May 25, 2012

Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!: The Home Stretch

by Jayce Bartok | Published November 1, 2011

(l-r) Jayce Bartok, Tiffany Bartok and Tiny
Dancer star Katherine Crockett at last month's
Tiny Dancer fundraising event. Photo by
Bruce Glikas.

Welcome to Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!, where indie moviemaker Jayce Bartok talks about the dos and don’ts of crowdfunding from the trenches of his own crowdfunding campaign. Have a question for Jayce about his movie, Tiny Dancer, or just crowdfunding in general? Ask away at .

Tiny Dancer’s IndieGoGo page (www.IndieGoGo.com/Finishing
TinyDancer) currently reads: “$8,485 raised of $9,000 goal. 7 days left.” I can’t believe it. We are so close that we can taste it. Tiffany and I have just finished emailing all of our contacts starting with the letter T. All sensible wisdom says we will reach our crowdfunding goal, but look what happened to the Texas Rangers in Game Six! You just never know. So we will see our great alphabet campaign to the end, just for good measure, and tick off “U-Z”. Just today, a moviemaker we met in 2008 at the Stony Brook Film Festival, Tracy King-Sanchez, donated $100. I mean, how cool is that? We exchanged a few kind words ages ago in a movie theater, and she joined the fight to get Tiny Dancer made right after I emailed her.

I can’t tell you the general feeling of relief that’s starting to settle as we crawl toward our goal. It’s especially welcome after a brief family trip we just took to Wisconsin. We were supposed to be enjoying lakes, leaves and pumpkins, but I found Tiffany chasing me down to the lobby of our hotel (the only place where we could get reception) late at night so I could email more of our contacts. I would sit in my swim trunks next to the swim park as kids came and went, their parents shooting me odd looks as I worked for hours sending emails until my in-laws came and rescued me.

I’m hoping that this is past us now as we enter the home stretch. By this time next week, our campaign will be done. But what’s next? You may be wondering how can we finish Tiny Dancer for $9,000 when we haven’t even really started on the film yet (except for the test shoot we did to create our trailers). I have wondered this myself. So let’s work through it together:

• By the end of our campaign, we should have (optimistically) about $20,000. Now, this would be 10 percent of our projected $200,000 budget, meaning we’d only need to raise $180,000 more. If we keep fighting the good fight for our original budget, we could use what we’ve raised so far to shoot more of the film, or we could sit on it as we take meetings, apply for grants and hand out lots of business cards in our pursuit of the rest.

• Alternatively, the $20,000 could be 20 percent of my new budget—which doesn’t exactly exist just yet—of $100,000, meaning we’d only need to raise another $80,000. And if we factor in the New York State Tax Rebate of 30 percent (damn, I love throwing these imaginary numbers around), then we’d only need another $50,000, assuming we could get a loan or bridge financing on the rebate. $50,000 sounds doable, right? Maybe we could find two people who have been yearning to experience what it’s like to be a part of a film who would invest (or donate) $25,000 each.

What do you think? Comment below or send an email with your thoughts.

Jayce Bartok is an actor and moviemaker who runs Vinyl Foote Productions from Brooklyn with his wife Tiffany. Currently, you can see him on USA’s “White Collar” and in the upcoming feature film Predisposed, opposite Melissa Leo. Follow The Independent Collective at twitter.com/ticnyc to stay updated on the Tiny Dancer crowdfunding campaign.