The Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Festival, along with partners Seed&Spark and the Michigan Film & Digital Media Office, is excited to once again present our audience engagement initiative to help filmmakers build a larger contributor base. The Crowdfunding Rally creates the opportunity for filmmakers to capitalize on the excitement at film festivals by helping them convert festival-going fans into contributors. It’s designed for filmmakers who are ready to start crowdfunding their next project, or who are looking for a fresh approach to supplement their current funding efforts.
The Crowdfunding Rally is a two-part event that begins and ends online, but makes a pit stop with a live pitch event at the 11th annual Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Festival. If your project is chosen to participate than you’ll be asked to set up a campaign on Seed&Spark. Seed&Spark’s online crowdfunding platform is used to collect all the contributions that come your way from our audience, as well as from your network of friends and family in your own social media campaign.
Just consider Hell’s Half Mile to be that friend you’ve asked to “check out” your crowdfunding campaign and “share” it with our friends. And the cool part is, all our friends LOVE independent film!
Beside the potential contributions from our audience, you’ll also have a chance at valuable filmmaking prizes like great products from Atlas Industries, Gorilla Software, Zacuto, Glidecam USA and Final Draft. One lucky project will receive a $1,000 contribution to their Seed&Spark campaign from Hell’s Half Mile and a screening at one of our upcoming events! If your campaign reaches 1000 followers you’ll receive the Seed&Spark Filmmaker Giftbox, valued at $8,000 in products and services, and distribution on Seed&Spark. All the selected projects will gain exposure to our film-loving audience that just may contribute to help you get your movie made!
There’s no application fee this year, so what are you waiting for?
John Painz, 2016 Crowdfunding Rally participant, has this to say about his experience…
“Participating in the Crowdfunding Rally was a lot of fun. I’d never pitched a project to a room full of people before, but with the help of Alan from Hell’s Half Mile and Erica from Seed & Spark, I was able to hone my pitch down to the essentials and share my project with the audience.
A few weeks after the festival, my Seed & Spark campaign for my second feature film, Four Bottles, finished. We raised 94% of our fundraising goal, and started production two months later. We’re in post right now and will hopefully screen the film at the 2017 HHM Film and Music Festival!
There is an art to pitching projects, and if you’ve never done it before, this is a perfect place to start.”
HERE’S HOW TO QUALIFY
There are two different ways to qualify. You only need to meet the criteria of one of the two qualifiers.
Qualifier #1
The majority of the project will be produced in the of the States of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin or the Province of Ontario. We’re all for supporting Midwest Filmmaking!
OR…..
Qualifier #2
Your film is in the 2016 Hell’s Half Mile film program, or a past program, and you have another project in the works. We liked your film enough to program it, so now we want to help you get the next one made!
RALLY RULES
SUBMISSIONS END: Sunday, September 11, 2016 SUBMIT NOW!
LIVE PITCH DATE: Saturday, September 24, 2016
If your project is chosen to join the Rally than you’ll need to follow these rules. You do not need to create your Seed&Spark campaign to submit your project for consideration. But once selected, you will be coached Seed&Spark on how to best set up your campaign for success.
- All selected projects will need to create a campaign with Seed&Spark, our partner, and all funding opportunities will transpire through the S&S platform. This is necessary for us to rally support for participating campaigns prior to or during the festival. The objective is to get our audience interested in as many projects as possible.
- Your Seed&Spark campaign’s total revenue goal must be no less than $5,000.
- If your project is chosen for the Rally, you must be present for the at-festival pitch. Lodging and travel assistance may be available from Hell’s Half Mile.
HERE’S HOW TO JOIN
Provide the following written information to apply for the Rally:
- Logline (max 100 characters)
- Short synopsis (max 300 characters)
- Why does this project need to be made now?
- What makes this film important to you, to film or to the world?
For questions or more info email alanl@hhmfest.com
Crowdfunding Prize Sponsors:
