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"In mere days, Matthew Lessner's utopian, tongue-in-cheek film The Woods will be heading to Sundance \u2014 a noteworthy occurrence to be sure. But add to that the fact that The Woods is the first Sundance-bound film to be partially funded by Kickstarter, and you've got yourself a historical event.\nYes, \"historical\" sounds bit grandiose in this context, but take into account what the film represents \u2014 a filmmaker calling upon his fans and viewers to raise capital, and that capital leading to a finished product worthy of Sundance \u2014 and you have a bona fide game-changer. \nArtists are becoming less reliant on the benevolence of big investors \u2014 and their own meager funds \u2014 transferring that role to a network of consumers who are more than happy to pay for the music, films and products that those artists are creating.\nBack in 2008, Lessner had just wrapped the one-month shoot of his film \u2014 the tale of a group of 20-somethings who set out into the less-developed climes of the Pacific Northwest to create their own utopian society \u2014 when the economy collapsed.\n\"The initial way that we funded the film was we went and put the film [expenditures] on credit cards,\" Lessner says. \"I wanted to make a film, but I didn't want to deal with all the things that go along with fundraising in the traditional ways. Usually when you're taking money from people, you're working in a more structured system; you have to play by their rules; and you have to answer to people. I want to make films in the way that I want to make films.\"\nAs a result of the economic downturn \u2014 and his reluctance to raise money from backers \u2014 the film lay dormant for a year, unedited and unfinished.\nAround a year later, Lessner heard about a new service called Kickstarter from a friend who had used the platform to finance an around-the-world sailing trip. (Kickstarter launched in 2009.)\n\"I'm not a super web-savvy person \u2014 I had never heard of crowd sourcing before,\" Lessner says.  \"I don't do a lot of tweeting, I don't have a Facebook Page. [But] I liked the idea of reaching out to a number of individuals for small amounts of money, as opposed to going to a rich uncle or something and asking for money. I liked the idea of getting people involved.\"\nAs one of the first people to get involved with Kickstarter (and a relative Luddite), Lessner wasn't really sure how to drum up attention for the campaign. \n\"I tried to be pretty straightforward about what it is that we were trying to do. Our film definitely marches to the beat of its own drummer to a certain extent, and I tried to make that pretty clear in our campaign. It seemed like a lot of people responded to that fact \u2014 that we were just doing our own thing with the film and not necessarily trying to target anyone in particular. \n\"There wasn't really crazy strategy involved, it was just trying to let the uniqueness of the film show through and communicate.\"\nTaking a look back at Lessner's campaign page, \"unique\" certainly does spring to mind. The description of the film \u2014 \"Equal parts Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Disney's Camp Nowhere\" \u2014 is certainly evocative, as are embedded teasers, which somewhat resemble the music video for MGMT's \"Electric Feel.\"\n\n\n\n\nLessner also offered users an array of interesting prizes for pledging money: DVDs, a black and white reproduction of Che Guevara shaking hands with Ralph Waldo Emerson, signed (or not) by writer/director Matthew Lessner, customized boxes of Cheez-Its and bottles of Mountain Dew, an executive producer credit \u2014 you name it.\n\"So it spanned the gambit from snack food to executive producer,\" says Lessner with a laugh.\nWith Kickstarter, Lessner managed to raise $11,584 (the goal was $8,000) with the help of 95 backers and finish his film.\n\"We're really excited for The Woods and the thousands of other projects that have raised money using Kickstarter. To be recognized by an organization as respected as Sundance is a real accomplishment, and The Woods is absolutely deserving of it,\" says Yancey Strickler, co-founder of Kickstarter.\nAlthough he's still the opposite of tech-savvy, Lessner says that he would definitely use Kickstarter again to fund a film.\n\"The only thing I'm wary about is that I don't want to overextend myself on [Kickstarter]. It will be interesting to see, as Kickstarter pans out, how many times you can come back to the same group of people.\"\nLessner's concern is legitimate. Although his was one of the first films to be funded by Kickstarter, the venue is increasingly becoming a popular way to raise cash \u2014 filmmaker Christopher Salmon raised $161,774 to make a computer-animated version of Neil Gaiman\u2019s short story The Price, and Tom Durham raised more than $17,000 for his project 95ers: ECHOES.\nAs more and more filmmakers and artists flock to Kickstarter, the question will soon become: How does one distinguish oneself from the masses?\nThe Woods will premiere at Sundance on January 21."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/01/17/sundance-kickstarter/>