News - Is crowndfunding going to far?

Is Kickstarter really helping creator make art or is it becoming a "work-for-pay" facilitator?

Hey guys,

As most of you know I'm a big animation fan, especially when it comes to the genre "anime" not because I'm into all the Naruto or SailorMoon stuff nowadays but because I have a great respect for old traditional 2D animation. I mean - at one point in my life - I was a animator.

I come to all today with great respect but also great concern about the new age of animation crowdfunding campaigns (mostly on Kickstarter) that I'm seeing. I feel that there are some cases of over-budget and I'd like you guys to get a view of what I'm talking about.

It's clear that Kickstarter has been a great source of entertainment production using crowdfunding. They've helped anonymous people and artist to make their work known and also have a relative success doing it but I feel this is being somewhat "shaded" by other campaigns that could affect these small ventures.

Little Witch Academia by Studio Trigger was so successful they are now working on a second episode.

Little Witch Academia was a 26 min animation video made by studio trigger with the support of the Anime Mirai program (a fund made in japan for animation). Studio Trigger did so well that they decided to make another one - Little Witch Academia 2 - with the help of Kickstarter. Since they were already a animation company, they asked for a $150K budget to complete the project but people liked the first one so much it made over $600K. Hurray right?! Yes.

Under The Dog by C.I.A. - Creative Intelligence Arts was funded in full and almost made it to a second volume.

The second project on "big budget animation" I saw was Under the Dog. This was made by Hiroaki Yura, the same producer that already had success with Project Phoenix (a JRPG project). This time, for a 24 min episode, he asked $580K getting a bit more than that. Seems legit seeing as he's not an animator and has no company to do it with.

Now here's my problem...

Urbance by Joel Dos Reis Viegas was full funded  at the last few days. A sight of over-budget maybe?

A few months ago a well established concept designer Joel Dos Reis Viegas, started a kickstarter campaign for Urbance a six minute (yes thats 6 min) animation and asked - wait for it - $190K. For six minutes! The project, three days form ending, was $50K short but at the last minute they made it! I know that they were asking the same amount as "Under the Dog" for a full episode but still I think that almost $200K for six minutes of animation is pushing it. On UTD they still had a two minutes and a half of preview - which was pretty damn good - but this... this was just asking too much for too little.

Cannon Busters Kickstarter campaign is still going but... how far will it go?

Now we have another great campaign coming along Cannon Busters by all time animator favorite LeSean Thomas and creative super-comic-penciller Joe Madureira. They're asking $120K for a nine minute pilot - which in comparison isn't that much - but still...

We need to remember that kickstarter is exactly that... a kick! A nudge! A shove! A "helping-hand" by the community for young, inexperienced, vibrant people to try and make something awesome for everyone to enjoy simply just by getting their work out there and what I'm seeing is a bit more like "I'll do this if the money's right!". These are well established, working professionals that wanna get their work done but only if we (and when I say "we" I mean the art community) pays them for their time.

Makoto Shinkai started doing anime movies by himself, with no funding, before creating his own studio.

Thats really NOT the direction I want the online crowdfunding community to go! If this keeps up we might be paying $200K for a five minute short while guys like Makoto Shinkai (a now well established anime creator) made all his movie without any crowdfunding and he did most of them on it's own.

I love animation, I love games, I love crowdfunding, I like these guys cause they make a great contribution to the animation and game industry but if this keeps up, less people will join these campaigns and with less money and that's not the purpose of Kickstarter. The purpose is make stuff happen... not make money of what's happening!