An Irish filmmaker launched a crowdfunding campaign with Indiegogo on stage at the Web Summit for his movie documenting Ireland before, during and after the 1916 Easter Rising.
Nick Ryan, the award-winning Irish director behind the movie “The Summit,” plans to raise part of the funds to make his movie “6 Days of the Rising” through social media.
His goal is to raise $100,000 by the end of November 2014 with backers receiving limited edition stamps, proclamations, and printed newspaper front covers from the time.
Speaking alongside Danae Ringelmann, co-founder of Indiegogo and Emily Steel from the New York Times, Ryan said that as well receiving a portion of the movie's funding from the public he’s also looking forward to getting the public’s opinions.
The funds raised through the Indiegogo campaign page will go towards script and visual concept development.
The movie will tell the story of the six days of the 1916 Easter Rising through the eyes of one man, whose journey across the divided city of Dublin places him at the center of the key moments of the conflict.
Using state of the art visual effects to recreate the battle, it will be 1916 in the style of “Bloody Sunday” and “The Battle of Algiers” – a brutal, honest, violent, and uncompromising film of the epic fight for independence and the destruction of Dublin never before seen on film.
Although crowdfunding is a relatively new concept many high-profile Hollywood names have been using the method to gauge the public demand for a movie, drum up a buzz and raise awareness in advance of a movie's release. It also allows the filmmaker relative freedom of voice, which isn’t always possible when finance comes from big studios.
Ringelmann explained how Don Cheadle used crowdfunding in order to complete his movie on Miles Davis and Martin Scorsese funded his movie on Roger Ebert in the same way.
She said that what’s important about using crowdfunding is not to ask the public for money but view it as inviting fans and people with a passion on the topic to engage.
Ryan admitted that crowdfunding has become a “legitimate form of financing” for movies and said he’d “be mad not to take advantage of every opportunity. He views crowdfunding as just another filmmaker’s tool but he added that telling the story is still the most important thing.
You can help fund the movie “6 Days of the Rising” now by going to www.indiegogo.com/projects/6-days-of-the-rising.
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