I raised $34,133 for a film that I wanted to make called Rolled. Since then, many people have asked how I did it, so I thought I’d take the time write about my experience.

Research
My first tip is to read everything you can about launching a Kickstarter campaign. The more you know about other people’s successes, the better you can prepare yourself for your own. The first place I’d direct you to look (after reading this post) would be Kickstarter’s own resources like “Kickstarter School“. I did a Google search about successful Kickstarter campaigns, and then reached out to a few people who had completed theirs. In general – people were very willing to answer any questions I had. If you have a question, you’re more than welcome to connect with me through my blog. Additionally, I opened a Google document and kept notes with links, email addresses and my own notes so I could go back and refrence materials I had found during the research phase.

Preparing My Campaign
You should be well prepared before submitting your idea to Kickstarter. You don’t have to have all the details of the campaign spelled out to them, but you have to have enough of an understanding of what you’re doing to be able to convince them to accept your campagin. Remember, they want winning campaigns. They get a 5% cut after all. They’re on your side. So be prepared to convince them that your project is awesome.

The next step for me was working on my messaging and building my campaign. The first place I would direct anyone who is about to take on this step would be Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk “Inspire Action“. I literally watched this every morning before I got to work on my campaign; whether it was writing, filming, or editing. I took notes about my messaging, and made sure to not only repeat my message, but to continue to believe in, and thus live, my messaging.

Example? Why should anyone give me money for my project? Because it’s what I wake up in the morning thinking about. There is nothing I want to do more than this project. I’m passionate about it. And by supporting me, you will be helping me realize my dream. Say those words, but more importantly believe those words. People will help if they believe you, and they will believe you if you’re telling the truth.

After writing a script I filmed myself giving the pitch. Then I played it for a couple friends who are very intelligent, observant people. They gave me notes which helped me refine my pitch. I can’t say how important this part is. It’s like proofreading. Make sure your message plays well to the audience. You could have the best idea ever – but if your messaging falls flat, you’ll get no where. With that said, I’d recommend spending a lot of time on Kickstarter watching pitch videos. Take note of which you like, dislike, and why.

My video took time to shoot, reshoot, and finally edit. I took my video to a few talented editor friends and had them take notes. By the end we took it from seven minutes (too long) to 2:10 (much better). I played it for other friends to read reactions. Pay attention to when people start to zone out, then fix that problem.

Make Your Life Easier with Tools
There are a few tools that will help you immensely.

Google Alerts: Set up a Google alert for your Kickstarter campaign. That way if anyone writes about your campaign on a blog or website, you see it. Once you see it you post it on Facebook. That way you have more opportunities to talk about your campaign without looking like you’re talking about your campaign. Awesome idea, I know.

TextExpander: Look it up, then learn how to use it. It’s 100 times better than copy and pasting.

Outreach
Reaching out by email and Facebook is probably the most efficient. Phone is the best but it’s time consuming. In all cases – you want to message people individually. Think about it; if you were going to tell many friends about your campaign by phone you wouldn’t conference call them all in and tell them, you’d tell them individually. Do the same by email and Facebook, and personalize each message. This is when TextExpander is going to help you the most.

A quick note on asking for help: remember that there are many ways people can help. Obviously the most helpful is by donating money. But remember how much spreading the word can help. I always asked people to support me any way they could – whether it be financially, or simply by passing along the campaign to friends of theirs who may be interested in it.

Responding to people who donated. People love knowing that you know that they donated. Thank them for it. In many cases they’ll help you out again along the way. I often said something like “Thanks for your support, I couldn’t do it without you. If you can think of anyone else who may enjoy the project, it’d be great if you could pass it along to them.” Usually they do.

Your Day to Day
In a lot of cases your Kickstarter campaign is your make-or-break for that project. For my project Rolled, if I didn’t raise the money, I wasn’t making the film. I woke up in the morning during the campaign and started messaging people and blogs. I did it all day every day for thrity days. By the end it paid off. It was my day job for a month.

1) Have a unique project that people want to see produced. It doesn’t matter if it’s a game, a beer cozy, or a film.

2) Give great incentives. For Rolled, a donation of $35 or more got a picture of them hanging in the background of the film – and if they donated $300 or more, we’d name-drop them in the film. Turns out people like seeing themselves and hearing their names!
(53 people donated at the $35 level and it cost me about $4 to print all of their photos. 16 people donated at $300. Name dropping them was fun, hilarious, and those people are stoked when they hear their name in the film. People who watch it now say that if I did it again, they’d donate $300 again. It cost me nothing.)

3) Get press to legitimize your project. LAWeekly, Huffington Post, and my local (LA) newspaper all did pieces on my project. Honestly, they didn’t bring many donors in, but they totally legitimized the project to hundreds of people.

As I write this post we’re nearing the completion of Rolled. To find out more, checkout the website at RolledFilm.com
If you’d like to sign up for my mailing list to hear about other projects I’m working on, please do.
Rolled Facebook Page
My Facebook Page

It’s been a while since I posted about an ad campaign but I couldn’t let this one go by unnoticed. I’m really glad to see big brands playing with this new type of advertising. Stella did a similar campaign a while back.

It’s a small gesture to good, average joes, the real consumer. They put their money towards an awesome event, and the creation of the content for it. Mind you it’ll still be showing on TV like a good old bud ad, but I like that it’s not the classic totally scripted horses in a stable. It’s real life. And yes, it is going to last forever.

In August 2004 Claire and I moved to San Francisco. We lived on 3rd Avenue in the Inner Richmond. I had transfered to the University of San Francisco, and Claire started furiously looking for work. It was our first time living together. Seven and a half years later Claire and I have decided to start a new adventure up in Portland Oregon. The transition will be interesting for the two of us. For Claire she’ll be going back to the city that she grew up in, but both her and the city have changed so much since she last lived there 12 years ago. For me it’ll be my first time living out of California. Certainly the furthest I’ve lived from my Mom, Dad, and Sisters.

I’ve been thinking back to our move to San Francisco 7 years ago to see what I learned and what I can do to make the transition to Portland the best it can be. When we moved to SF I was going into my 5th year of college. I thought I’d make a lot of friends at school but soon realized that I was done with the college life that most there were living. Luckily I met a few great people that I’m still good friends with. Two of which live an hour outside of Oregon. Interestingly enough, our first roomate Kelly also lives in Portland. She’s a great friend of ours and has known Claire since at least high school.

After playing Ultimate Frisbee in LA for 5 years I knew I could easily turn to the community up here. After playing with a few teams in SF I started coaching the UC Santa Cruz women’s team. That experience is a whole different post, but i’ll say it taught me a whole lot, and stands out as something i’m very proud of doing while living in the bay – I’d do it again in a heart beat.

It’s important to note here that the group of people who have kept me most sane and entertained the last several years is an ultimate team I started 4 years. AIR: Adventure, Intrigue, Romance. They are an outstanding group of individuals. When they come together they are an outstanding team. I know Claire and I will miss them deeply.

While we’ll still be playing frisbee while we’re up in Portland, I’ve decided that I need to meet people who are going to help me push forward with my career in film making. Specifically I’m hoping to meet actors, improvisors, and film makers of all kinds. If you know anyone it would be a huge help if you could put me in touch with them. With that said, what i’m really hoping to find is passionate, driven people who can help me find a community of hard workers. I never would have made a film had I not been surrounded by peers who were taking chances on their own careers and encouraging me to do the same.

Go to your Facebook profile -> Click on your friends -> Above your friends will be a search bar with a drop down. Choose current city -> Type in Portland Oregon -> Make introductions! Thanks

It’s important for me to emphasize the enthusiastic, compassionate, people with an appetite for success that I met while I was here. In San Francisco I felt very fortunate to have met a group of people who were not pompous about their success but instead were excited to share it. They wanted everyone to feel as fortunate as they felt about working on the thing they loved. That felling is infectious and I like surrounding myself with it. If you know that person in portland; whether they work in finance, are a blogger, artist, engineer, or whatever – I’d like to meet them. Usually they are surround by others like them.

So thank you to those people who were exactly that to me here.

I’ll be taking my work with me to Portland. I have a lot to say in this regaurd but for the most part I’ll leave that to another post. It would be amazing if you signed up to follow along on one or two of these lists. Eventually i’m going to have to figure out how to reach a much larger audience then I have now. Your support from wherever you are would be amazing. The best way to do that, in order of most helpful, to next most helpful, looks like this. *note: my lists are the least spammy thing you’ve ever signed up for – I’m not great about writing a ton of emails. My bad.

My personal mailing list of people who want to help out with anything and everything i’m working on. Sign Up!
My personal public Facebook page. Like It!
Rolled’s Facebook fanpage. Like It!
My Film’s mailing list. Sign Up!
Social Flooding: A group i’m creating to help artists have their work seen online. Learn about it then sign up!

We’ve had many great years in this city. We’ve lived in three great appartments. I’ve come to love the smell of the bay breeze, the neighborhoods, and most of all the pine wood breaks of the cable car. I’ll never get over the views you get as your crest one of the many hills. MUNI, I will not forget. I will cry over the loss of my favorite bars and restaurants.

My friends I will stay friends with, but I will miss the unplanned days that turn into true adventures.

So, with all of that said there are about 23 available breakfasts, lunches and dinners open for goodbyes before we leave. Let’s connect for food, drinks and hugs.

I just said goodbye to my wife Claire as she steped out for her work day. Behind her she leaves our apartment in San Francisco which is filled with a collection of books, photo albums, trinkets we’ve collected on our travels, and Buster, our dog that we’ve had for almost a year. Right now she’s going off to support this life that we’ve built together over the last 10 years.

December 1st is our “dating” anniversary – And while we have a new anniversary that we celebrate for the day we wed, 10 years is worth taking pause. After all, at 30 years old, we’ve now been together for a third of our lives.

It turns out a lot can be done in ten years – from seeing each other through college, moving to San Francisco, traveling the world together, and getting married. Hell, if you search Claire in my flickr stream more then 1,800 photos come up since 2005. Instead of writing out all the amazing adventures we’ve been on together, which would take up way to much of your time, I’ve chosen to post a single photo of us for each year we’ve been together. The theme of the photos will be “smothering each other with love”.

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006 on our 5 year anniversary in Melbourne Australia

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Here is to a decade with my love.

I’ve been working on my documentary “Rolled” for the past ten months. It’s a full time job that I think about everyday, including on weekends and often in my sleep. Back in February I called my good friend Keegan Uhl (who is a director and has a kickstarter campaign you should watch) to get some advice from him as I started to push forward with Rolled. As I mentioned in the post “I’m Making A Documentary, It’s Called “Rolled” he said to me, “remember, when you make a documentary it never goes how you expect it to – don’t fight it, embrace the chaos.”

Four weeks ago I went down to LA to continue filming after a few month hiatus. I met with my good friend Drew Manning who has been helping me piece together the story of Rolled as it unfolds – or unravels. Use whatever imagery you’d like. Drew said something similar to Keegan, and it was good to hear again. “You make a movie three times. You write it, you film it, you edit it. Each time it becomes a different film then the last.” As we began filming I quickly realized that these two statements were going to be amplified for my film. This is why…

Rolled is about the legacy of a group of kids who have been toilet papering houses for over 30 years. I was in the group with my three dear friends, Kevin, Mike and Matt back in the late 90′s. I connected with them asking if they wanted to recount our experiences in the group, as we have a lot of stories to tell, and these three guys are especially good at telling stories. In addition to talking with them about our experiences, I wanted to meet the guy who started the group, which we did, and track down the current group to see how it’s holding up 10 years after we left it.

I got myself deep into the project very early on, filming those first interviews. All of this is explained in my Kickstarter campaign which was launched and successfully funded in August. As the video explains, all I had left to do was head down to LA to meet the kids who are currently in the group.

All I had to do… This is where I began to “embrace the chaos.”

After raising money on kickstarter my life went from moving at a Usain Bolt pace to a Looney Tunes Roadrunner pace (even faster.) A lot of good came out of raising the money. At that point people knew that I was going to be able to make the film. I was introduced to a very talented cinematographer, who brought on another camera op so we could do two camera shoots when needed. Serendipity would have me meet a great audio operator, and link up with several extraordinary production assistants, and a DIT (Digital Imaging Technician). I also got to spend several weeks in my home town staying with my parents and reconnecting with people I don’t normally get to see while I’m visiting over the holidays. But what I didn’t expect was what I found when I finally had the opportunity to meet the current group of kids.

Matt, Kevin and I had our first meeting with current high school group a while back (unfortunately for us, Mike lives in Amsterdam and was not able to join us.) I’m not at the point where I’m able to talk publicly about our first meeting, or the meetings that followed with the current group. I’ll say this though, It has changed the story. They were not bad interactions by any stretch of the imagination, they were just different then we had expected. They put me in a position to rethink the way we’ll be presenting the documentary. “You write it, you film it”, “embrace the chaos.”

There is more filming to come. The story is certainly still writing itself. But I have this to report. The footage so far is beautiful. The people I’ve been working with bring a talent and creativity that far surpasses what I ever could have hoped for. The direction the film is headed has given me the energy that I felt in January when this all began and again when it was funded in August. I’m riding a high that I wish I could share with everyone. I’m thankful for the few people that were with me to experience this past month. I’m excited by my new friends and colleagues. But most of all I’m overwhelmed with excitement in knowing for sure what I want to do for work and with my life.

Here are some images that I can share from shoots. You won’t learn much about where the story is going but at least you’ll see that we’re working.

Proof that I am alive. This was taken one of the days we shot.

Ricardo our DIT.

Matt and Kevin on one of our days together.

Andrew on audio, and Maren on everything important to make sure this all happens.

Chelsea Mayer, A huge help both with filming & just about anything else that needs to get done.

The very talented cinematographer, Mark Lester.

I’m making a documentary because I love telling stories. I also love connecting with my old friends, and reminiscing on good times we’ve had together. Right now I am nervous but excited. The project that I’ve poured the last six months of my life into is in the 30 day funding phase! While it’s slightly stressful, I’m excited at how many people I get to connect with over the course of August.

How you can help Rolled:

Donate:
Donate some amount of money. It doesn’t matter how much. Every little bit helps.

Share:
You donated, you want to see this film happen. Help by reaching out to as many people as you can. The more eyes that see the pitch the more people will donate.

Share with who?
First share it with the people you know would want to watch the video. More then anything we want people who are going to find the project entertaining. Send it to your best friends, co-workers, friends from high school, and family member who will support because you did.

Share Where?
Email: The best way to get the word out is by directly emailing people. It’s personalized and people dig that.
Away message: If you spend a lot of time on gchat or AIM, and away message asking people to support the film with the link http://kck.st/rolledfilm would be great!
Facebook: Facebook doesn’t have as much reach as you might think, so if you post it there ask your friends to share it and like it, that will help it’s traction. Do the same when you see the project on other people Facebook page.
Twitter: Tweet and don’t stop. If you see someone else tweet something, RT it.
Blog Post: Have a blog or know someone who does? Do a little write up on the film and share it with your community.

What you should know:

All or nothing:
On kickstarter you only get the cash if you raise all of your funds. That means I have to hit $30,000 or I get $0 for my film.

Time:
As I write this I have 29 days to go and $23,732. If you’re considering donating please do it right away, there isn’t enough time for a reminder.

It’s safe:
Kickstarter has been around for a while now and is a totally trustworthy company. Not to mention the fact that the billing is all done through Amazon.

Some bloggers have jumped on this already. Here are some links.
Laughing Squid
Kickstarter Blog
iTibz
Team Jaded
Hacker News

Chili with Guacamole
All food rules and diets are off when one goes camping – it’s a great time to experiment. Here are some delicious camping foods that everyone should try this summer. Below is chili with campmade (like homemade but at camp) guacamole. This particular evening our chili and guacamole were prepared by Annah and Spencer.

This recipe is awesome because you can make it all in one pot, one bowl, and everything else can be cleaned and recycled. All you need is any and all beans of your choice – but we highly recommend that you have one can of refried beans in there. Mix in chopped onion, garlic, bell pepper, jalapeño, tomato, and corn – or don’t. Whatever man, it’s your dinner.

Then make guacamole. If you don’t know how to make guacamole you probably haven’t lived in California or Texas for more than a year. Guacamole is easy. It’s just like chili – except avocado instead of beans. I personally like to add some lime, cilantro, salt and pepper – and I find that I don’t need the jalapeño, or bell peppers, but it’s your guacamole man, whatever.

Bacon Wrapped Marshmallow
You heard me right! No more pretending like you actually like marshmallows. Now you can actually enjoy them wrapped in your favorite greasy meat. Bacon! I don’t know how I came up with this idea, but what puzzles me more is how I didn’t come up with it sooner! This “recipe” is done in six easy steps.

Step 1 & 2: Put bacon on marshmallow skewer. Secure it so you don’t cry later. Cook on high heat (not flame) until nearly cooked.

Step 3 & 4: Pull part of bacon off skewer. Place marshmallow on skewer. Put bacon back on skewer, partially wrapping it around the marshmallow.

Steps 5 & 6: Cook however you like to cook your marshmallow. If you like it burnt, fine, it’s your marshmallow man. If you like it brown and gooey, groovy. The key is pulling it out when it looks good to you. Let it cool a bit, but eat it while it’s warm.

Personally, I don’t see any reason to eat a marshmallow without bacon ever again.

Kettle Corn
You need popcorn, salt, sugar, and oil. I’ll let my Uncle Stan do all the explaining.

Campfire Nachos
You really can’t go wrong with nachos. Think about all the ingredients you like on nachos. Make sure cheese is at least one of them. Put all the ingredients over chips on tin foil. Close the foil by pulling up the edges and sealing off the top. By doing this you’ll help the cheese melt inside. Campfire achos are a little different than your regular old oven nachos. They often have that infused smokey/campfire taste soaked in. If you like that taste, you’ll love these nachos.

Now go out there and get your camp on!

If you have any recipes that you’d like to share, please leave them in the comments, I’d love to try something new.

This weekend I rented a 100mm macro lens to practice my photography. For those of you who don’t know what macro lenses are, they allow you to take photographs of objects really close up. This is how photographers take photos of bugs or grains of sand. I’ve wanted to try shooting macro for a long time as I often see potential for close up photos. I’m quite happy that I jumped on the long weekend to do it. A trip to the ferry building farmers market on a day that had both sun and rain proved to be quite rewarding. All of the photos I took can be found here, but for now this is a sampling of my favorite shots.

I love the building across the street from our apartment. While sitting on our couch I often see it in the reflection of a wine glass but this day allowed the light for me to shoot it in my own eye.

After a very long nap she wakes with a tear in her eye.

My first experience shooting rain. Moving water offers a great opportunity to learn about light, speed, and timing.

4505 Meats, voted the best burger in San Francisco.

Primavera makes some amazing chilaquiles. Uploading this photo inspired me to take my first stab at making chilaquiles. They were decent.

The sun is being covered by some low hanging clouds, this helps to diffuse the light.

Still the whites come out a little bright. I love bright pictures but I need to work on my whites.

With the 100mm macro lens your depth of field can start and end so far from the center which is left in focus. Pretty cool.

Chocolate from Recchiuti, yum.

For the times you don’t have Tapatio.

Buster’s chest hair.

I love all the different textures in the three inches from the top of his nose to the bottom of his mouth.

I’ve been working on my documentary for four months now, and I’ll tell you – I’ve learned a lot. I sound like a broken record when I say that this is not a one person job. I’ll also say that I’ve had some good help along the way, I’m not always alone. Since the beginning I’ve had a basic plan for writing, filming, marketing, etc. Part of the marketing is online/social marketing, which I feel I have a good grasp of. However, new to me is email campaigns, of which I’ve officially launched my first.

Speaking of first, first things second; if you would like to sign up for my email campaign – you’re crazy. But I like crazy people. Click your mouse on the word “here”, here.

Who are email campaigns for? They’re for you, silly. And to answer your second question, why you should start one? You should start one to be less annoying, to give people information that they’re actually interested in, and to help you stay connected with your friends, family and fans. Email campaigns are nice because they are auto-managed by a service like Mail Chimp. You don’t have to decide who is going to be on the list, people decide if they’re going to be on your list. And it’s simple, you just tell people that you have a list, that they should click “here” and then they sign up. When you bore them, they cancel their subscription.

Your scenario. You’re going to travel around the world for 8 months and you’ve decided you’re going to take photos and do a little writing. Before email services like Mail Chimp you were deciding who was going to be on your list and managing that list yourself, taking people off of it when they didn’t want to be bothered with your updates about the best cupcake you ate in Melbourne (but seriously it was good and it’s worth reading about).

But wait, there’s more. Mail Chimp has a ton of templates for you to use so your emails can be pretty, and you can paste your photos from Australia right into the email. You can also get stats on how many people opened your email and how many links they clicked on within it. Super sweet, I know.

How have I started to use the service? Good question Alan. Two days ago I sent my first email out to the 62 people who signed up (thanks again to those of you who signed up). I also played with some settings making the first email auto-send one day after anyone new signs up for the list. This email list is important to me because it allows me to communicate to the people who want to be a part of the film-making process with me. There is so much work to be done and so much content to spread. As a single person, my message can only travel so far before dies out. I can only reach my friends on Facebook and Twitter, but with a group of active friends and fans I can send my message out to my list and ask for them for help.

Don’t understand? Here is my scenario. Let’s say I have a trailer for my film, and I want thousands of people to see it. I have about 1,000 friends on Facebook and 1,500 “Followers” on Twitter – of whom maybe only 200 are online at any given time I Tweet. I post my trailer on Facebook, which then filters my trailer so maybe only 100 people on Facebook see it. But then I send an email to my list asking people to, “Like”, “Share” and “Repost” my trailer. Facebook takes this data and says “Oh, people like this, I’m going to send it to more walls” (that’s how Facebook talks), and the video hits more eyeballs. On top of that, I ask politely for the people on my list to go a step further and ask two or three more friends to do the same for them, as a favor, for a friend. If my trailer is any good, then people will like it. When people like something online it naturally spreads – but with a little push from 62 people, it has a much higher chance of success.

This is why I am excited about my email campaign. If you made it this far, and you want to sign up to be on my list (silly you), and you don’t feel like scrolling back up to where you could have clicked here earlier – then for you I will put the link here so you can click it there.

Also, not so long ago I produced this video with the king of everything online, Loic Le Meur, specifically about this topic. Below is said video.

It appears now that my sisters blog and mine has become a conversation amongst each other. I give her advice she gives me advice. But alas, it’s being shared in the right spot – a place where everyone can see it, and anyone can respond. She asks, “What would be your top three pieces of advice on social netoworking”. After realizing she meant networking and not netoworking which is ‘the act of doing pretty cool stuff for work’, I gave her this answer.

Be tuned in as often as possible (reading, responding, updating). That means check on twitter and facebook from your phone when you’re on the toilet.

P.S. Cait, it’s spelled Neatoworking, not netoworking. Like neato burrito – for neto read “Suffix used in Portuguese speaking countries to distinguish a grandson from his grandfather when they have the same given name.” Which is one on one networking which doesn’t really seem social to me. I digress.

I know not everyone is like me, but my mind runs really fast and I want to share most of my experiences and thoughts. I’ve learned over the years that not everyone wants to hear what i’m thinking, so i’ve given myself a filter. It’s the same on the internet. For example. It’s raining hard right now and I want to tell the world. But what’s the content there? Rain? I better supply an epic video of a popsicle stick boat racing down my street or i’ve wasted a lot of peoples precious time – and there is already way to many of us out there posting noise. Note: I’d watch a popsicle stick boat racing down a fast current in a gutter.

I’ve been online “networking” it up for a few years now and have found places to put my various thoughts. When I see a photo or video that I like I post it on my Tumblr account which I generally let auto tweet. So a great video or photo goes to two places. If someone I don’t know does something cool and they have a twitter account I tweet them. Why? Because encouragement is cool man.

Facebook is different for me. I try to imagine i’m in a giant room full of people that I know and know me back. When most of my friends and I signed up for Facebook it was to be connected with one another, not to preach at each other. With that said I think Facebook is an incredible way to connect with people, I just prefer to do my random thoughts elsewhere.

Finally I caved in and made myself another Tumblr account – one that I don’t plan on sharing with you. It’s where I put all of my random thoughts that I think are funny, interesting, or that I want to remember. It’s not intended to be seen by the outside world, though it is available. It’s made for me to release the noise so it’s not so loud in my head.

Finally what I said to Cait was, “It’s about being tuned in to your own thoughts then figuring out where and to whom you will share them.”

If you came here hoping you would learn more about Social Networking I would like to point you to a video series I made with Social Networking extraordinaire Loic Le Meur. Build Your Own Brand.

Another final note: My film has an e-mail list. You should sign up by clicking here or here.

P.S. It’s raining so hard.