We'd love it if everybody had a Kickstarter project. I believe that everyone has some kind of creative project that they think about - whether it's something small they'd like to do over a weekend with friends, or it's the film they've always wanted to make, whatever.
The kind of system Kickstarter uses has been used for hundreds of years. Unlike Medici-style patronage, where the richest people in town give large amounts of money, Kickstarter's system relies on the general public for funding projects, and rewards those backers.
I remember early on, in the first couple of years especially, I would run into some people that would try to put Kickstarter under the 'social good' label. And I actually had this very visceral reaction - I just didn't like that at all.
Kickstarter has been such a heads-down thing.
Kickstarter is perfect for us. It wasn't something we heard about and just got to it. We did our research, met with the people at Kickstarter - they are brilliant, and they're excited to work with us.
It's a lot harder for an author that's unpublished to say, 'Hey, here's a new book.' There's nothing of theirs to read, so you don't know what it's going to be like. Kickstarter is great, but you also have to put your work out there whenever you can so you can build a reputation.
I used the principles of Kickstarter to make 'She's Gotta Have It.' We filmed that in 1985 to 1986. The final cost was $175,000. I didn't have that money. It was friends, grants, donations. We saved our bottles for the nickel deposit.
The truth is I've been doing Kickstarter before there was Kickstarter; there was no Internet. Social Media was writing letters, making phone calls, beating the bushes.
I have no problem with bands using participant financing schemes like Kickstarter and such. I've said many times that I think they're part of the new way bands and their audience interact and they can be a fantastic resource, enabling bands to do things essentially in cooperation with their audience. It's pretty amazing, actually.
Twitter is maybe the worst thing. It's cool when you can tweet out your show and be like, 'Hey, come see my show,' or 'Check out this Kickstarter,' but it's also this weird 140-character vehicle for insidiousness.
