Re: I.G, Tatami Galaxy's director Yuasa Raise Funds for Kick
kaze_andrew said:
To debate - the biggest criticisms I've seen from people so far for the project are:
1. IG is a big studio with big money - why back it?
2. $15 for SD, $30 for a 10 min HD file is too much.
1.'s answer should be clear - they are a commercial studio and projects like this are risky and you have no great way to monetize a 10-20 minute work on its own easily so they're trying a new way to cover some of the costs and make a better product than they could do sans support.
2 is a tougher one to argue about and is almost subjective from person to person. How do you feel on this one folks?
Andrew
FWIW I backed it for a good number, not a crazy one though!
Big commercial studio, ok, but as you said, they need funding for the craziest projects. This one is definitely not making any money back to them. So, I'm pretty much in agreement with you.
As for your second point, I did a campaign to raise funds for my own short films recently. One suceeded, the other didn't and I'd read an awful lot about kickstarter and indiegogo to understand how this all works and how to make my fun-raising campaigns succeed. It turns out, that one of the most important tip I've received was "perceived price". Unfortunately, Studio IG seems to be playing with the perceived price of anime for the japanese market, which I think is a mistake, but still, let's see how the project fare.
Considering it's the second day and they are reached 1/3 of their goal already, I'm pretty much convinced they will make it.
Rui said:
If I had the money I'd definitely have gone for the 10k. However, I don't, so I went for a more normal bid :
I'm actually checking if I can make the money somehow for the big one, my sister own me a lot of money, so if I can convince her to make her pay me back in a go instead of the really nice installments we agreed on. I'd actually be using money I've been saving to buy a house, but I don't really want to think about it now.... I'm kinda getting scared that I'll really go crazy and do it =P
Rui said:
I don't think there's such a thing as an absolute value on anything. $15-$30 for a DTO movie is a lot, undeniably, but they're not selling a product here as much as giving you an incentive for investing in something which otherwise may never come to exist, which is why people who back with the smallest amount get absolutely nothing. And $30 would have been stupendously cheap for a Japanese BD on a small print run, really, not something which could also have been used to sustain the creation costs of the actual film.
Yep, my thoughts exactly. There's a huge gap in perceived values between japanese and westerners. But I'm quite impressed to notice that most of the backers are between 60 and 250 dollars. When I clicked on the backers I was surprised to see the number of americans backing this project, specially considering how cheap they can get these stuff over there, so definitely, the perceived value of quality has been noticed for this project.
Rui said:
I feel good about the project. I don't see how anyone other than an established anime company could have made the first move to get anime onto Kickstarter (all of those dodgy little derivative projects which break all kinds of intellectual copyright rules notwithstanding), so I don't see what the point in criticising I.G. for anything is. People can just not pledge if they don't like it.
I signed up to Kickstarter today specifically to bid on the project, so it's not as though it took away money from any of the other things on there I didn't want to back.
Edit: The short run time doesn't bother me personally either; I'd rather watch 10 minutes of amazingness than 10,000 minutes of Eastenders any day.
R
Kickstarter is only for America right now, but they are coming to the UK. I first heard about them to fund the Tezuka's mangas to English, which I also contributed a nice value.
After this, I've created fund-raisings of my own and had a successful project and a not successful one. In my opinion, it's the ultimate power to the people tool to get your entertainment.
Reevothemusefan said:
Also this is my first time putting some money into a kickstarter project, feels good man.
Welcome to the club! =D Hope there's more awesome projects that deserve your backing in the future.
ayase said:
As much of a dastardly killjoy as it makes me feel, I was only hyped until I saw that runtime. Ten minutes is nothing. It's animation test length. Special feature on a DVD length. Perhaps most worryingly of all it's... shorter than Kai Doh Maru, and I felt like I had watched a whole lot of nothing after seeing Kai Doh Maru. I can't think what I could possibly see on a screen in that time which would make me consider the experience worth $1.50 per minute. And I'm confident if I had sixty dollars to spend on ten minutes of enjoyment, I could find a far more satisfying experience than this...
Kick-Heart sounds to me like a very fun project with an unquestionably talented team, but with it's sights set pitifully low.
While it all makes sense, not actually thinking on Kick-heart in itself, I'm actually wondering about the opportunities that the success of this project will bring. Like I mentioned before, helping them create hype also helps the project, so if you don't feel like helping financially, like it on facebook or tweet about it!
Ok, sorry, I'll stop being such a happy-go-lucky person now
Arbalest said:
This is actually a little scary. I discussed the possibility of kickstarter being used not long ago with a few others and i honestly wasn't expecting to see it used, at least not straight away. So it's definitely nice to see, as i certainly didn't expect, or rather, i didn't realise that the kickstarter idea had even made an impact on the eastern market, i thought it was more of a western thing. So this is fantastic. I expect i'll be putting in a pledge soon enough, i just need pay day to hit first
Why scary? I saw this coming from miles away! Although, I expected it a little bit sooner.
AFAIK, the Tesla museum project got over a million dollars funding, Amanda Palmer also managed to raise over a million dollars for her record and tour, so now others are surely looking into this!
In any case, I agree with you on the Eastern market thing though, as far as I know Kickstarter are not even operating anywhere other than America yet.
Rui said:
That's a perfectly reasonable opinion, but in my way of thinking (which is skewed heavily by my hobbies and my ownership of several BDs/DVDs with ridiculously short runtimes), I've had more meaningful entertainment experiences from five minute pop videos at times than from feature length movies. And this project is substantially longer than most music videos, with a cracking, silly-sounding plot. It helps that some of Yuasa's previous work has left a very strong, positive impression on me; if it was some unknown amateur at the reins I'd have more reservations.
I think Kai Doh Maru's issues may have run deeper than its runtime. Some creators are capable of making it feel as though you've achieved nothing no matter how long they are given to tell their story; others pack in so much that you get to the eyecatch in an episode and can't believe how much has happened.
Another one that makes sense. But in fairness, it's a matter of resources, considering we all have limited resources, it's up to us to decide where to invest them. If I unlimited resources, the 10k pack would have my name to it a long time ago....
