11 votes

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2 comments

  1. [2]
    cfabbro
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    While I didn't have too much trouble understanding you, even with your rather thick (but lovely ;P) accent, you do speak rather quickly at times and the music is pretty loud at certain points as...
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    While I didn't have too much trouble understanding you, even with your rather thick (but lovely ;P) accent, you do speak rather quickly at times and the music is pretty loud at certain points as well, so I did struggle to make out what you were saying a few times during the pitch video. So speaking a little bit slower, enunciating a tiny bit more and turning down the backing track volume could probably help with that.

    I also think that if you're trying to raise money for a documentary you may want to put a bit more effort in to the production value of your pitch video. A few times during the video the camera goes out of focus when you waved your hand in front of it which is pretty distracting, so I would suggest manually setting the focus on your phone (if you can) instead of using auto-focus. The lighting is also pretty poor in your video as well, IMO. Even buying yourself an entry level lighting rig with a diffuser would go a long way towards making your video look far more professional and wouldn't cost all that much ($50-100).

    Outside the pitch video itself, there are a few things I feel need to be addressed before I (and probably others) would feel comfortable donating, none of which are mentioned in your campaign page or FAQ:

    Do you have any experience with film-making (documentary or otherwise)?
    You mention not having any proper filming equipment (other than your smartphone) and so plan to borrow some if you don't raise enough to buy some, which strikes me as a bit of a red flag. However no equipment + no experience is an even bigger red flag, IMO. That's not to say an amateur can't make a decent movie/documentary/short-film using just a smartphone, but when it comes to crowd-funding especially, I (and many others) tend to be a bit wary, so anything you can do to help assuage concerns is probably worth doing.

    What are your plans for actually getting the interviews you will need for the documentary?
    This seems to be a pretty critical part of your documentary and so I am curious if you have started corresponding with people you want to interview yet to arrange meetings down the line or if this is all just a bit of a pipe-dream at this point. You mention the indiegogo campaign is to help cover travel expenses, but given your lack of equipment and desire to release the movie for free anyways, why not scale down the scope of the project by simply trying to get Skype/Facetime interviews to start instead of physically traveling to people?

    12 votes
    1. [2]
      Comment deleted by author
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      1. cfabbro
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        NP, glad I could provide some constructive feedback that helps. If you let me know when you reshoot the video and update the FAQ I can give you some additional feedback then if you like, too. I...

        NP, glad I could provide some constructive feedback that helps. If you let me know when you reshoot the video and update the FAQ I can give you some additional feedback then if you like, too.

        I totally understand about wanting to go on-location rather than do interviews online and that makes sense. But I would strongly suggest at least trying to get some Skype interviews first. Even just filming a few quick Skype interviews as proof-of-concept so you can include portions of them in your pitch might be enough to get people way more interested in your documentary and more willing to donate to you.

        4 votes