Crowdfunding Is Not About the Money, But About the People
In March, Swedish documentarian Fredrik Gertten participated in the 5th edition of East Doc Platform, speaking about transmedia approach to financing, promotion and the distribution of films – employing all available communication channels no longer limited to phones, the TV screen or newspapers. Together with the growing availability of the Internet it is becoming increasingly easier to connect with anyone anywhere in the world – including potential sponsors, future distributors, volunteers or even the audience itself.
Documentarian Fredrik Gertten contributed to the medialisation of the so-called “banana” story so vehemently that the world-known Dole Food Company waged a two-year battle against him in court. Gertten’s Bananas!* (2009) reveals a connection between Dole, the pesticides applied on their banana plantations and the infertility of workers who work on their fields in Nicaragua. What company would be happy about a brand image like this? “I started to shoot a story which had already been published by press agencies such as AP so I would never have expected the company to sue me. I was telling a notoriously known story.” And yet, Gertten and his team of documentarians were taken to court. “They might have picked us to send out a message to show how powerful and invincible they are and that they would not tolerate things like that, but perhaps they sued us because documentary film currently has unprecedented impact. Traditional media are on the decline, less and less is invested in quality journalism and journalists don’t have the capacity to conduct good investigative work. We – documentary filmmakers – are more committed, we are not looking for the target group in the first place. We are able to dedicate five years of our life to a single topic, with which no investigative journalist can compare. These more and more often include documentaries bringing up new topics which are then adopted by media.”
His following film, Big Boys Gone Bananas!* (2011) dealt with the court case that took several years and was eventually ruled in the documentarian’s favour. In the film, Gertten unveils the sinews of the media world and the dirty tricks played on the public by large concerns. His endeavour eventually brought about a substantial change on the Swedish banana market – the Dole court case resulted in a 600 per cent increase in the sale of fair trade bananas.
A court battle and a documentary film project are both extremely difficult to handle, and even more so if they combine. 8 years ago, Gertten for the first time tried to rely on people and collect a part of the required funds through the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter. Common people donated the entire funding goal of 15 000 dollars. But he has gone much further in direct communication with his audience.
“I believe that it was primarily the transparent and personal approach to social media profiles including Facebook and Twitter that helped us win the case.”
“When Dole sued us, we used our own website as the most transparent communication medium. We were open about all we’ve been accused of as well as all evidence against them. Dole’s website obviously only provided their own version of the story. They set the media against us, slandered us, and so we saw it as important to have our own platform where people could find objective information. We didn’t have enough money to pay people, to fund a campaign, so it was mainly me managing our Facebook profile, our website and Twitter and I believe that it was thanks to this fact and the transparency that we eventually won the case.” Gertten had made several films about bullying and various sorts of crooks (Thin Ice, 2006; Belfast Girls, 2006) but as he himself puts it, it was for the first time in 2009, when he found himself helpless and driven into a corner. The only way out was to fight back using his own means. “It was an entirely new level of aggression that most documentary filmmakers have probably never experienced. It often happens that one of your protagonists complains about something in the film and you have to discuss possible edits and make compromises, but this time was different. Dole didn’t want to talk, they wanted to destroy us," comments the Swedish filmmaker.
Bananas!*
Gertten drew inspiration from his media battle with Dole also during the making of the Bikes vs. Cars (2015) about environment-friendly bike transport. He and his team launched another crowdfunding campaign, so far raising over 100 000 dollars. “Such campaigns should not be underestimated and have to be well prepared. This time, our goal was 50 000 dollars. We started to prepare the campaign several months in advance. And although the journalists asked about my next film, I refused to talk about it until the first press conference where we unveiled our project. We launched our campaign a month later. It is crucial that people you ask money from have already heard about your activity and are familiar with it,” he continues. According to Gertten, it is necessary to always come with new and new stories if you work with crowdfunding. “Our Facebook was daily fed with new posts. We had one person working part-time for us even before the start of our campaign. When the campaign set off, it was keeping the six people busy for the entire forty days of the campaign,” said Gertten describing the workload.
Gertten’s team asked all associations interested in the issue of transportation infrastructure and bicycle traffic for interviews. “The key is not to be shy. If you have enough enthusiasm for your thing and if you believe in it, nobody thinks you are spamming them, on the contrary,” recommends Gertten. The required fifty thousand dollars were eventually collected five days before the end of the campaign, so the team added one more trick – they posted on Kickstarter that although the campaign was coming to an end, people could contribute directly on their website. This decision helped them to raise over one hundred thousand dollars. The campaign also used the voices of Swedish celebrities, although not as its main driving force. Gertten believes that it only takes passion and fresh energy to produce a successful campaign. “We also had some supporters and reputation thanks to our previous project, which, however, accounted for no more than, I’d say, twenty per cent. All the rest is fresh energy. We gained many supporters who hadn’t known us and hadn’t heard of Bananas!*. It’s not about being famous,” continues Gertten.
Bikes vs. Cars also managed to obtain funding from various grants. Kickstarter only covered 10 % of the requisite finances. Its major plus consists in the fact that you get the money when you need it, whereas most of the organisations pay various grants after the project is finished. Crowdfunding can provide at least a good financial boost.
“Mobile apps may be sexy, but their development requires much funding, energy and time. Creating applications related to projects is not effective.”
His previous filmmaking experience and the battle with Dole Food Company also inspired Gertten in other than transmedia areas. “I long wanted to shoot a film about bikes, but I didn’t know how to approach it. The idea of the bicycle movement is great, but it was lacking the drama – up to the moment when Big Boys Gone Bananas!* made me change the perspective. Cities brimming with cars are not the result of a natural development. There’s a big lobby and huge investments behind this progress. I started to see how many obstacles cyclists and activists have to face. I wanted to produce a film that would provide urban planners and activists with further insight into what they are doing and why they are failing in their efforts, who their opponents are and why. Lobbying is a powerful instrument. If you want to change something, you have to understand and grasp the power of lobbying. There are no related studies, lobbying is not taught at schools, but it’s a world-transforming force. Bikes vs. Cars thus works as a crucial revelation,” says Gertten describing the idea behind his latest film.
During the shooting of the film, he managed to build a community of viewers, activists and supporters thus gaining another advantage. Direct communication with the audience can bring not only finances, but it will also help building a prospective distribution network. “On Kickstarter, we’ve been supported by 2 thousand people from 50 countries, a diverse array of people. We have 50 000 addresses on our newsletter mailing list. They all know how to reach us and many want to help even more so they are hired as volunteers.” This made it possible for Bikes vs. Cars to be presented many more times at public screenings in each country than Gertten’s previous films although they also addressed notorious and controversial topics. “When we contacted our Japanese contributors and fans, local activists themselves arranged for the film’s translation and found venues where the films could be screened. That’s a great help. When I’m planning a screening, I prefer contacting the viewers directly rather than approaching people from the filmmaking industry. Distributors today don’t put much effort into film distribution so I prefer creating my own platform which is often more efficient than the distributors. Those interested in the film call us first. It can also have a slightly negative impact since we receive hundreds of e-mails every day, which cost money to process. It’s strenuous to communicate with the audience directly, but I believe that this is the way to go,” he justified his decision.
Until March, Bikes vs. Cars was screened in 50 countries and at about four hundred special screening sessions. “When meeting with distributors from all over the world, you have a much stronger negotiating position, being backed up by your own community of viewers. You will attract new audiences whom they might not be able to reach themselves.”
In the heat of transmedia fever, Gertten’s team also created The Bikes vs. Cars app capable of calculating how much petrol or diesel you have saved when riding a bike. You can compare your progress with other users and find out what is your impact on the climatic conditions on our planet. “We have created this app because we are stupid. We tend to be too ambitious. When people speak about transmedia, they say a lot of crap and use many technicalities and everything seems to be very complex,” explains Gertten, who believes that it is only about the power of interpersonal and personal communication and that applications are just another “cool” energy- and time-consuming project. “Apps have to be continuously developed and upgraded which costs a lot of money that you have to count with right from the start. I prefer direct personal communication. We never use automatic robotic answers offered by many applications.”
Aside from The Bikes vs. Cars app, they also launched the experimental Bike Data Project gathering data about biking in many world’s cities. “It lives its own life. The project is financed by Malmö, a private donor who is a fan of cycling, and a Swedish association for the support of cycling. But I have to say again that applications are very costly and time-consuming. They are sexy but I don’t recommend them.”
