Extract

In the summer of 2013 Spike Lee was once again trying to raise funds for a new project. This time, however, innovations in digital technology and culture provided him with a new way to generate financial support.

Kickstarter is a web-based platform for crowd-funding, enabling filmmakers, artists, musicians, writers, designers, and others to solicit small donations that can potentially add up to large sums of money. Initially meant for independent artists and non-profit organizations, by 2013 mainstream film producers were using Kickstarter to supplement their studio funding. For the big screen version of a network television series, Veronica Mars, for example, producers raised almost six million dollars through Kickstarter, despite the involvement of one of the world’s largest media companies, Warner Brothers, as the film’s distributor.

Lee started a Kickstarter campaign in 2013 to raise money for an untitled project. Setting a goal of 1.25 million dollars, Lee managed to surpass that, raising over 1.4 million from 6,421 backers. On the Kickstarter website Lee anticipated questions about why an established filmmaker would need donations from fans. Lee posted:

I’m an Indie Filmmaker and I will always be an Indie Filmmaker. Indie Filmmakers are always in search of financing because their work, their vision sometimes does not ← 213 | 214 →coincide with Studio Pictures. But I do put my own money in my films. I self-financed RED HOOK SUMMER. My fee for MALCOLM X was put back into the budget. The truth is I’ve been...