It wasn’t long ago that I was fearing, even assuming, that the GoFundMe campaign for my Axanar Universe fan film INTERLUDE would fall far short of its $19.5K goal. And so my directors and I created a “point of no return” minimum budget of $13.5K that would guarantee us being able to shoot in November.
But after a an amazing “Thousand Dollar Thursday” push a couple of weeks ago that turned into FIVE Thousand Dollar Thursday, we blew past that minimum and were now looking at the reality of shooting this thing (or at least the Ares Studios scenes) in November…barely 10 weeks away! And now that we had over $17K in the coffers, that meant we didn’t have to tighten our belts nearly as much. It also meant it was time to make a final budget!
Last Friday, I had a very productive 90-minute production call with my two co-directors, VICTORIA FOX and JOSHUA IRWIN. They’re both super-busy right now on other professional productions, as well as finishing up their latest Avalon Universe fan film “Demons.” But we carved out some time to add up everything we now could and couldn’t afford to do with Interlude.
Without going too deeply into the weeds (I’m done with the hassles of detailed budget blogs—too many back-seat producers out there), I can tell you all with absolute confidence and excitement that we’re now back to being able to do everything that we originally wanted to do in this fan film—with two notable exceptions….
The first item where we’re still short is that we completely forgot to budget hard drive storage for all of our video footage! (I knew we were gonna forget something! I even said so in my budget blog…third to last paragraph.) Josh’s current hard drive and back-up drive are filled with Avalon footage, so we need to buy new drives for Interlude. Two 10TB G-drives (one for back-up) are about $600 total. So we still need funds for that.
The second item is contingency (also known as “what could possibly go wrong?”) funds. Assuming we raise enough to buy the hard drives but don’t bring in a penny more, then we’re at a point where we have to pray that everything goes perfectly and nothing unexpected pops up…which almost never happens, of course!
All of which is to say that this crowd-funding campaign is still very much alive and active, so please keep spreading the word. Remember that there are still very nice Axanar poster sets available from MARK PAYTON for $125 each (with proceeds after shipping & handling being donated by Mark to Interlude). And of course, if you haven’t donated yet (or would like to donate more), here’s the link…
https://www.gofundme.com/interlude
Donations do keep coming in, and we’re just about at $18,300 (including about $100 in direct Paypal donations) from 215 backers. Another $1,200 gets us those hard drives and $1,000 in contingency. I’m confident we can make it!
We’re nearing the point where we transition from me running the show (i.e. raising money) to Victoria and Josh running the show. I have to save that I am REALLY psyched about unleashing their talents at full power. We’ve scheduled our next production conference call early next week, and September will be a very busy month prepping for the start of filming in November.
I will, of course, keep you all updated on the progress that is made along the way.
Well, I just made another donation, because I think it’s going to be an award winning fan film in future contest’s. Jonathan conveys the excitement of this project in every post he makes. Congrats on pulling it off!
I got the donation via Paypal just now, David. Thank you again so much. That brings the Paypal donations up to $129.57…which, when added to the current GoFundMe total, brings us to $18,365 right now. That means just $1,135 and we’re there!
Of course, GoFundMe takes a 3% nibble out of all donations. So making it to $19,500 is really like making it to $18,915 after fees. But every little bit helps! 🙂
A point of note; GoFundMe asks the contributor for a donation (nominally 3%) ON TOP OF the actual donation; so as an example, I can confirm that the sum of my donations as advised to you by GoFundMe isn’t subject to a 3% reduction before being passed on to you─I paid their portion as an additional sum. (If this isn’t so, they are misrepresenting their activities to contributors.) GoFundMe also advise the contributor that a donation to them is voluntary (although I assume/hope everyone does their bit here). They assert to the contributor that there are no fees, only relying on these voluntary donations at a suggested level of 3%, although that figure is not enforced and can be zero!
Bryan, you last donation showed up as $215. Did you “tip” more over that number?
Yes Jonathan ─ can’t remember the exact tip but it was of the order of $15-$20. Each donation I’ve made has included the addition of a tip taking the total I’ve paid to be above the actual contribution as shown on your donation lists (and correctly, as I’ve understood the system).
Ah, I just checked on GoFundMe, and your “tip” is intended as a way for GoFundMe to offer its service for “free”…which isn’t totally free. A service fee is deducted no matter what simply because GoFundMe themselves gets charged that to process credit card payments. Here’s what their site says:
It’s important to understand that payment processing fees are different from platform fees.
While GoFundMe fees no longer exist, payment processors like WePay and PayPal charge recipients a standard processing fee (2.9% + $.30 per transaction). This allows for credit card processing and the safe transfer of funds.
These payment processing fees are deducted from the donation total. For example, when someone donates $100 through GoFundMe, the payment processing fee would come to $3.20 (2.9% of the total plus $0.30).
So your $215 had $6.23 subtracted from it along with an additional 30 cents…for the total deduction of $6.53. What was left was a donation to me of $208.47, which was deposited directly into my bank account later that evening.
You “tip” was, I am certain, sincerely appreciated by GoFundMe and its many campaign runners because that add-on donation is what’s allowing them to keep the lights on without going bankrupt.
Thanks Jonathan. That isn’t immediately obvious when making a donation, but the need to at least cover credit-card charges etc clearly makes sense. That means my donations to the project are a little less than I realized ─ hope this doesn’t result in a demotion!
Oh, I give full credit to everyone. It’s how much you give, not how much I get. 🙂