Volunteering on indie film projects - Lukas McNelly on "Year without Rent"

Lucas McNelly's "Year Without Rent" is one of the most exciting crowdfunding-campaigns so far this year. Within a few weeks, he convinced 243 backers on kickstarter to travel around the country to volunteer on indie film projects. He raised $7,819 of his total goal of $12,000 in the final 24 hours and finished his campaign with a landslide! In an interview with filmtiki's Wolfgang Gumpelmaier, he talked about his project and the fundraising-campaign. 

In short words, please tell us about the idea to "Year without Rent"

The short version is that "A Year Without Rent" is a multimedia project where yours truly travels the country, volunteering on indie film projects and documenting the experience. The thought being that we'll hopefully be able to learn something about the role of mobility in a creative professional.

What do you think, why did so many people support you?

I think there's a couple of factors. The volunteer aspect of the project was a great help, and we had a ton of endorsements from a lot of important people. That certainly helped legitimize the project. I think really, though, it had a lot to do with the fact that we put together a team of people who were relentless in working social media and getting the word out. But most importantly, the campaign was cool. There's no substitute for that.  

When did they start to promote your project without your help?

Once David and Karen at Film Courage came on board, that was huge. I'd reached out to them and a few other people in the very first days, so they were on-board from probably the end of the first week. From there, it kind of snowballed, especially in the final days.  

Did you also use traditional media and PR or was it a Social Media only campaign?

It was entirely a Social Media and email campaign. Partly because it's tricky to get traditional media on that quick of a turnaround. Not that we didn't try. We just didn't have any luck. We did get some plugs on radio shows, and I went on Film Snobbery Live the day before the end of the campaign. That helped a lot.  

Before you started, did you ask friends or other people for their support?

I brainstormed the idea and the campaign with a bunch of different people before we launched it. This was a strange campaign in that it was vital to compile a crowd around the project, and the most effective way to do that is through crowdfunding. So even if some rich person had written me a blank check, I still would have crowdfunded it.

What are the most important things when starting/running crowdfudning campaign?

There's a lot of advice I could give people about a campaign, but really it all comes down to one thing: you have to make sure that people know how much you appreciate their support. That's it. All the good perks and the constant chatter on Twitter and everything comes down to that one thing. No one has to give you anything. So the person that gives you $1 is just as important as the person that gives you $1000. Don't take any of them for granted.

How important are updates?

I think they're vital. You have to find something for people to interact with on a regular basis. It keeps the campaign in the forefront of people's minds. But, if you can have something that feels organic to the campaign, like we did with the road trip Mix CD, that helps a lot.  

How did all those special perks came and how did they help you reach your goal?

Having watched a lot of campaigns, I saw a bunch of ideas that worked and didn't. The Bizarro Map is stolen from TILT The Town (with permission, of course). And a lot of the cool perks are just random ideas I had, stuff that I thought would be cool. A couple of weeks ago I was in Pittsburgh, visiting friends, and I saw 4 or 5 different fridges with the UP COUNTRY postcard on them. People like the sort of tangible thing they can put on their fridge. It's kind of stupid, really, but that's the sort of thing that people interact with every day. Beyond that, I just sort of tried to think of what sort of things are essential to the road trip experience.

Did you have a big community on Twitter, Facebook etc. before?

Not, like, a huge one, but I certainly wasn't new to it. I think I had maybe 800 Twitter followers when we started, but a pretty active 800. It also helped quite a bit that I had already had a successful Kickstarter campaign. From that, I had a nice base to tap. And, honestly, I talked to a lot of those backers before I started the campaign, getting feedback and ideas and whatnot. That's really the value in something like Kickstarter. You find out who your dedicated "fans" are, and it gives you a venue to find new ones. Sure, the money is nice, but it's nothing compared to a collection of people who are that willing to support you. I don't have any idea how people do this sort of thing without an active community. I guess they probably don't.  

How much time did you spend on reaching your goal?

I probably did about 2 months of preproduction and the campaign was 31 days long. But during those 31 days, it was pretty much a 9am to 11pm grind. Not so much earlier, but really near the end. It helps if you stagger your information throughout the day. So if nothing else was happening, I'd tweet something at 10am, at 3pm, at 7pm, and at 10pm. Then I would tweet every time we got a new backer. That helps it stay on the top of people's radar.