding appear in the world, as people have the opportunity to promote projects in their own country: “I wish you success. The main thing is not to give up! ”

The display of Hastvit’s films “Objectified” and “Urbanized” will take place on November 21 at 19.00 and 21.00 in the Polytechnic Museum’s lecture hall.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/159541/