Category: Blog
Notes from the backer / crew meeting
About 20 backers met with us on Saturday at The HUB to let us thank them for their support and to talk about the film. Silver sponsor Nick Finck even joined by Skype and Alex Algard, CEO emailed in a thoughtful list of ideas and suggestions.
It was an informal Q&A and the only formalized discussion was a review of the vision I wrote last week, with a request to all backers to help me develop three candidate lists:
- people with a worth story to tell in line with the vision
- maker/creative work locations that are cinematic
- B-roll candidates of non-cliche Seattle in line with the vision
One fascinating observation was how many of the backers moved to Seattle: nearly everyone in the room had a story of why they chose to come here and their personal reasons for being happy with the choice. It was inspiring on its own to hear so many similar but different stories.
The vision for the film
The team has had two production meetings about the creative direction for the film and I wanted to update you on how things are going.
The first and most important thing you should do is watch some of our list of reference films. They’re short, but define the landscape of possible creative directions for films like ours. It gives us an easy vocabulary of references for things not to do, and things we do want to do. We want you involved, but the first question I’ll ask people with ideas is “have you seen any of the reference films?” 🙂
Anti-vision: things we want to avoid
As negative as it might seem it’s amazingly helpful to clarify what we’re not going to do and what we don’t want.
Most of the reference films are cold. They try to tell the story of an entire city which is impossible, as the burden of comprehensiveness crushes narrative.
Here’s a list of things we will intentionally avoid:
- No timelapsed video
- No over caffineated happy pretty people
- No talking heads
- No extended aerial shots
- No Space Needle or Pike Place Market (e.g. cliche landmarks)
- No fancy famous people
- No disposable intros
Thanks Tableau Software: Gold Sponsor
We’re excited to announce Tableau Software has signed up to be our first Gold Sponsor, contributing $5000 to the We Make Seattle Project.
Thanks for helping support us and the city of Seattle – you’re awesome.
Wait! Isn’t the Kickstarter campaign was over?
Yes, but we are still accepting Grassroots, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Sponsors. If you are interested, please contact us: info@bootstrapperstudios.com.
We’re FUNDED: Thank you
Minutes ago the clock expired on the fundraising campaign for We Make Seattle.
Thanks to all 261 backers who have supported the making of this film, and to everyone who tweeted, facebooked, blogged and emailed to help spread word about what we’re doing.
Extra big thanks to our awesome silver sponsors, who anchored our fundraising efforts:
We’re in the Seattle Times Today (photo)
The Sunday edition of the Seattle Times has an article about us:
New York, Los Angeles, Cincinnati and even Portland have powerful videos local companies can use to draw talented people into their culture. Why doesn’t Seattle? “We asked that question, and we couldn’t find a good answer,” Berkun said.
Most of those city videos had one or two civic or corporate funders, but Seattle’s creative community has a well-known collaborative streak. Berkun and Zug were pretty sure a crowd of locals could own this.
Coming soon: project kickoff meeting for backers
Hi backers and lurkers!
Now that we’re funded we’re planning an informal meet and greet between all of you backers and us, the folks making the film. I’ll give you a creative brief on the film, we’ll answer your questions, and draft a list for potential volunteers, as some of you have told us you have skills you’d be willing to donate to the cause.
We’re working on when and where but it should happen in the next week or two.
If you haven’t backed us yet, perhaps this will help sell you. Put in even a few bucks and you’ll be invited to join in and have a voice in the project.
Video Update: Scott Berkun
Hey Seattle:
Thank you for all your support! We have reached our goal!
<pause for celebration>
BUT, we want to see if we can use this momentum to push us to our stretch goal of $35,000.
Video update from Scott with the details is below.
All of your support shows us you believe in this project as much as we do. So, please help get us to our stretch goal. Pull in a friend to pledge – or consider doubling down on yours. We are so close. Thanks for all of the support.
Much love for you and this city,
– Bryan, Scott, Dan, and Adam
Vote on our poster design
Working with Constellation and Co. on the coasters and posters for We Make Seattle has been great. We love the retro, old school themes and the very Seattle palette of colors.
As promised for this project, we welcome your input. For the 11×17 poster, here are four four alternative designs for the poster. Which one is strongest?
Sara from C&Co says: ” the final poster will be created with a hand carved linoleum block and hand set wood type and printed on our historic iron handpress!”
New stretch goal: $35k (2 great new backer levels)
With three days left we’ve set a stretch goal of the project: we hope to reach $35k using the extra funds primarily for promotion and PR for the final film. Advertising isn’t cheap and to reach out beyond our own networks will take dedicated effort.
To help towards the stretch goal we’ve added two new backer levels:
1. WMS Set visit + w/ Schwag ($650) – You’ll get to tag along and watch us work, either on location shooting part of the film, or sitting in to watch one of our fascinating production meetings (Zug has been known to throw chairs). This is exclusive access to the core of the project and to get to see first hand how the film is being made.
2. Join the Distribution Team – ($250) – By joining this reward level you are specifically committing resources to magnify our terrific word of mouth with strategic distribution and promotion. You will also receive 1 ticket to our launch party in Seattle and one set of schwag (1 sticker, 1 coaster set, 1 poster, and 1 t-shirt).
And we still have other backer levels available if you want to join in: head to our kickstarter page for more info.
We’re funded! (and more is welcome)
First, a huge thank you to all 200+ of our backers. Each of is a part of this project and we are honored to have your support in making this project happen at all.
A special thanks to our awesome silver sponsors, who have shown great civic pride by anchoring our fundraising efforts with the largest contributions:
