Funding – Page 2 – Journeys of a Hybrid

October 5, 2011October 5, 2011

New Opportunities for Photography

For this post, I’m going to use a very broad definition for “photography”. I will define photography as any image still or motion shot by any camera – still camera, video camera, hybrid or even and iPhone.

The business of photography has changed with technology. To start with it demands more than just “still captures” in terms of content. These days, our clients are asking us to create stills and motion content and sometimes even 3D. On top of that technology has made it possible for almost anyone to take a reasonably good picture or video.

So where does that leave us as far as new opportunities in the business of photography? While some look in their rear view mirror and lament the passing of the good old days, I for one have my eye on the possibilities that are open to anyone willing to do the work.

My top 5 pick of opportunities out there:

Once Magazine – An online photo magazine made for the iPad. Photographs and video look great on the iPad and Once, magazine shares subscription revenue 50/50 with each issue’s contributors. You no longer need an assignment to shoot those long run stories you love and monetize them.
Crowdfunding – With Kickstarter, RocketHub
Distribution – Film DIY, Distribber
Funding and marketing – Sokap
PR and Marketing Tools – Topspin Media
Portal for e-commerce (also integrated websites) – Photoshelter

That’s a start. It’s never before been more possible than it is now to create, promote, market and monetize your “photography.” Be smart. Be authentic. Be courteous. Have a plan and be prepared to do the work. Anything is possible. Validation for your project is no longer necessary.

If you appreciate what I have shared – here’s one last link, a shameless plug to our funding campaign on IndieGoGo for our film, Opening Our Eyes. If you can, please contribute. If not, please pass along the link.

Marian Kramer, one of our subjects in the film says:
“We all just have to shine each other up.”

September 30, 2011September 30, 2011

Resources, Sharing and Good Karma

I love the time we are living in. If there is anything I want to find out about – and I do mean anything – and I can get “connected” online – I have access to a universe of information. For someone like me who always has a hundred questions running through my mind – it’s like the “time of Aquarius” – only better.

This morning I was poking around ASMP’s CameraCake, a cool new social bookmarking site. It’s kind of like getting references to all sorts of interesting people, ideas and services from your colleagues. I posted a link to a great new online magazine that I had heard about from friend, David Sanger on Facebook.

So, now that information and link to Once Magazine will be shared with a lot more photographers and motion shooters than if it just appeared on my blog. Why all this sharing? I don’t know, but I do know that when you give, you get more in return and on many levels.

I spent two years, giving seminars for ASMP about transitioning to video. In those two years, I got a lot of emails with questions from photographers as they added motion to their businesses and I hope I answered each and everyone. I’ve also shared a lot of info about video on this blog . That’s why I started it and titled it “Journeys of a Hybrid”, almost 3 years ago – it was a journey for all of us. I’ve recently started offering seminars in The Business of Video, because I see there is a hole to fill. There’s plenty of “HDSLR” workshops out there, but rarely do any provide practical business models and/or guidance that speaks to the new media opportunities that are opening up in the hybrid area.

Giving seminars doesn’t provide me a living but it does help me in a business sense because by providing knowledge to my competition and people just starting out, I am helping all of us to sustain a decent living, working in a creative trade.

I also like to share because it makes me feel good. I’ll be speaking at the PACA conference on Oct. 22nd, in New York. ASPP asked me to talk about my film, Opening Our Eyes in a seminar entitled “Passion to Profitable Distribution”. I’m delighted to do that because there’s nothing I like doing more than talking about what we as creatives are capable of doing and the global reach we have as individuals. It’s an empowering time.

I’ll close with one small request and that is to share this link to our recently launched
campaign for Opening Our Eyes on IndieGoGo. The film is finished and is already making a difference, but we need to give it a push in order to “get it out there” and to be seen.

As Marian Kramer, one of our subjects said “We just have to shine each other up.”

August 11, 2011

The D.I.Y. Age

The world is full of possibilities these days. In fact, for the individual and their “reach” globally – it’s staggering how many possibilities exist that didn’t just a couple of years ago.

We can not only create in a more affordable way with inexpensive equipment and leaner crews – we can also get our creations out to the world without the need for a publisher or a stock agency or a film distributor.

We can do all those things due to the exponential growth of technology. But we also need to recognize that all those possibilities come with a cost, in terms of dollars as well as man-hours. Each one of those possibilities takes time and money in order to become a reality.

Even the path to getting money or financing these days has changed because of crowd funding. But like anything else you need to stand out amongst the noise, so who knows how long this trend can sustain itself.

If you’re planning a personal project, keep in mind that you will need to not only create it but find a way to get it out there after completion. Expect to put time and money into:

•   Self – Publishing – this includes hiring a designer and researching self-publishing partners like www.lulu.com in the print publishing world. They also offer downloads. In the motion world, you have options like Amazon, iTunes and Netflix.
•   Marketing, PR and advertising – This is definitely an area where you will need money and expertise. Jon Reiss in his book “Think Outside the Box Office” suggests that it will take an investment for at least as much as you spent creating your film.
•   Crowd funding – The crowd funding sites provide you a portal if your project is accepted but you need to do the work as far as getting people to know about your project and fund it.
•   Bookings – Whether it is an exhibit or a movie or a lecture – you need someone to book venues for you. This could also mean finding sponsors.

The bottom line is really kind of an old fashioned notion in a high tech age and that is – the prize is out there is you’re willing to do the work.

June 17, 2011June 17, 2011

The Making of a Movie with a DSLR

It’s been a wild ride since I first began this journey of making a feature film with a DSLR camera – in my case, the Canon Eos 5D Mark II. I had already completed three short documentaries to date – all made with traditional video cameras from my first Canon XL-1 to my current HD Sony EX-1. But this time I was heading out on a 99-day journey around the globe, with my 23 year old daughter in search of ordinary people on six continents, who were making a difference in the world, and we had to pack light.

We were “the crew” – the two of us. We had to work efficiently and with gear that would fit into two backpacks and would endure the adventure as we traveled to 17 different countries on 30 flights. I also wanted to shoot both still images and motion, so I opted for the DSLR solution. Of course, I was enchanted by the “big chip” and the cinematic look of these cameras, but I was also thinking of my gear in practical terms – how I was traveling – how I would be shooting – and of course the desired outcome.

So with my daughter “running sound”, doing the interviews with our subjects, shooting still images, and navigating us through the subway systems in Moscow and Buenos Aires, and me taking care of all the logistics and shooting both video and stills, we came back 99 days later with almost 3000 gigabytes of content – that’s approx. 150 hours of footage and 5000 still image captures!

I wasn’t mentally prepared for what came next and that was 2 intensive months on my part ingesting all the content into my editing system, transcoding and adding metadata to the files and culling through hours of interview soundbites until I had cut it down to three . It was grueling and my winter months were spent putting in 14 hour days – 7 days a week. I was overwhelmed, yet somehow driven by some force. It was a lot of work, it was tedious and it was daunting – but yet it was my passion and somehow this inexplicable “force” got me through it.

I raised money along the way through crowd funding on Kickstarter and with that, I hired an editor. After I handed the project off to my editor, Erik Freeland of Springhouse Films, there was a huge sigh of relief on my part. I knew the post production had a long way to go but, I also knew that I had to let it go for a while and step back. Working with Erik has been amazing in itself and he has brought enormous value to this project and film. I have learned a lot from his insights and his talents in knowing how to” tell a story”, and we are finally coming to the completion of this film. Or at least in getting the “first cut” done for a sneak preview on July 17th, at the State Theater in Traverse City, Michigan. The screening is by invitation only and if you would like to attend, just drop me an email at gail@openingoureyes.net and tell me how many people would like to attend.

Since I first dreamed up this project in the final days of 2009, to the departure of our trip in the Spring of 2010, to where we are now, it has been a continual journey on every level imaginable. And I have had many angels working on my behalf – my husband Tom Kelly who has been the “wind beneath my wings” and without his support none of this would have been possible, my extended family who have been amused over the years with my schemes and dreams, my dear friends Angel Burns and Ally Raye who have believed in me and this project and have made incredibly exciting things happen for this film. (I’m not quite ready to divulge some of those exciting things publicly, just yet), Maria Grillo and Jason Harvey at The Grillo Group who have been so giving with their time and talents and created all the graphic design for the film’s release, and so many other “angels” who have helped me with foreign translations, been financial backers, helped me spread the word globally, and every person who was there for me when I needed support and encouragement. I am deeply grateful to have all these people in my life.

We live in an empowering time. When I began my career as a still photographer, over 30 years ago, I never would have imagined doing any of this. In fact just two years ago, none of this would have been possible. Our dreams are as big as we want them to be. I have seen this dream clearly from the start and each day I get closer and closer to seeing it become a reality.

Watch the Trailer

May 25, 2011

A Year Ago Today – The Beginning of Our Documentary and the DSLR

It was exactly a year ago today that I left with my daughter on a 99-day journey around the world to create a documentary about people on six continents who were making a difference in the world. I was not new to video or documentaries, having shot motion for over twelve years and completing three short films. But this was big – not in the sense of “big production” or “big crew” or certainly not “big budget” – it wasn’t any of those things but it was indeed BIG.

I had no idea how big it turned out to be. The trip in itself was almost the easy part, although don’t get me wrong – it was arduous on every level. What was overwhelming was taking the project from idea to completion. Had I known how overwhelming it has been at times, I may have reconsidered – or at the very least had a bigger crew.

The crew was my daughter and myself. I shot video. She shot stills. She interviewed the subjects and ran sound. I operated the camera and shot B-Roll. She research, scheduled and pre-interviewed the subjects and I worked on all the logistics – travel, travel needs and gear. I thought about gear long and hard and decided to go with the hybrid cameras, in my case the Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon 7D. I wanted to capture both stills and video, but I didn’t want to bring two separate camera systems, so I chose the hybrids. I have written a lot about the gear but the all time most popular post I wrote was about my gear for this 99-day journey.

We returned in September with over 150 hours of footage and over 5000 still images. Wow! Talk about overwhelming. I spent 2 solid months of my winter getting the footage into a manageable rough timeline – or at least the sound bites. I handed it off to my editor Erik Freeland of Springhouse Films and he hopes to get me his rough cut this weekend. I’ve had many conversations with Erik over the past month or so about the story(s) and the arc of the film and he truly understands how to tell a story. I am extremely grateful that I was able to hire a professional editor and it never would have been possible, without my successful run with Kickstarter.

I have been working a lot in the back scenes with distribution options and I am thrilled with what I am finding. This is the time for “the documentary”. It’s possible with small budgets and crews to make a powerful film that can be seen in hundreds of various venues well past the big screen movie houses and film festivals. It’s an amazing time for “the individual” and what can be accomplished because of technology. That’s another blog for another time though.

I’m headed to California this afternoon to speak at Cal Poly tomorrow evening. Join me if you’re in the area. For old time’s sake, I took my Eagle Creek bag – which I had circumvented the globe with. It seemed like the right thing to do.

April 8, 2011

The Amazing Age of Convergence ….

…where anything is possible. I’ve haven’t written in awhile because I’ve been traveling. Last week I was in Chicago presenting a seminar at ASMP’s SB3 Seminar. It was the last one in a series and now I’m kind of going through withdrawal. There was so much sharing of information and ideas that no one wanted the conferences to end. But now we all need to initiate some of those ideas and apply some of the things we’ve learned. And that’s the part we can’t forget about – doing the work that will bring our ideas to fruition.

In my last blog I wrote about believing that the impossible is possible. I don’t mean to over simplify that notion and to say that all we have to do is have a positive mindset and things will happen for us. What I really mean to say is that without the belief that we have the power to do anything we put our minds to –we would never try – we would never give something a chance to happen. But along with that comes plenty of times when it just doesn’t happen – the first time, the second and third time and many times after that. And that’s when we need try again – and maybe harder.

The good news is that these days it seems like all our tools are converging to make just about anything possible. We no longer need someone to validate our ideas because we can validate our own. We have affordable cameras that shoot stunning still images and video. We have non-linear editing software to create the stories and we have Facebook and Twitter to get the word out about them. We have crowd funding sites like Kickstarter to raise money so that we can make our ideas a reality. And when our videos are finished we can upload them to YouTube or Vimeo and share them. We can also distribute our creations through image portals, downloaded Apps or through iTunes.

Last week I uploaded a trailer for my documentary Opening Our Eyes. As of today people in 71 countries have played the trailer! I sent the link to less than 30 people and they passed it on, embedded it on Facebook and blogs and it took on a life of its own. That simply amazes me because of the power that we now have to connect and communicate with just about anyone, anywhere in the world. That’s revolutionary. That’s a game changer. That’s powerful.

I’ve just arrived in Las Vegas to attend the NAB show. The National Association of Broadcasters has one of the world’s largest broadcast conferences in the world. All the movers and shakers of the broadcast world are here to network, make announcements about new products and learn. It will be another solid week of input overload with my head bursting with ideas and possibilities. And every one of the ideas has the real possibility of happening because of the age we live in.

If only I had more time.

January 31, 2011

Being Authentic

There are certain words and phrases that tend to become over used just because they seem to express the idea so well. Ironically, the word authentic is becoming over used now in our culture and in a weird way is on the brink of becoming a contradiction to what it means. So, I cautiously use the word “authentic” in the real sense to say – be who you are meant to be. Be authentic.

When I returned from my round the world adventure this past Fall after completing the shooting aspect of a personal project, I discovered that people were responding to me in a different way. Perhaps they sensed there was something inside of me that they wanted to connect with. It’s a very difficult thing to explain but I think what they were sensing, was my contentment. I was content and feeling a sense of “satisfaction” because I was following “my purpose”, both personally and creatively and in the process I was discovering many other people, all over the world, who were doing the same.

On the outside what may have seemed like just a very long, exotic “trip”, was really more of a journey. It was a journey that I had begun a long time ago when I became an explorer, through my eyes and through my camera. I use the word explorer in a literal and figurative sense. Throughout my life, in my never-ending nomadic need to explore the world and its peoples, I was finding my own vision and how I “saw” and I was sharing that with others.

Ethan G. Salwen expressed it beautifully in a recent post on his After Capture blog:

“We always say that learning photography is really learning to see, and this is true. But we tend to express this sentiment in relation to a very limited sense of seeing — the visual sense. Older photographers seem to continue to learn to see on a much deeper level, in terms of what it is to be a working artist and, most important, how this relates to their continual growth and satisfaction as an individual.”

I think Ethan nailed it by talking about “learning and seeing on a much deeper level and how this brings growth and satisfaction as an individual.” I use the words “ being on purpose” to describe “satisfaction” within oneself. I believe that as creative individuals, when we begin to find meaning in who we are and how that fits into the world, it will shine through our work. Some use the word “vision” to describe that certain something that they see in someone’s creative work. Maybe that’s what was in the back of my mind when I came up with the title of my project and film, Opening Our Eyes.

In a way, I use my “eyes” and my camera to do what I do best – to share and connect with others. When I travel, it is not to assimilate with a culture, but rather to learn and exchange our cultural uniqueness, embrace that and share it with others. When I’m being authentic and true to myself, that happens in a magical way. When someone tells me that I’m the “real deal”, that is one of the highest compliments they can give me.

I think Susana Esmoris, one of the subjects of my documentary said it best. “Live life intensely. Wear the color that you want in life. Dance what you want to dance.”

January 6, 2011January 6, 2011

Crowd Funding and What I’ve Learned

There’s a scene at the end of my favorite holiday movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”

250px-It's_A_Wonderful_Life — It's a Wonderful Life

where George Bailey, a character played by Jimmy Stewart is surrounded by his friends as they come to his aid and bail him out of his financial shortcomings, caused by his crazy Uncle Billy. I’ve seen this film at least a dozen times and ok – I admit it – I cry every time George Bailey’s little girl opens a book that mysteriously appears under the Christmas tree with the inscription “No man is a failure who has friends”.

I felt like George Bailey today when I saw the email from Kickstarter telling me that my daughter’s and my film project, Opening Our Eyes had been officially funded. We actually exceeded our goal of $7500 and raised just over $10,000! What a feeling – what a triumph and all possible because of our “friends”. Through crowd funding – our friends had helped us reach our goal and made our film a reality.

This would not have been possible just two years ago. But, Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites like it, provide other options for artists and entrepreneurs who are seeking funds to make their creative ideas come to life. Many times these ideas might not fit within the confines of what a traditional bank would finance, but there are some great ideas that have a chance now of becoming a reality – and we all benefit by that.

Here are some things that I have learned through the process of getting our film funded on Kickstarter.

•    You have to do the work. Once you launch your project page on Kickstarter, you need to let potential backers know about it, using social media or email blasts or word of mouth. Just like getting traffic to your website, you can’t expect people to stumble upon your project and fund it.
•    You have to make it fun. Have fun with the “rewards” that you offer your backers, and on Kickstarter every project must have rewards. People love to give, but they also love to feel like they are part of something or that they have helped to make something happen. If a backer contributed to my project at the $500 reward level, they will receive an Associate Producer credit in the film and on the project’s website, along with DVD’s of the film when it’s completed, as well as a signed print and an e-book from the project’s journey.
•    Keep your financial goal realistic. Look at other projects that are similar to yours and see what the “market will bear”. See what has been successful and ask yourself why. Remember that if you ask for too much money and don’t meet 100% of your goal by the time the funding period is over for your project, then you won’t receive anything. Only projects that are successfully funded at 100%, will receive funds.
•    Use social media and email blasts with common sense – don’t be obnoxious. If you do send emails – don’t send an email again to someone who has already backed your project. Ask people to share your project link on social media but don’t overdo it.
•    Post updates on your project to keep your backers and potential backers informed. Use visuals if you have them, both on your page site as well as in your updates. Photographs and videos really give a project presence and are a must have. You want to stand out from the crowd.
•    There is no such thing as a pledge too small. They say the average pledge on Kickstarter is around $25 and I can attest to that. Out of our 161 backers – 69 had made pledges of $25. It all adds up. And every time someone backs your project there is also the opportunity that they may share it with someone they know who may in turn make a contribution.
•    Be grateful and appreciative. I made it a point to send each and every one of my backers a personal thank you note.
•    Have faith – because anything is truly possible these days.