StoryToGo

Exploring storytelling in its many forms in this digital age

Case Studies

Open Stax – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

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Open Stax has been producing OER textbooks since 2012 when they published their first 5 titles. They have 32 titles today, with 6 more coming within the next few months. 2.7 million students in the States use their content per term, and their textbooks are in 58% of degree granting academic institutions in the States. 

Creators:

Interview with Daniel Williamson, Managing Director

Country:

Houston Texas, US.

Interview Date: 

March 22, 2019

Link to Project: 

https://openstax.org

Funding Methods:

Non-profit

Ecosystem model involving for-profit partners who sell value added services who then give back a “mission support fee” along with sales of print versions of the textbooks.

Open Stax is a part of Rice University and is supported by foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the Hewlett Foundation along with others.

Textbook content is written by paid educators and experts.

The Project:

Open Stax provides free web-based, post-secondary level OER textbooks. 

As cost is one of the number one drivers for the use of Open Educational Resources, so if we can target those high enrolment, high expense courses, we tend to have really high traction.

Daniel Williamson

Open Stax textbooks have been localized for use throughout the US, in Canada, and in Poland.

Broadly, because these are OERs, we see this content used everywhere.

Daniel Williamson

UNICEF told Daniel about Learning Equality’s use of their content. Learning Equality is a group that works in crisis and conflict zones, they have been loading all our content onto their portable internet for use by post-secondary learners in these situations. 

https://learningequality.org/about/

The Creators: 

I spoke with Daniel Williamson, Managing Director for Open Stax who described to me the mission and goal of Open Stax, their business model and their insights for sustainability of OER as well as their hopes and goals for the future.

The Road to Sustainable Funding

The business model for Open Stax was designed from the very beginning for Sustainability. Open Stax has built an ecosystem style model.

In this ecosystem, Open Stax produces the core content. For profit partnering companies offer for cost, value added technology services such as virtual simulations, and clicker apps with are integrated with the content of our textbooks. These partnering companies then pay Open Stax a portion of the fee that has been charged to the student which then goes back into Open Stax to support their sustainability, and to keep the content up to date. This ecosystem model brings the benefit of co-marketing to their partners as well as giving them access to high quality educational content.

Open Stax looks at and targets the highest value to decide which textbooks to produce, although their goal is to have a much more comprehensive library. They look at the size of the market and the number of students who would be impacted and at the cost of the resource for students and balance these. As the point of Open Stax is access for students, and to make education more affordable, the partnering companies are mandated to keep their fees to the students low.

As well, print versions of the textbooks are produced for sale at a low cost by Open Stax and that revenue is fed back into the system to develop further textbooks and to keep the content fresh and current. “As there are so many students using the content, we are able to bring the unit costs down.”  

Daniel describes his key thoughts on sustainability:

You need to build in sustainability from the beginning as it’s really difficult to retrofit these things. Most of the OER players are reliant upon grant funding — but you can’t wait until the grant runs out to figure out a sustainable way forward.

There are two aspects to sustainability — fiscal and the people. The money makes it possible but it’s the people who are actually going to take and give this content a life of its own. So we really need to feed both of these.”

Daniel Williamson

Sustainability is somewhat controversial — Stick to your guns. There will be people who might not like what you’re doing and that’s ok. It’s good to challenge each other. As long as you are really connected to that mission which we here at Open Stax believe our mission is to improve access and improve learning for all..that you’re going to be guided by those mission principles which will lead you in the right direction. 

Daniel Williamson

Into the Future

Daniel believes that by ensuring that the Open Stax content is high quality while keeping the content generic, this allows Open Stax textbooks to serve as the foundation for localization. 

If we can reduce the barriers to entry for people to OERs, then we’ll see more and more people participate.

Daniel Williamson

When talking about sustainability, Daniel mused that there’s a lot of interesting models emerging, and that we’ll see which models survive.

The thing that I dream of is the day we’re not just sustainable, we’re in perpetual growth.

Daniel Williamson

In thinking about what that perpetual growth model might look like, Open Stax is calculating how many titles they need to have produced and generating revenue, to allow them stability and sustainability enough to invest in continuously growing their library and to react to changes in the market.

Now what we’re thinking is about how can we both spur greater ownership and creativity where people take and think what ca we do next…I think there’s a lot of ways that can lead to expansion…

Daniel Williamson

Key Opportunities:

I think OER really unlocks the ownership piece. It allows content to become this foundational knowledge that is infrastructure which brings us to this opportunity which now we can build upon. We can start having a research infrastructure that allows us to start diving deeper into how humans learn, and how can we help them learn most efficiently and effectively instead.

Daniel Williamson

A lot of tremendous opportunity there to move beyond just consumption of content to really thinking about it as research infrastructure for understanding how we move the state of the art in terms of education forward.

Daniel Williamson

Swaddled – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

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Swaddled is a community driven, crowd sourced series of art collages. Swaddled began from a call from the group, Making Grey-Bruce Home, for  a project which involved creating an online resource for newcomers to Grey-Bruce county and to Canada.

Creators:

Jennifer Hicks

Country:

Canada

Interview Date: 

April 4, 2019

Links to Project: 

https://hicksinthesound.simdif.com

Instagram at Woodchuckandbrush

https://www.instagram.com/woodchuckandbrush/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxuYb_uFoBc/

Funding Methods:

Artist fees for exhibitions

Sales of artwork

Subsidizes artwork by providing services such as facilitating workshops around her participatory art

Hicks shares her artwork, much of which is self-funded, freely as it is an investment to build an audience and to leverage for future projects and exhibits.

The Project:

Swaddled is a touring, community driven, crowd-sourced series of collages. Each work begins with the text. These texts are newspapers in other languages, from other cultures, donated to her by friends and family. This text forms the background which Jennifer then collages over based on the stories she receives from friends, family and viewers. 

After the exhibit was shown for the first time in Owen Sound, I received feedback from the people who saw it, who are strangers to me but who have experiences in those places or with that culture. And then their stories get landed on top of the artwork in the form of collage — additional symbols, icons, words, to represent their reality with that language, and that culture.

Jennifer Hicks

The Creators:

Jennifer Hicks is a Canadian visual artist and teacher. Her artwork includes the participatory works — Swaddled and Turtle Island Footprints. 

I think this is the way artists, teachers, facilitators need to be — open to what comes, and chase all leads — if we choose to live this way.

Jennifer Hicks

Road to Funding Sustainably

Services —Jennifer’s funding model includes revenue comes from offering added value workshops around her participatory artworks. Building a community around her work as well as community co-creation and collaboration are keys to her funding model.

Sales of artwork — When Swaddled goes to its next exhibition location, the Japanese piece which has been sold, will be replaced by a piece in another language and about another culture. “We’ll see, it depends on what viewers recommend and offer, from their stories, their experiences. 

Art fees for exhibitions of work — Jennifer looks for places to exhibit her work, aiming for locations that will pay artist fees, while keeping in mind the other kinds of value she gains from exhibition in places where they don’t pay artist fees. These other kinds of promotional value include community building and networking, which may lead to future paid exhibitions 

Partnering — Jennifer partners with groups such as Influencers Motivate/Influencers Motivating Influencers for paid opportunities to work and travel, connect, and to promote self as artist, teacher and facilitator. Influencers Motivating Influencers is a group who arrange tours through remote Northern Canadian communities, focussing on arts and wellness. https://www.facebook.com/InfluencersMotivate/  https://www.instagram.com/influencersmotivate/ 

Into the Future

A really important piece to it is — you choose who align yourself with so that you’re not spinning your wheels putting out artwork to every juried exhibit that comes along or applying just anywhere to show your artwork. It is a thoughtful, meditative process where…having this exhibit at Hamilton Turner Park Library is not a paid gig. However, it makes sense to be there for future, down the road networking and possible other exhibits that will be paid. It’s a tricky situation where you need to learn to be a good thinker, and promoter and networker and those things will lead to the money that you need to keep going.

Jennifer Hicks

Providing Swaddled was a community service. It was healing for me and great for the community and led to this really neat community powered feedback opportunity for the viewers.

Jennifer Hicks

Jennifer is currently looking for a new home for Swaddled. She is hopeful it will exhibit each year in a new city, at least once a year, and ideally exhibited in a place where they pay artist fees.

Facilitating workshops is a key part of Jenifer’s funding model. She would like to provide workshops around the Swaddled series and feels this would add value to the exhibit wherever it goes

Granting process is only accessible if you have access to the technology needed to apply. 

Obtaining funding, applying for grants is difficult for collaborative groups in terms of the scope needed to meet deadlines. Communication amongst members and meeting timelines can be a challenge. 

Keys to Success to Carry Forward

Tips for Emerging Artists: 

Instagram has been a good place for Jennifer to promote her work, to develop art-related projects, and for connecting with other artists and possible jobs.

Sarah advises that one possibility is to go to your local city or town hall. They often employ someone (with a small budget) to do a yearly juried art exhibit in the city hall. 

Poet Laureates ..why don’t we have artist in residence for each city or town?

Motion Poems – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

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A match made in creative heaven.

Motion Poems is a non-profit dedicated to the creation and free distribution of “motion poems” — poetry films. Motion poems started with animator Angella Kassube and poet, Todd Boss. Angella approached Todd after a poetry reading and said she would love to animate one of his poems. 

It took me half a second to say, Sure! I’ll send you everything I’ve ever written.  Within a week and a half she came back with all of these cool drawings and ideas.

Todd Boss

Motion Poems began as a self-funded collaboration between a poet and an artist, then branched into a matchmaking service for artists and poets to connect and collaborate. Todd Boss, Co-founder Executive and Artistic Director could see great potential in growing the genre of “motion poems” and embarked upon the route of setting up a non-profit organization to make this happen.

Creators: 

Todd Boss — Co-founder, Executive, Artistic Director

Country:

Minneapolis, Minnesota, US

Interview Date:

March 12, 2019

Link to Project:

Motion Poems

Funding and Business Model:

501c non-profit managed by a Board of Directors with the co-founder, executive and artistic director, Todd Boss

The Creators:

Motion poems started with Angella Kassube and Todd Boss. They met when Todd was reading his poems at a poetry reading.  Angella approached him afterwards and said she was an animator and would love to animate one of his poems. “It took me half a second to say, Sure! I’ll send you everything I’ve ever written.  Within a week and a half she came back with all of these cool drawings and ideas.” 

Together, the pair started the project as a “matchmaking service” — she reached out to animators and filmmakers and he reached out to poets to see who wants to play.

Todd came from a non-profit arts administration background and so saw the value and potential in having a wider impact of developing motion poems/poetry films as a genre. He wanted to formalize the project as a non-profit, get some funding, and be able to get themselves paid. Todd got the papers together, got a board together,  and gathered people with a background in non-profit experience to help guide and direct them. They were fortunate and landed some big grants right away. Angella is not as much involved in the project currently. She was not interested in expanding and developing the project in this way. 

The Project:

Motion Poems is a non-profit organization that partners and collaborates with filmmakers, producers, for-profit and non-profit publishers and literary organizations and educators. They produce and freely distribute motion poems — films created as interpretations of poems. 

Motion Poems hires a guest producer each season and partners with publishers and literary organizations to obtain free rights to the poems. Filmmakers are offered a small stipend of $1000 per film, although they hope to be able to offer more to filmmakers in the future. They also create lesson plans in-house which they freely share. On their website, they share lesson plans created and sent in by teachers who utilize their poetry films as educational resources as well as films created by students.

Todd explained that each guest producer, always a woman, brings her own ethos to the project, reaching out to her filmmaking community. “This is a way of keeping things fresh and new and changing and expanding their roster each year.” They also partner with new publishers and literary organizations each year. With the material they gain access to through these partnerships —  “we shovel the poems out to the filmmakers — dozens and dozens until they fall in love with something.”

The filmmakers have full creative control over the films. It’s always a surprise for the poet, usually not a good surprise, which we prepare them for. But it’s a gamble they are willing to take. It’s one person’s interpretation, not a translation of the poem.

Todd Boss

Angella, co-founder with Todd, envisioned a project and place where artists and filmmakers could express themselves creatively. Filmmakers and animators often have to support themselves with daily jobs which don’t allow them to have full creative direction. Motion Poems offers this creative space. 

Filmmakers go to art school, filmmakers are artists, but in the necessary jobs they do day to day, the creative direction isn’t theirs, it’s from the client, to the client, for the client…and it drains the soul from their artistic practice. MP gives them full creative control.

Todd Boss shares Angela’s secret

Filmmakers are given a small stipend of $1000 which Todd acknowledges is nowhere near enough for the creative resources they are pouring into it, but it’s at least a little bit. They have hopes to someday be in a position to be able to pay the filmmakers more. MP puts on an annual premiere for them, promotes them through the monthly launches and through their Facebook. Poets walk away with a film, exposure, and people who have engaged with their work. MP gives the filmmakers access to a poem as script which is rights free and that’s really important to them. MP has tapped into a need, a creative need for filmmakers. Every week, a filmmaker is reaching out to Todd to collaborate with them. 

Into the Future — New Ventures

Poetry will always be at the core of what we do — it’s surprising/unexpected that it’s poetry that has worked as the core of these ventures.

Todd Boss

This is a transition year, Todd said, shifting from what they have always done which is creating films. They are going to continue creating films but are now branching out into public art. 

They’ve created an app, in partnership with a local media company who’s very excited and interested to partner with them and their innovative ideas. MoVA is a moving virtual art museum for the rapid transit line in Minneapolis-St. Paul. During the ride, viewers can hold their phones to the windows. In this AR experience, viewers will see what they could be passing, what they could be seeing out the window — artworks bigger than can fit in a museum. 

Motion Poems is putting out the call soon to artists for innovative, creative art for this initiative. “It’s not a difficulty of partnering with artists and having to tell them what to do, the artists will come up with the wonderful ideas, it’s just a matter of partnering with great artists.” 

Todd Boss

They are hoping to launch the app this summer. This venture came from the project, Chaos on the Green Line which was a VR experience using Google Cardboard. During the ride, the GPS triggered the Virtual Reality experience and you moved through it, virtually in a 360 environment. That was highly intensive. 

MoVA is an AR experience. Todd has reached out to the local art museums, hoping to partner with them so that someday, “this line is sponsored by this museum”…. As Todd envisions it, the museums could use these as annexes for artwork that is bigger than can fit into a gallery. Todd feels this experience could expand beyond this rail line . “Flip the right switch and this could work on a New York transit line”. 

Other smaller new ventures

Hot House — a 48 hour pairing of 4 poet/filmmaker teams. This initiative was funded through a Kickstarter campaign. Teams were challenged to create a moving poem within that time frame.

It’s an effort to capture some of the thrill and the surprise of the collaboration that happens between poet and filmmaker.

Todd Boss

Eppy awards — first ever Epiphany awards. Poetry filmmakers from outside Motion Poems collaborations have been invited to submit up to 3 films each. Six prizes of $500 each will be awarded in three commentaries — adaptation, innovation, production. 

It’s a shift year, not sure in the end which initiatives will turn out to be the most sustainable, most successful ventures.

Todd Boss

Road to Sustainable Funding

Todd has learned that it’s Important to have a diverse mix of funding — corporate, foundation, personal, earned income.

It’s a constantly evolving, changing landscape, it’s important to be able to pivot and reach out to new partners and opportunities.

Todd Boss

He notes, It’s always a struggle to keep enough money coming in — “Priorities change, it’s a challenge in contested election periods, year after year,… and with natural disasters and humanitarian crises, people are giving money to those causes of course”(Todd Boss).

Todd has found that it’s easier to get funding for new initiatives — grants for flashy, sexy big immersive and augmented reality projects. It’s an ongoing struggle to maintain operating costs. 

Diverse Mix of Funding

Recently, they have been able to get earned revenue from consultations and speaking, which is increasing the organization’s sustainability. In addition, they have a support button and a list of their donors on the website.

Funding partners include state, corporate sponsors, foundation grants, arts organizations and personal donations. Motion Poems is funded, in part, by an appropriation from the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the State’s general fund. They list sponsors of specific seasons: 

“Season 5 is sponsored in part by contributions from HDMG, Gentleman Scholar, The Mill, and MPC. Season 6, an all-female-poet season, is sponsored by VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts. Season 7 is sponsored by Cave Canem.”

Major Funding Contributors

Horncrest Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight 1Foundation, Lowertown Future Fund, MRAC, Saint Paul Foundation, Springboard for the Arts, St. Paul Cultural STAR, Toro Foundation

They charge admission for the premieres. Locally, they have been able to co-host their premieres with the Walker Art Center, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, thus able to present at these galleries for free.  But in New York that’s  been more challenging for an outside organization to find a venue.

In LA, is where many of the guest producers come from and where many of the filmmakers come from. They run crowdfunding campaigns. “hey, help us share these films with the world” They’re able to raise money, rent a big warehouse, have catering and host a party.

Todd Boss

They sell screening packages to organizations wishing for Motion Poems to provide a themed curated program of the films with promotional materials.

Currently MP is in the process of revamping and recruiting for an expanded Board. Up to now, they’ve had a basic Board of 6 to 8 members with non-profit, foundation experience.

We would like to have the people we haven’t had — corporate members, legal members, philanthropic members —  these are the people they would like to have around the table. The greater their collective capacity, the greater Motion Poem’s capacity.

Todd Boss

Why Free Access? 

As a non-profit, they are always thinking about access to the work and who is able to access it. And, as Todd says, “there’s the instinct to share, a childish instinct to say, ‘see, look what I made’” and you want to get the work out to as many people as possible.

As a poet, Todd recognizes that there isn’t a commercial market for poetry.

There is no precedent for motion poems, it’s a new, hybrid form. Need to show people that poetry can be transformed in this way, into a film, get people interested. You can’t charge them for something they don’t know what it is.

Todd Boss

Todd hasn’t come from a background where he has been aware of Open licensing or Open Educational Resources. Motion Poems has been built upon a foundation of primarily free access.

Free Educational Resources

As Motion Poems gathered a following, they found that college teachers, poetry teachers  were reaching out to them, telling them how powerful their films are for teaching poetry. Sara, their communications person has an education background so she wrote lesson plans that are freely available. It is important to MP to make their material as accessible as possible to educators — at the high school, early college and grad school level. Creating a motion poem is a deep read of a poem, a personal interpretation, an adaptation. They designed a curriculum for creating motion poems for grad school. Student created poems created from the lesson plans are linked to the website, and teacher initiated lessons and suggestions are welcomed and shared on the website as well.

This is a transition year, shifting from what they have always done, creating films. They are going to continue creating films but are now branching out into public art. 

They’ve created an app, in partnership with a local media company who’s very excited and interested to partner with them and their innovative ideas. MoVA is a moving virtual art museum for the rapid transit line in Minneapolis-St. Paul. During the ride, viewers can hold their phones to the windows. In this AR experience, viewers will see what they could be passing, what they could be seeing out the window — artworks bigger than can fit in a museum. 

Keys to Success to Carry Forward: 

Todd explained that he is always learning, always taking forward what he has gained from/learned from in developing Motion Poems. They have a new, separate initiative of collaborating with composers and poets. He will take into that what he has  learned from developing  Motion Poems.

Artistic freedom for the artists — tapping into that creative need of artists is powerful.

Collaboration — vision of collaboration is essential. Todd hopes that that would continue beyond himself as Executive and Artistic Director. 

Collaboration is not an intuitive process for most, you learn by doing. Powerful  sparks come from collaboration.

Todd Boss


Changing the Face of Courage – a Sustainable Funding Case Study

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Sarah Redohl is an immersive media journalist who creates social impact VR documentaries such as Changing the Face of Courage, Welcome Home: A Veteran’s Story and Zambia, the Gift of Mobility.

The Immersive Shooter — a resource website containing interviews with experts in the VR industry, and offering tips and nuggets of wisdom that Sarah and her co-founder Robert Hernandez wish they’d known when they were first starting out in VR.

Creators:

Sarah Redohl

Country:

Sarah was born in the US but is now living and operating out of Bohn, Germany.

Interview Date: 

March 26, 2019

Sarah Redohl

Links to Project: 

Immersive Shooter

Funding Methods:

Sarah’s funding model includes direct sponsorship through organizations, and grants from corporations invested in VR content creation. As a journalist, Sarah directly sells her work to newspapers and online journals for publication.

The Project:

Changing the Face of Courage is an immersive 360 film which honours the history of women in the American military service.

Zambia, the Gift of Mobility is an immersive documentary about the PET (Personal Energy Transportation) all terrain wheelchairs that have changed the lives of many Zambian women who live with physical disability.

Welcome Home: A Veteran’s Story is a 360 film focussing on the issue of veteran homelessness and the Missouri non-profit who is tackling the problem. 

The Immersive Shooter: Sarah co-founded this free educational online resource for creating immersive VR work with Robert Hernandez who teaches VR journalism at University of Southern California. This website is full of the resources they wish that they had had when setting out on the journey of immersive, VR shooting, as both are passionate about helping to develop this industry.

The Immersive Shooter is important to Sarah as a resource for other creators. She is passionate about the development of VR journalism and feels the best way for that to happen is to have a lot of great content creators. The best way to do that is to make it easier for newcomers to VR to have access to the resources they wish they’d had, and to benefit from the collective wisdom of VR practitioners.

The Creator

Sarah is the immersive new media journalist behind Changing the Face of Courage and other immersive 360 film projects such as “Welcome Home, A Veteran’s Story” and “Zambia — the Gift of Mobility”.

Anything that I think makes people feel more deeply connected to the world and more deeply connected to the people I’ve chosen to profile — that’s my bread and butter.

Sarah Redohl

You can find many of Sarah’s 360 stories on her website sarahredohl.com

The Road to Sustainable Funding

Zambia, the Gift of Mobility was Sarah’s first project. This project was self-funded and freely released to allow the creators to build an international audience.

Changing the Face of Courage project was commissioned directly by the Women’s Memorial for their anniversary. As the Women’s Memorial wanted the project to be in-house, they did not want the story to be picked up and published by a big name publisher. In the past, Sarah has found in working with non-profits that being picked up by a major publishing company is one of the main goals.

Welcome Home: A Veterans Story is a project about the issue of veteran homelessness in the US. The funding model behind this project was a mix of self-funding along with a stipend from the McClatchy publishing company to include the story in their Facebook series, The War Within.

Sarah notes the funding opportunities provided by companies with a vested interest in content creation: Grant programs and opportunities like these include Youtube VR Creator lab, Google’s Jump Program, Ocular Stories Studios, and Oculus for Good.

For example, Facebook funded content for their series, Love Has No Labels.

And there’s Journalism 360 — a partnership by Google News Initiative, McKnight Foundation, and Online Journalism Association — which Sarah says has given out half a million in funding for VR projects. 

Facebook and Google have a vested interest in 360 content creation. and a lot of content has been funded by them. 

Sarah Redohl

Samsung funded the New York Times Daily 360 for some time — with a 360 video produced every day. Samsung pulled back from this program and doesn’t currently offer funding opportunities for immersive projects. 

Sarah notes that this can’t be the way projects are funded as creators never know when companies are going to pull back.

This can’t be the only way to fund what you do.

Sarah Redohl

Through The Immersive Shooter, Sarah has had the opportunity to interview many different VR creators and she offers some of the funding strategies these creators have used.

For creators who wish to release their work for profit, there are paid apps that can house their VR work. However, even these are not dependable. Sarah has heard that Steam VR has announced that they won’t be supporting 360 videos in the near future, but are considering 180 VR instead. 

Some creators have tried producing 360 Stock to subsidize their other work. Sarah has heard mixed reports on success from this kind of venture.

Liquid Cinema is an authoring tool and CMS for immersive content creators which allows creators to provide clients with a fully customized app experience for for-profit release of content.

Free Educational Resources

The Immersive Shooter is funded by a mix of advertising revenue, along with Sarah and her co-founder Robert Hernandez’s free offerings of  insights they have gained while on their own journeys of VR shooting. Funding this site was a lot easier when they started it in 2017. Sarah thinks this is because the industry has seen a pull back from VR that people in the industry are calling, “VR winter”.

Sarah is also co-founder and co-writer of the Immersive Shooter, an educational website for learning how to create immersive films. Adding new interviews depends upon the amount of advertising support they have from time to time. She continues to add tips from her own learning journey regardless of funding as this is her passion that she is driven to share.

Into the Future: Model for going forward

Self-funding projects has been hit or miss in terms of selling and placing these stories. Sarah now plans

to make sure to have those funding partners and publishing partners nailed down in as early part of the process as possible so they have buy in.

Sarah Redohl

VR Facebook communities have been talking about agencies that aim to match content creators and their ideas with prospective interested clients. This would be good.

“I’d love to see more ideas coming from content creators that don’t have to be self-funded.”

Sarah Redohl

Shifting Mindset — One of Sarah’s key tips was to take advantage of the freelance community culture, making bigger projects more sustainable and feasible through freelance relationships. This project to project approach is similar to the movie industry and is more sustainable than forming studios. The benefit of these kinds of collaborative groupings is the sense of community that has formed amongst immersive content creators. Sarah remarked that the industry is formed of a small, positive community of creators who know each other, who are excited to share best practices with each other, whose relationships are built more upon collaborating than competition and that

there’s good energy coming from the collaboration.

Sarah Redohl


Revisiting Storyworlds from Your Childhood Self

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This article was originally published in Reel West Magazine, and was republished here to archive it, after the close of the magazine.

These days there’s always a new buzz word when it comes to storytelling and technology. Admittedly these usually make me groan, as, as they gain in popularity, they bring with them the so-called gurus and prophets, who spend more time talking about them tha they do actually creating. Part of my eye rolling comes with the fact that by the time it’s a buzz word, and people are dropping it left, right and centre in conversation, it is no longer cutting edge and people start over using it (if I never hear the word ‘selfie’ again, I will be one happy gal). Oh and please stop using the term ‘new media’. It stopped being ‘new’ ages ago. Then there’s the infighting between groups of media makers – using different terms for the same thing, as they aren’t fans of some of the ‘so called prophets’ – really are transmedia and convergent storytelling all that different? But mostly I cringe at these terms and the posturing to be seen as a leader of them as none of these terms describe new concepts. Think about it.  The only thing new to storytelling are a few of the platforms in which we tell our tales on now, but conceptually people have been doing things like transmedia and convergent storytelling all throughout human history.  We’ve just become a little precious about spotlighting ourselves as trail blazers.

One term that you may have heard if you’ve been attending conferences like Storyworld Quest, Merging Media, and Storyworld, that is becoming a buzz word with media makers is ‘storyworlds’ or ‘storyworld creation’. This is one term that admittedly I love, but again is not new.  The concept of storyworlds is the idea of having stories that overlap with each other, that have different platforms in which people can experience aspects of the story on and allow the audience to engage within the story and take a personal stake in it.

I suspect most of you at some point have created a storyworld as children.  One that standouts for me from childhood was created by my siblings, cousins and myself at my grandparent’s place. This storyworld involved our rooftop ‘Dairy Queen’ (which was a place of imaginative play and theatre – rather than ice cream), another rooftop Star Wars play zone (for creating our own brand of fan fiction), magical beasts (as we watched the shoreline for the Cadborosaurus), mysteries to be solved (in the form of a coy pinching otter), our own Olympic Summer Games resided over by my grandfather in top hat and tails (for our gaming component), the ‘how-to’ project of the tree fort we were constantly rebuilding, and our own foodie adventures in homemade fruit leather creations.  

Think about it.  I bet you too can remember storyworlds that you were a part of as a child.

So what is that magical ingredient that makes some people more successful in creating storyworlds, than others, in this age of social and mobile media?  Building community!  This means engaging, listening, empowering others to feel a part of the story and engage within it, and letting go of the reigns and not trying to control everything.  As media makers, this means remembering that lesson we learned in Kindergarten – it’s not all about us!  While you can still broadcast – also ENGAGE – let your audience feel they have a stake in your story and it’s success. And remember we can’t do it all alone – just like I needed my cousins, siblings, and adult family members to help create that childhood storyworld, you need to build community – both within your audience and with other creatives – and allow them to take a stake within your story, without micromanaging and trying to control everything.

Give yourself permission to embrace the kid in you again and begin building storyworlds around your projects.  Once you do, please tell us about it at @AhimsaMedia or via the #StoryToGo hashtag, and invite us into your storyworld.

Crowdfunding – Creating New Possibilities and Sidestepping Gatekeepers

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This article was originally published in Reel West Magazine, and was republished here to archive it, after the close of the magazine.

Whether you laughed or exclaimed “WTF!” that a dude jokingly posts “I’m making potato salad. Basically I’m just making potato salad. I haven’t decided what kind yet.” on Kickstarter and he raises $55,492, it does make you sit up a little straighter and think maybe, just maybe, you should be paying crowdfunding a little more attention.  What was Zack Danger Brown’s intention with his potato salad Kickstarter campaign, aside from a good chuckle?  He’d publicly hoped to raise $10, while secretly his goal was $60.  Never in his wildest dreams did he expect to raise $55,492.  Who would?!?

As a creator, this excites me.  Whether you’ve long been a fan of crowdfunding or have been skeptically watching from the sidelines, this past year has carried some telling examples with it for us creators. Examples that suggest crowdfunding may indeed be a viable alternative to play with in the Canadian film and TV funding game, opening the playing field up to those creators who are willing to put in the work to experiment with a new model of funding, sidestepping traditional gatekeepers.

After all, it is not just potato salad that is getting funded. 2013 saw a revival of the Veronica Mars stories, as after 7 years of being off network television, Director Rob Thomas, in a last ditch attempt to raise financing for the film started a Kickstarter campaign.  He admittedly was skeptical if it would work.  You see he needed $2 million to go to camera, and at that time the highest raising Kickstarter campaign had been $900,000.  It would seem Rob need not have worried. He raised the first $1 million in the first 4 hours!  By 12 hours in, he’d raised the $2 million that he needed to shoot. The campaign continued on to raise a total of $5,702,153 from 91,585 backers, unlocking a variety of the campaign’s stretch goals.

Many pondered whether this was just a one time phenomenon, but since then Reading Rainbow has been revived too, thanks to a Kickstarter campaign raising $5,408,916 (it’s goal was $1 million).  Then this summer Coolest Cooler took over the torch of Kickstarter’s highest raising campaign yet raising $13,285,226, while it’s goal was only $50,000.

I hear a few mutters of “Well … those are big American entities, with pre-existing fan bases.”  True enough, at least in the case of Veronica Mars and Reading Rainbow, but our Canadian creators’ campaigns are nothing to scoff at.  Take for example Indie Game: the Movie, by Manitoba filmmakers James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot – with two Kickstarter campaigns they raised $94,676 for the documentary.  Their goal had been $50,000.  They most certainly considered this a success, and in the process they had inadvertently marketed their documentary, creating a fan base and anticipation for it’s release. Win – Win!

Interviews with Canadian Creatives on Crowdfunding

In interviewing a number of other Canadian creatives who have successfully crowdfunded their own projects, here is what they learned in the process:

Steve Dotto

Past: Radio and TV Producer & Host, Now: YouTube Publisher

The Campaign: 

After spending many years on network TV, I moved my product to YouTube. When I was in traditional television, my customer was the sponsor, my customer now, is my viewer, the purpose of a crowdfunding campaign is to create a direct connection between the viewer and content creator. Ideally I was looking to recapture some revenue, from my community. I have nearly 40,000 subscribers to my YouTube channel, a small contribution from each one would make for very healthy income. Community support allows me to create more compelling content that isn’t focused on pleasing advertisers instead of viewers.

Crowdfunding Platform of Choice:

The crowdfuding platform I am currently using is called Patreon (patreon.com/dottotech), It was designed to bring audiences and content creators together. By becoming a patron, an individual can choose to support an individual content creator, musician, artist, writer, or in my case YouTube Publisher. Crowdfunding closes the gap, and removes the middle man, so you don’t have to deal with networks or other publishers in order to reach your audience.

Patreon is one of the first on the market offering this sort of service. I think it is an outstanding option for any content creator. One caveat is YouTube is looking at offering similar services, and if they get into the game it could make for a compelling option.

Advice:

First, mature the product you are offering to the community. I think it is important to establish your brand and offer before asking people to invest in you.

Also I “primed the pump”. I did a small private campaign to get some activity in my account before asking the general public to support me. I think if people visit any online product and hear crickets, you will have a difficult time converting them into supporters.

Sarah Keenleyside

Inkblot Media (& Joseph Clement, Producer / Director of Auratic Media)

The Campaign:

I am helping produce a documentary about Integral House, one of the most architecturally significant homes in North America – and its owner Jim Stewart, who is the world’s most published calculus mathematicians. The house is remarkable, not only because of its stunning architecture by Shim Sutcliffe Architects, but also because it functions as a concert space and has hosted such celebrated musicians as Phillip Glass, Misha Breuggergosman and The New Orford Quartet.

After hitting a few frustrating dead ends while pursuing traditional financing, we quickly decided to fundraise the budget ourselves offering experiences within the house (concerts, an art event) as rewards for interested investors. So far Joseph has successfully hosted three events in the house, the proceeds of which have kept the production afloat.

Crowdfunding Platform of Choice:

We used none. Instead, Joseph created a site for the film where people could purchase tickets: auraticmedia.com/tickets. So far, all of the events have been well attended through word of mouth, but we will be doing a final, major concert or event in the house to complete our production funding, and then we’re hoping to go back to the traditional sources to help us finish it off. 

Advice:

I think it’s important to ask yourself, why should people care about your project? What are investors getting out of the investment? Even $5 and the time it takes to donate $5 is a big ask based solely on your word that they will enjoy the film when it’s finished. 

I think our campaign is highly unusual, because we can offer such desirable rewards, and because the rewards are so connected to the film itself. In a way, we didn’t need to prove that the film will be good – visiting the house is reward enough! 

But I have given money to many campaigns in the past, and looking back, they all drew me in for very specific reasons – i.e. I was familiar with the person/people behind the campaign and I admired their previous work; I cared about the cause or subject matter featured in the film; I was curious about the subject matter; I liked their technical approach and wanted to see it realized; or the rewards were just so rewarding that I couldn’t resist (in most cases, the reward was a book that was being presold).

Daniel Baylis

Writer and Adventurer (and Digital Editor at Air Canada’s enRoute Magazine)

The Campaign:

A couple years ago, I turned 30 years old and decided to mark the occasion by travelling around the world for an entire year. The objective of my travels was not simply to drift, but to find meaningful ways to engage with the communities I visited. In some cases I succeeded. In other cases I did not. Upon returning to Canada, I began the process of writing a memoir about my journey. I decided to independently release this book, and crowdfunding became an integral (and obvious) step in the process of sharing my story with the world. 

Now, you can see the book at thetraveller.ca: The Traveller: Notes from an Imperfect Journey Around the World.

Crowdfunding Platform of Choice:

I used Indiegogo and would absolutely use the platform again. They’ve got a support team in place that was responsive to any concerns. In fact, they provided unsolicited coaching tips that proved vital in my campaign. For example, I hit my $5000 goal within three days and Stephan from the service team encouraged me to set “stretch goals” to communicate how I could take my project further with more funding.

Advice:

Don’t rush into it. Take the time to plan out your attack, communicate your goal clearly and then make a stellar video.

Kemp Edmonds

Part-Time Filmmaker Kemp Edmonds (cbc.ca/player/Shows/ID/2303020192) advices that “its like politics: for success you need to ask anyone who you can to take part. You need to sell yourself and your campaign 24/7 to ensure success. Also build partnerships and have others feature what you are doing. Think PR. Think unique hook. Why does your story matter to the greater audience? How can you get a newspaper or radio reporter to jump on the story? Then use every social media channel you can you reach, engage and converse with folks, especially those with places to amplify your message, about your campaign.”

Doreen Pendgracs

And novelist Doreen Pendgracs (doreenpendgracs.com/?s=crowdfunding) suggests you study the algorithm of the crowdfunding platform you are on, so that you benefit from their help in marketing your campaign.  She also advices you keep the video that you are using to promote your campaign short.  She created one 8-minute video, that should have been two shorter videos.

Final Words

Just remember, don’t become greedy with your crowdfunding campaign, but do be realistic in your budgeting. Make sure that you are not overselling and can deliver what you are promising.

When you start your crowdfunding campaign, do be sure to tell us by tweeting us at @AhimsaMedia and / or using the #StoryToGo hashtag.  We love seeing what our Canadian creatives are up to!