thoughtfulTHERE'S GOING TO BE A VERONICA MARS MOVIE THERE'S GOING TO BE A VERONICA MARS MOVIE THE KICKSTARTER FUNDED AND THERE'S GOING TO BE A VERONICA MARS MOVIE!!!!
Ahem. Look, my cat is named "Lilly Kane," there's a signed poster hanging in my guest room, what do you want from me? I wear my geeky heart upon my sleeve. And now, on to the actual substantive post you may have hoped was hiding here. To whit:
Yesterday morning, Rob Thomas, creator of the show Veronica Mars and author of books such as Rats Saw God and Slave Day, announced a Kickstarter to make a Veronica Mars movie. The Kickstarter, which is still going, had a target of two million dollars, with reward levels starting for a $10 donation. Here's a link:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559
The Kickstarter raised its first million in four hours. Last night, I watched it click over the two million dollar mark. There was much rejoicing, because dude. Veronica Mars movie. I shrieked, I chair-danced, and all was right with the world...
...only not, because it turns out a lot of people are really perturbed by the fact that a movie which will have corporate backing (Rob Thomas is not the Veronica Mars intellectual property owner, which means Warner Brothers has to be involved) was asking for money on Kickstarter. Mind you, no one held a gun to my head and forced me to fund this project; no one forced me to sit here carefully considering the reward tiers and choosing the one which came with the most awesome swag. No one clicked the button for me. But somehow, my backing this movie has stolen projects from indie artists who really needed it.
And unto this do I say: bullshit.
The world is not a zero-sum game. Yes, if I have one dollar, and I give it to Sunil, I am not going to be able to give it to Vixy. But if I only have one dollar, I'm not giving it to anybody. I'm keeping it for myself, to live. I am an artist and a creator of art, and I know as well as anyone that art is a luxury: art is something that we pay for after we've paid for food and housing and heat in the winter and all the other things that keep our physical bodies going. Yes, I do believe that we need art to live, but that's a spiritual and emotional life, not a "I can no longer breathe because Fringe is off the air" life. They are different.
So let's say that I've paid for my necessities, my survival is assured, and I have a dollar to give to a super-deserving project. Obviously, if I give it to one person, I can't give it to anyone else (although I could give both people fifty cents, but I digress). And you know what? That experimental retelling of The Crucible with sock puppets probably needs my dollar more than the Veronica Mars movie. But I'm paying for my luxuries here. I'm paying for what I want. And what I want is to see Logan, and Veronica, and my fictional friends again. I miss them.
The Veronica Mars movie did not take my dollars away from "more deserving" projects, because no one gets to measure that but the person who holds the dollars. Me. And Sunil, and Chris, and Rae, and every other Veronica Mars fan I know. Rob Thomas did not violate the Kickstarter terms and conditions: I know, I checked. I am not somehow being rooked into paying for something that I will then have to pay for again: I chose a reward level that gave me enough stuff that I felt the price tag was justified (and they did a great job of balancing the rewards; $10 gets you a PDF of the script, and that's reasonable, if you're a fan of the show). Yes, I'll have to pay if I want to see the movie in the theater, but that's paying the theater, which has its own bills to take care of (and will feed me delicious popcorn).
Life is not a zero-sum game. Kickstarter is not a zero-sum game. The money I am willing to shake out of the couch cushions for Veronica Mars is not the money I am willing to shake out of the couch cushions for anything else. Living in a capitalistic society means I get to pay for what I want, and saying that it was tacky of Rob to even ask, when there was no better funding channel available, is missing the point.
You do not have to want what I want. No one does. But just like I don't get to say "the things you want are worthless and not worth wanting, come want this other thing instead," nobody gets to make that statement to me. And there is nothing that makes "I want two million dollars to make a movie of a TV show that the network canceled, that the studio won't fund, but that the fans adore" any more or less legitimate of a request than anything else. And "Well, what if the studios start holding your shows hostage?" doesn't scare me. I've been waiting to be able to pay for the things I love, to count directly with my dollars, not just as a shadow of a Nielsen household, for a long time.
It's not a zero-sum game. But it's a good one.
March 15 2013, 07:20:20 UTC 4 years ago
March 15 2013, 15:26:48 UTC 4 years ago
Make great art. That's what AFP's husband said in a talk once. And it resonated. I write, I dabble, I never get anything done, and I'll probably never be nearly as good as I wish I were, but I can *support* and some days that's the $200 level because of a bonus and tax return, and some days it's a $1.00 level because you know, 4 teenagers heading to college is freaking expensive and that's all I can do. And some days it may even be just a post of support, a link to get people aware of it, because it's just not in the cards for me to donate.
The point is, we get to HELP ART, and that's empowering. WB wasn't going to take a risk on VM, so this was Rob Thomas's way of getting it made; his only way. Kickstarter is to get funding for projects. Not "get funding only for this small subset of projects that we feel fit the needs and definition of our idea of what art should be and what isn't getting funding and whatever other restrictions and subjective limitations we can put on it."
I buy AFPs stuff because I love not just her art but everything she stands for, so I will support her on that basis alone. Ditto with Seanan. And so many others. They make great art that touches me, and I love being able to be part of that.
Amanda's TED talk was so inspiring I was choked up about 2 minutes in and stayed that way, mesmerized, for the whole thing. That people can try to tell us what and how we should support art is ridiculous. Traditional models do work and will continue to work for all kinds of things. Sometimes it won't. Sometimes non-traditional is best. Kickstarter is a great way for that.
What people need to watch out for (i.e. studio execs) is thinking that every project can now just be slapped up there. It has to be JUST RIGHT. To just take every show with a cult following and slap it up there will saturate the market and make people go 'eh' and the model won't work for them. VM was done right and at the right time, the others following need to do it just as thoughtfully.
March 15 2013, 23:04:19 UTC 4 years ago