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anonymousad · 2 years ago

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Shelterwood: a follow-up and apology

someone reached out to me after publishing my Shelterwood crowdfunding post with some very valid stuff that I want to address. they mistakenly sent it non-anonymously (something I confirmed with them before just responding to the Ask), so in the spirit of keeping things unidentifiable around here I am going to screenshot the entire message (so you can know I'm not selectively cutting anything out) and then I'll respond to it in chunks:

A Genuine Apology

so let's start with the first chunk of text:

I'm going to be straight with you: while there were absolutely some points you made about the Shelterwood crowdfund that I agreed with, like how unreasonable the goal seemed for a show produced by a novice showrunner, something's really sticking out here. That thing is that Stephen Indrisano and Nigel McKeon are both young, white, non-binary novice showrunners who secured some high-billing talent and picked unreasonably high crowdfunding goals, but you treated one of them with a lot of grace and understanding... and then turned around and not only accused the other of essentially being the problem with the current state of podcasting, but also called them cis in the process despite having acknowledged their pronouns earlier in your write-up. That was... certainly something. It's almost like you had a specific point you wanted to make, so you just sort of conveniently forget that Stephen is non-binary to make it. That or you don't actually think Stephen is non-binary and were engaging in some passive-aggressive gatekeeping, which also sucks, just in a different way.

this is 100% something I fucked up on, I will readily admit that. my accidental erasure of Stephen's identity as a non-binary person is not okay, intentional or not.

I wrote the initial post gradually over the course of just over a week, top to bottom, and then did a quick skim of it at the end to make sure things were still up-to-date in accordance with any updates to the campaign itself. a result of this is that between when I started the post (where I included Stephen's pronouns of "he/they)" and when I was writing some of the later parts I had forgotten this. I think part of the reason is that the campaign is not really about Stephen, so it isn't like there are consistent references to him as an individual. in the few places there are, such as the intro section of the main text and the FAQ, "he" is used exclusively, which I think mistakenly put that in my mind as Stephen having a male gender identity because I hadn't seen a self-identification as being non-binary on their website or Twitter. but someone deciding to use a specific set of pronouns in the text of something like this (to avoid confusion or for any other reason) does NOT invalidate their use of other pronouns elsewhere. similarly you don't have to outwardly proclaim your gender identity for it to be respected and not assumed as cis.

I am genuinely very sorry about this, it was a mistake and I am in the process of editing the original post to reflect Stephen's proper gender identity.

now then.

let's talk about the difference between Nigel (Among the Stacks) and Stephen and the way I approached them, because you're right that there was a difference.

I think a key way that these two projects differ is that one of them was very clearly made by someone who didn't know what they were doing and was in over their head. Among the Stacks was a clear trainwreck from the moment they started revealing how bloated the cast and crew were. I had many conversations with other creators during that early time where we were all wondering how this thing could function with so many cooks in the kitchen, and how you could have a coherent story with that many characters. it was clearly a product of someone new and over-excited who didn't have a real idea of how to do what they were dreaming of.

in contrast, Shelterwood seems to be genuinely well-thought out and approached like it was created by someone who has done their research and been part of the community for a while. it has a full concept with a clearly outlined size and goals and is a very realistic sounding first project. if it weren't for the goal and the rewards we wouldn't be talking about it at all. as a pitch it is perfectly reasonable.

I went a bit easier on Nigel because just from looking a lot of us could tell that Among the Stacks was going to end in disaster. we didn't know when or how, just that there was no way a project like that could actually succeed. I also knew from interactions between Nigel and other people that she was not very good at taking critique or hearing other people out on stuff that they didn't agree with. I went into that post with the intention of being harsh but fair, because I wanted Nigel to hear what I had to say and LISTEN. not just brush it off as "someone is jealous of my amazing idea and so they are being mean". I was still a bit mean in that post at some parts, I will admit that. my tone can swing a bit far on the sarcastic side, especially the longer I spend on a given post digging into things.

Shelterwood is full of people who should know better, something that it makes a point to brag about. it isn't just one person's dream project that they don't know how to wrangle, Stephen is clearly a proficient showrunner to have pulled all of this together (and I do genuinely find the show's concept to be interesting, even if I didn't really communicate that in the post as much as I could have). Stephen has ALSO been around the block a few times in regards to working on audio dramas, whether or not they have helmed their own. this means that from the start my expectations for them were higher.

my goal was not to accuse Stephen of being "the problem", but I think that this campaign is INDICATIVE of a lot of the "the problems" going on right now with audio drama crowdfunding.

I did seriously think about pulling the last section into a completely separate post, but what I wrote applies to the context of this campaign and so I felt it was important to have that connection. if I had been able to fully communicate my thoughts on it before now, say for the Arden campaign, it would have been part of that post. but it took me a lot of time to get those words down in a way that actually communicated what I think the problem is.

I know having it as part of the Shelterwood post has an implication, and the implication is correct that this campaign is PART of the problem, but it isn't the whole problem.

It's also very weird that you lumped Shelterwood, Arden, Among the Stacks and Afflicted in with The Magnus Protocol, which was on an entirely different level. They're not comparable. Not a single one of those first four shows actually made their crowdfund goals. In Afflicted's case, the all or nothing state of the crowdfund means 100% of that money was returned to backers. The Among the Stacks crowdfund was cancelled. Which means that for 50% of your given examples, literally none of that money ended up tied up in those shows rather than being contributed to other, smaller shows. This is not comparable with The Magnus Protocol crowdfund situation, and I think you know that.

it's 100% true that The Magnus Protocol is on a whole other level than these other campaigns, I said as much in my write-up. it is not comparable and I wasn't attempting to compare nearly $1 million USD to $26,000.

what I was attempting (and may have failed) to do was to point out that what Rusty Quill did was change the playing field for the worse. when looking at those two numbers you can much more easily make attempts to justify the high goals being asked for here, because in comparison that's downright reasonable to what they raised.

as a note: TMP had a funding goal of £15,000 (approx. $19,500 USD). so they weren't actually asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars to make 3 seasons of a show. in fact, what they asked for is less than the campaigns I'm trying to call out here. that Kickstarter has a lot of things that were suspect about it and felt slimey and exploitative, but the asking price was not really one of them.

however.

just because they didn't ASK for that much money doesn't mean they didn't know it would happen (maybe not to that extent, but still). this still had the same impact, which from what I can tell is making some people think that audio drama crowdfunding is for making a profit.

as for the next point about none of the shows except for TMA 2 hitting their goals:

the amount they are walking away with isn't really the point.

at the end of the day, it's about the fact that the more stuff like this happens, the more it is NORMALIZED. and these kinds of goals getting normalized is harmful.

as an example, in the world of video games there is something called "microtransactions". for anyone who doesn't know, these are additional, small purchases you make in a game that you often have already paid upwards of $60-70 USD for. in the beginning, they were marketed as "just cosmetic" and not going to impact gameplay. and so people didn't fight back too hard when EVERY game started implementing them. but of course, what that did was move the bar. it normalized people paying extra money on top of their purchase for something that used to be included for free with a game. and so the companies started pushing the needle further. and further.

now, this isn't a direct parallel for a lot of reasons, but when greed is being put forward as normal again and again (even when it continues to result in failure) it starts to cement it as something "normal". something to be expected.

the larger problem here is that these are unsustainable amounts of money to be trying to get out of the community.

which connects to this next section:

Speaking of The Magnus Protocol, there's also an assumption being made here that someone deprived of the option of helping one of these shows reach their crowdfund goal is automatically going to donate to another show... and I need you to remember that The Magnus Protocol's final tally was something stupid like 4000% of their original goal. Lower crowdfunding goals don't stop people from contributing once that goal has been reached. People just keep donating to that project. None of those people were donating to make sure the thing got made- they were donating because they liked The Magnus Archives, and the hard to swallow pill here is that that doesn't mean they would've contributed to other crowdfunds otherwise. I have my own issues with The Magnus Protocol thing. But the statement that that crowdfund snatched money out of the pockets of smaller shows by having an unreasonably high goal just straight-up does not hold water. That's nothing. It's 4000% less than nothing. You're allowed to be mad that that campaign got such a ridiculous amount of funding when so many smaller shows are struggling. You don't need to couch it in pseudo-logic to justify feeling that way. We're all mad about it. It's okay.

this is definitely a good call-out, this person is right that someone not donating to one campaign does not mean that money will go to another. in a lot of cases, the only reason someone sees a campaign is because it is being promoted by the things they already like (in The Magnus Protocol's case that obviously being The Magnus Archives), and that means they probably aren't going to be choosing between every campaign that is out there and deciding where their $5 is going to go. they might just as easily pocket it and buy a nice coffee the next day.

and that absolutely sucks, because it would be nice for the love that some people have towards specific shows to be something that extends to the whole medium.

but I do think there's something to be said for feeling like even a small donation is making an impact. I would feel kind of bad to only be able to give $20 towards a $10k+ goal, it isn't even a drop in the bucket towards what is needed and if I care enough to donate to something I do want it to succeed. but that same $20 to a campaign only asking for $3000? that's a lot more tangible of an impact. enough so that I could feel good about splitting that $20 between two projects maybe.

that isn't 100% the point of what you were saying, I know that. the reality is that not everyone in this community has a general investment in the success of others.

I think where that becomes the biggest problem is when some people only seem to have an investment in themselves, and no one else. that's where these things become problems, when the larger needs of the community are ignored for the sake of a few who repeatedly succeed.

I'm kind of bleeding a bit into my response to the next part, so here that chunk is:

And do I agree that we as a community need to start talking about what is and is not realistic when it comes to crowdfunding? Yeah, absolutely. You have a point there. That's a valuable and timely observation and I'm glad somebody said it. Unfortunately, the value of that point was absolutely buried by the extremely obvious fact that this time, in this case, something about this project is personal for you. I don't know what it is specifically, but I do feel the need to ask: You are aware that Tal Minear is involved in the show as a graphic designer and minor actor, right? They have nothing to do with the crowdfund or the rest of production. Their name being attached doesn't mean they're secretly running the show. This is not Tal's show. They'd be credited as a producer if they were that involved. So why do you feel the need to keep bringing them up? Anyway, it's extremely difficult to take your analysis in good faith when it's so transparently motivated by some sort of personal distaste for somebody/the people in the project, and that's a shame, because some of the things you're saying have value.

I certainly didn't shy away from pointing a bit of a finger at Tal Minear for promoting this ideology, among others. their clear involvement in this project makes me immediately more suspicious, because Re: Dracula was a self-admitted cash grab. and that stain on their character is not going to go away for me.

it's less that it's "personal" for me, and more that this is a figure in the community that I have repeatedly seen presented as an expert that MUST be listened to. including by themself. ESPECIALLY when it comes to the matter of crowdfunding.

now, if I were friends with someone like that AND they were involved with my project that was about to have a campaign, would I not lean on that resource? even just for advice on how to put it together and what needs to be included. Tal just wrote a small little article for Descript that has some very generic crowdfunding tips, so they are arguably the most knowledgeable person involved in the campaign to go to for advice and feedback.

I know for a fact that Tal has given crowdfunding advice unsolicited to people running campaigns, usually in the form of asking why crew is not being paid appropriately (a valid question in most cases where actors tend to get a huge portion of the budget). so I can't imagine a world where they didn't give at least a little input to a friend for a show that they are actively involved in.

I don't think they are running anything behind the scenes, no, Tal is not part of some audio drama Illuminati. but I do recognize the high esteem to which they are held by MANY community members.

my goal was to call out the culture that has grown around audio drama crowdfunding, and the ways that I've seen it hurting most people who attempt to do it. I have noticed that Tal is a big part of what has normalized that.

as for the ways in which I brought them up, yeah I like to be a bit snide and I probably laid it on a bit thick. it's easy to get carried away in these things, especially towards someone that I am admittedly not a huge fan of.

that is the extent to which it could be considered "personal" for me, but I understand if you don't believe that or if that still had too much of an impact on taking the rest of what I said seriously. that is your choice and I respect it, it's just very difficult for me to separate out their involvement given what I know outside of this.

You're just completely undercutting that value by surrounding it with so much pointless nitpicking and snideness. What happened to "#but actually my intention is to be thoughtful and not mean"? You claim to be acting in the interest and defense of the community, but as the creator of a small podcast that nets me absolutely zero profit, I'm not feeling it. This feels like it's about you, not the rest of us.

this is absolutely fair.

I am just one person at the end of the day. I've talked to others, discussed the situation surrounding this campaign and others like it with them, but I am the one typing it down and inserting my voice and my take on it.

as such, I am not going to be a perfect mouthpiece for everyone's thoughts about this stuff.

I WANT to be one that is largely beneficial, however.

sometimes I lean a bit heavy into the snideness for the sake of keeping things interesting; these write-ups are LONG and as a writer I recognize you have to do something to keep people engaged so they actually absorb what you are saying.

is that the right approach? probably not for everyone, but it is part of a reflection of my own voice that it comes out like this.

"#but actually my intention is to be thoughtful and not mean" is something I wrote, something that I still want to keep in mind but sometimes I fail at that. in this case, I found it hard to stick to.

repeatedly seeing campaigns like this is disheartening to me, it wears me out. there is an amount of what a lot of people might see as "bitterness", but it's not really about any specific project or person.

I think my massive fucking rant at the end of that post about capitalism ruining audio dramas with the need to make money unsustainably says a lot about how I feel about the current financial state of the world. a lot of that "bitterness" is from this deep rage towards to the system, directed outwards where it can be. maybe the flow of it was a bit strong on this one, but it is still an accurate reflection of the way that I see things.

note, an accurate reflection to ME. it's okay if it isn't accurate to you, that's part of why the conversations need to happen.

part of why I do the math breakdowns for the budget is to help myself try and get a grasp on what those numbers mean. the human brain is not really formatted to understand large quantities of things, especially something that is usually intangible in those high amounts like money. I also do it because I want to give someone the opportunity to say "actually, you're wrong because this does add up. you are just missing part of the picture."

I know the way I approached this might come off as defensive, that's not my intention. I decided to break it down like this so that no one would think I'm trying to skip over feedback or ignore certain points that make me look bad.

everything that this person said to me is a valid response to what I wrote, including the things I pushed back on.

I am very grateful that they reached out to me, and I want to continue the conversation. ESPECIALLY if they feel that I did not hear them here.

my responses are just that. a response. they are not a claim of being right or these reactions being unjustified. we are all only in our own heads, and the conclusions we come to are usually based in rationality. my mind is open to being changed, I want to see as full a picture as possible.

if you disagree with what I've said, that is fine.

if you agree with what I've said, that is fine.

if you aren't sure, that is also fine.

we're talking about something complex and nuanced and just because I'm the one bringing these things up doesn't mean I have the RIGHT opinion or that I am the person who SHOULD be saying it.

there is a reason that I am anonymous here, and it's mostly because the conversation is more important than who is speaking.

as always, my inbox and Asks are open.

feedback welcome, I mean that.

#anonymous ad #crowdfund tips #shelterwood crowdfund #Stephen Indrisano #Tal Minear #among the stacks crowdfund #The Magnus Protocol crowdfund #“but actually my intention is to be thoughtful and not mean” is something I will do better to keep in mind #at the end of the day I do want this to make us a better community #sorry that capitalism ruins everything as per usual

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anonymousad · 2 years ago

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crowdfund review: Shelterwood

Shelterwood has been on my radar for a while, since last year when they were casting (I think it was last year, but at this point we're over midway through this one so it may have been more recently). there have been rumblings about it for a while, lots of people intrigued by the initial pitch of "suburban gothic horror", so it's already gotten a bit of traction. I was unsurprised to see it announce a crowdfund. even more unsurprised to see certain aspects of it weren't up to snuff.

as usual, the link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shelterwood-a-suburban-gothic

so let's start as we always do...

(Un)Realistic Goals

what is with this $26,000 number, I'm serious was there a memo that went around to all of you saying this was a magic number???

genuinely, I find it especially odd when you consider that this is the exact same amount that Arden season 3 was asking for, and that is a show that is very established with prior crowdfunding success to base it off of. and I still thought it was a lot to be asking for them as people who had proven to their fans the quality they would provide.

Shelterwood is a project helmed by Stephen Indrisano (he/they), sometimes known as Indrisano Audio. I believe this is his first project as a writer, but on their website you can find other credits for both acting and sound design. of note, he is part of the team for Re: Dracula. suddenly why they think that giant number is acceptable makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? has Tal advice written all over it.

you know we will come back to this number in the budget section, but once again I will say that a "flexible goal" is not a bad thing, but maybe it's a sign that you should set a more realistic goal and then have stretch goals on top. I went pretty in-depth on the reasoning behind that in the Arden crowdfund review (that none of you read), but again.

we'll come back to this number.

Video Time

exactly 1 minute long, a reasonable ask of any prospective backer's time. but it's not about the campaign. this is a teaser trailer that goes on the podcast feed with a video component. honestly, the video aspect is not bad, it's a live action attempt to show off the general vibe and energy with actual clips of the show playing. has the same amateur energy of a lot of short films I would say, but sometimes that's charming. and the clips used are good, they tell the story of what to expect and the framing of it.

but it's not about the campaign.

a brief mention at the end with a link is all you get, and honestly that should have just been saved for the text portion of the post. most ideally, that's the INTRO of your video and after that first minute you have a call to action that actually says more.

good information to include:

time frame of the campaign

amount looking for

mention the passion of the team working on it

you can even mention influences here, but like one or two. keep it brief if you're going to

technically the video never even asks you to support the campaign, just that it is "crowdfunding now" and you can follow the url for more details. not much of a call to action to actually get people to take a look.

the ideas they executed on in the video are done well, but you can tell it wasn't really thought about how to make this work for the crowdfund so much as it would for just making me follow the RSS feed ahead of launch.

The Story and People

What Is Shelterwood: A Suburban Gothic?

as stated in their description, Shelterwood: A Suburban Gothic is a 16-part "Docu-Horror Podcast" (not sure why they capitalize those words to be honest). up front this is really good important information that will be immediately helpful in telling someone whether they will be interested in the project. there are plenty of people in the community with strong feelings one way or the other on the "docu-series" style, and being this clear about it is a good thing. for some they'll be more excited, and others will know this isn't worth their time and be able to move on (which isn't really a loss because even if you got them to read further they wouldn't likely give money anyway).

also love to see the length of the series being stated clearly here. "a 16-part" length tells me the most important information I need about the scope of the campaign. in part because it implies that this money will cover the production of the ENTIRE series, rather than later having them come back and go "hey, we actually are doing two seasons of 8 episodes each so we need another $26k to finish the story". that better not be what fucking happens, I swear

moving on, we are introduced to the writer/producer I mentioned above, Stephen Indrisano (he/they) (along with a link to his website, thank you for showing that people can very easily add hyperlinks in these sections). this section doesn't say anymore about Stephen or their personal qualifications to be asking for this much money and trust, but if you follow through to the website you can see credits for things they've been involved with on the production side. it would be better to not have to go elsewhere or dig for this kind of thing, when you are asking for a sum this large in any setting there is an expectation of proving that you can be trusted with it. and that comes down to more than the people you bring on board to help, it matters specifically with regards to the showrunner themself.

so why should I trust that Stephen can create a product so professional it needs $26,000 USD? at this point there's no reason. but let's keep going.

very brief one sentence description of the plot, not a bad thing to have but it could be fleshed out a little more to have some of the interesting details that were alluded to in the video trailer. again, not everyone will watch your trailer, sometimes when I see a campaign I'm in public or otherwise unable to listen to something and so will skip something with sound. plus it's less accessible to not have a written component (though it does look like care was taken to make sure the youtube captions were accurate, something very easily overlooked by even full-time video creators), but that does still require someone hitting play on a video they might not be able to.

we get a short list of inspirations, including two other well-known podcasts and an iconic horror video game, and then a description of "one part Gothic, one part Found Footage, and one hundred percent terrifying." which is not a bad tagline, but I'm still thrown by the weird capitalization going on here, that might just be a me thing.

Who Is Involved With This?

here's where we get some cast and crew and the standard name dropping you might expect from this type of production. it isn't necessarily trying to coast on the people involved and their success, buuuuttttt kind of a little it is. honestly I don't blame campaigns for doing this to an extent, even fans of a thing don't always remember the names of the people behind it.

it is always a bit suspicious to see name drops without additional context however.

we all know you put The Magnus Archives first as an attention grab, even though you only have one actor from that show who did a very good job but wasn't at all responsible for it being so beloved. Alasdair is great, but people need to stop coasting on his willingness to do smaller projects as a way to make themselves look more important.

of the 8 people listed in the crew section (which when it comes to quality of the finished product is who tends to matter more), I recognize and can connect 3 of them to other projects, and only two of those in a significant aspect. now that doesn't have to mean anything, but for me it does make me ask questions and want to dig into what the rest have done before to get a sense of the quality of the final production.

a small thing: it is also weird that within the crew section Stephen is the only one not with a crew related credit. obviously we've already been told he wrote it, but I'm not sure why it isn't still included when two other people in that section have both a cast and crew role listed.

I will say that the graphic looks nice, but I've brought up before how IndieGoGo doesn't seem to have any kind of alt text feature and so when you have an image with a lot of information you should keep that in mind. all of these people are only listed on the image, not in the text. the only thing that gets the text with links out treatment is the shows that Shelterwood is bragging about their talent being from. just something I thought I'd point out, if it's about the people then you should highlight the PEOPLE.

as much as I would like to, I'm not gong to dig into each of the credentials of the people listed here, cast or crew. people deserve to be given chances even if they're new to the scene (every gig is someone's first gig), and my personal desire to know how "qualified" each of them is is ENTIRELY coming from the amount of money being asked for. for even a $10,000 goal I would not be asking all these questions, there is just a threshold after which I get really suspicious and feel that justification is necessary. which they try to do a bit in the budget section.

but let's move onto the next bit, I don't think there is all that much to comment on as far as actors except what I've already said about clout.

Campaign Rewards and Goodies

let's talk tiers and perks.

the Shelterwood campaign has a total of 9 tiers, ranging from $5 at the lowest up to $1,000. you already know what's coming when we hit that one

so first of all, I think the sidebar tier scroll is REALLY good. the images for each level are unique and eye-catching, and help add to the general feel that the show is going for. scrolling through them really helps paint the picture for the Stepford energy to expect from this fictional neighborhood. each image also good theming, relating to the different aspects of being part of a neighborhood, from "Architect" to "Licensed Realtor". very good job on that, it adds to the fun of the experience and telling your friends about the level you backed at. especially if you want to make jokes about this being the only homeowner adjacent status you can afford.

the tier descriptions are a little more verbose when you are actually looking at the options for selection, so I'm going to be referring to what is written there. I will point out if there is any substantial difference between that and the main text of the campaign, but for the most part it seems to just be an additional sentence and small wording tweaks.

NOTE: every tier includes all the rewards that are part of the prior tiers, I will not be pointing this out for all of them because that just gets repetitive and makes this even longer than it needs to be.

$5 PROSPECTIVE BUYER - a reasonable intro tier, and honestly anything lower doesn't seem to get many people on board anyway. a tip jar type $1-3 tier always seems like a good idea, but I doubt it's making up enough of the funding to justify itself when it comes down to it. but let's look at what's in this first bit of goods:

a pack of digital wallpapers - could be interesting based on the types of images we've been shown so far in relation to the campaign, and honestly it's a nice extra at this basic tier that a lot of campaigns will reserve for $20+

supporter updates through development - this is very vague and will probably come down to the way that all crowdfunding campaigns post updates. something that can usually be seen by people whether or not they backed your campaign, so I don't actually think this an exclusive anything for being a supporter. but at this tier price that's fine enough honestly.

supporter exclusive discord - perfectly reasonable to place here, helps even the backers who can't give much to feel like they are able to be part of and support the project as it becomes reality.

$15 NEW NEIGHBOR - the jump from $5 to $15 is a little odd to me, but I guess if you are trying to keep the number of tiers lower and already know your high point it is okay. personally the difference between offering $5 and $10 is a much easier choice to bump up as a supporter than going all the way to $15.

personalized shout-out on Twitter and/or Tumblr - to be fair, this was before the latest Twitter meltdown, so offering that was not quite as pathetic a couple weeks ago. BUT this is still a pretty sad upgrade for tripling your pledge?

$30 LONG-TIME RESIDENT - this has the same price increase issue as the last, there's just something about going up to $30 versus $25 that feels odd? harder to justify, sometimes numbers don't feel linear when it comes to money

curated recommendations - "everything you need to understand who we are and why" is a very vague description of what this might contain. I'm assuming we're talking books, movies, tv-shows, video games, other podcasts, and music that helped inspire the show. which honestly is fun, I don't mind that, it's just being extremely vague about it. $50 says House of Leaves is on there (no hate, it's a very important piece of architectural horror).

Haunted House micro-zine - UH OH. we all remember what this means, right? we all saw the absolutely PITIFUL micro-zine that went out to Re: Dracula supporters and with many of the same people involved here that is definitely the level of quality to expect (shoddy folding, clip art ass looking artwork, copy-pasted stuff from the web vs original content, misaligned printing, etc). granted, I think this is a PDF version (not that it specifies that itself, just based on the full tier description that says "a printable first step into the neighborhood"), but still. that zine was also at the $30 level and there were people really disappointed with it. I am not going to link to the Twitter thread in which one of the people involved with the campaign actively searched for and found a post with no hashtags or tags and proceeded to put them on blast to their own thousands of followers. but I want you all to know that I remember that happening, and it IS going to become relevant again at some point in the future.

UPDATE: right has I was doing my final checks of the campaign to make sure my images were up to date for this and things were still as I expected, an update was posted. an update that in part pertains to the micro-zine. I think everything I wrote above (and below about the physical version) is still relevant, BUT specifics of that will be revealed and discussed right before the end of this post if you want to jump down there and take a look at what I have to say now.

$50 LICENSED REALTOR - jumping up another $20 so that they can print out two sheets of paper and add 3 random stickers to send you

printed versions of the curated recommendations and micro-zine - you know what, they did at least learn that a printed copy of their zine was NOT worth going at the $100 tier. so they did make one improvement.

3 random stickers - stickers are nice and easy and can be sent worldwide for pretty cheap. a good thing to have, I just also usually like to see what these stickers might look like. in this case, that would be especially helpful because you are only getting 3 of the 5 designs, and it might actually help a backer decide to up their tier level because they really want to make sure they get the ones they want.

$100 DEVELOPMENT INVESTOR - for adding $50 to your pledge (doubling it) you can get some really boring shit:

all 5 stickers - adds the other two stickers! wow, thanks. totally worth it...

a signed, printed script page - a.... single page? for $50??? I'm sorry, but what the fuck are you doing. this is an INSULTING reward for someone giving you $100. that may not be a lot of money to some people, but especially right now during a huge economic downturn? that's just pathetic.

UPDATE: while it isn't listed here (which should be updated by them when they see this), as part of Campaign Update #2 (which I cover near the bottom of this behemoth post) there was an additional perk added to this tier and above: "a unique page of blackout poetry from a book that influenced the show" - I have no strong opinions on blackout poetry. I still don't think that this makes this tier worth it, but at least they recognize how pathetic it is that it needs a little more of a boost to look appealing.

as an aside: here's some examples of $100 backer rewards that I've seen on campaigns and think ARE worth it:

Syntax - both an annotated full script AND a personalized voice message from any cast member AND credit shout-out (not even counting the earlier included rewards such as an exclusive enamel pin and AMA)

Red Valley - a signed and bound FULL SCRIPT

Two Flat Earthers Kidnap a Freemason - an autographed FULL episode script AND a t-shirt

juuussssttttt some food for thought.

but let's continue on, I'm sure nothing else will be questionable here. can you feel the sarcasm coming off of me in waves, even across an ocean I hope you can sense it

$150 HOMEOWNER'S ASSOCIATION MEMBER - add another $50 for an exclusive poster (which honestly seems pretty reasonable especially when you consider how much international shipping is and production costs of a nice print. assuming the print is high quality, but you never know with this stuff until someone gets it)

an exclusive poster - again, would love to see a design. and maybe measurement details would be nice? I am really glad to see that the artist is named and linked to. the lack of credit I've seen on some campaigns for things they've hired out for is a really disappointing thing, so I am genuinely very happy to see a link to the artist's gallery. it gives a good idea of the style without giving away the mystery (if we want to give the benefit of the doubt that it is supposed to be a fun "mystery" what you will receive) as well as introducing people to an artist who may have other work they would enjoy and like to support. big A+ for that, seriously. the bar is really low on some of this shit.

$250 ARCHITECT - fucking hell, we're jumping up a full $100 now, time for the big leagues benefits

limited edition t-shirt - honestly I can't believe that they decided to put the t-shirt behind a $250 paywall. absolutely absurd, especially after I pointed out that it was included at the $100 tier for a campaign like Two Flat Earthers. I'm serious, do you know how cheap it is to print on demand a t-shirt? it's not dirt cheap, but it is NOT $250 tier level. I am unsurprised that at this point only one person has backed at this tier.

personalized thank you note from writer/creator - this is a nice reward, but again why do you think it is worth enough to be a $250 tier perk? especially when we all know that a "thank you note" can just be a one sentence thing with your name plugged into it. doesn't even say anything about being an exclusive postcard design or anything else that might make it worth it. Stephen might just go to Sam's Club or Costco and bulk buy a box of generic thank you cards to fill out.

$500 CHAIRPERSON OF THE ASSOCIATION - here's where things get a little more interesting

name a character or location in the show - this kind of thing is fine, my one hang up is just that sometimes these things are so fleeting or hidden that they barely qualify as a fun easter egg? we all know that this isn't going to be naming something important, and that's okay, I just hope that it's going to be naming something that is actually audible and noticeable at some point in the show.

one-of-a-kind "production ephemera" - this is a very neat perk that could also be really fucking disappointing. I think to make something like this appropriately exciting you need to give a specific example, more than saying "such as a prop from the video". especially when you use a term like "ephemera" there is an implication of it being something really neat and unusual and you should want to be selling that idea more explicitly. I do genuinely like this reward though, I think it IS relatively appropriate for this level of contribution and could be something really special. could be.

NOTE: this is the first tier where I feel the need to bring up that there are no limits on the number of backers at each level. I think for most physical goods that can get produced it isn't a huge deal to leave it open because a lot of that stuff is going to be made to whatever number is needed without much issue. but when you get into the territory of a "one-of-a-kind" good, there are going to be limitations on what is classified as being good enough to give away. if you get 30 backers at this level, but only 10 of the items are really worth it, you are doing a huge disservice. capping these numbers can also entice people to jump on them for fear of missing out on the one-time opportunity, so it can in fact be beneficial. for example, the Red Valley campaign I posted earlier capped their 3 highest tiers (10, 10, and 5) and sold out of ALL of them. granted, their highest tier was $328 USD (£250 GBP) and not $1000, but still.

$1000 TOWN FOUNDER - who could have guessed that the big $1k tier was once again a vanity Executive Producer credit.

Executive Producer credit - wow. I'm so shocked by this. truly this is the fallback reward of so many campaigns and is so fundamentally USELESS. stop trying to sell people a vanity title, it's gross and doesn't mean shit, and muddies the waters when it comes to the actual creatives who are involved. stop making me point this out. the fact that some people are willing to pay for this does not make it less of a skeezy scam.

[listed] in all show notes and transcripts - there is a typo here that says "listen" instead of "listed", not a huge deal it just made me do a double-take and wonder if I was in fact correctly understanding this reward. initially I read it as "oh cool, they actually get to listen in on some production stuff maybe?" only to realize that no. it's just more shit for the vanity title.

verbal thank you at end of all episodes - generally this is a nice tier reward, but again is it worth $1000? I also pointed out above that the Syntax campaign had this as a $100+ reward, which feels much more reasonable. this does again also bring back the thought of putting limits on the number of backers, because do you really want to potentially be reading dozens of names at the end of every episode? granted at this high of a tier that was never likely, but I did point this out for my Arden write-up which had it included at a tier far too low to leave open.

notably missing things:

any images - literally anything to show off potential rewards. I pointed it out at those tiers, but having a reward for 3 out of 5 random stickers and not showing ANY of the stickers? why would I even think about backing higher to get all of them when I have no idea what I'm missing out on.

any mentions of ad-free episodes - maybe they aren't planning to put ads on the podcast anyway, but worth pointing out that it isn't mentioned anywhere

early access to episodes - this one is usually a staple, weird to find it absent when it's such an easy draw

behind the scenes content - currently there is no indication that they have any kind of platform where they might share behind the scenes stuff, and it isn't a required thing. but I know a lot of people ARE interested in this stuff so I would think that maybe it could have a place. if there is supposed to be an implication that these things will be in the supporter-exclusive Discord server, then that should be clearly said because it is something that could convince people to support.

no add-on rewards - this isn't a super common one and I kind of get why they didn't include this, but when you have some of your physical rewards like a t-shirt locked behind these hugely expensive tiers no one is going to have them. but if you add a $30-50 t-shirt add-on people will buy it. and that's publicity when they wear it, when they post about receiving it, and when they see it in their own closet and think about your show. the ongoing Tell No Tales crowdfund has an add-on option for their very cute mug design, something I personally know people have added to their contributions

some general thoughts on these rewards:

mostly unenticing and overpriced, with nothing that really is selling them as a worthwhile investment. for all the money that they are asking, none of these tiers (particularly the high ones with the possible exception of the $500 one) have anything that would make me pledge above $15. things are either too far out of reach and expensive like the t-shirt or just plain not enticing like the micro-zine.

now that THAT is dealt with, let's move onto the imaginary world of how this money would be parsed out if the campaign were fully funded.

Where Will My Money Go? AKA The Budget

NOTE: because this is a flexible goal campaign, for calculations I am going to use the $26,000 USD being asked for to demonstrate the cost breakdown of the provided budget. this is reasonable given that by asking for this much they are claiming that this is the amount it would take to produce this audio drama. whether or not they receive that, that is the implicit claim.

here you can see the budget pie chart provided by the campaign (I would like to say that visually I am a fan of this weird kind of tv psychedelic thing they have going on in the background of their images). it is... a thing. not a good thing.

Before the Dive

but let's start with what the campaign says in this section because that is also very interesting for other reasons. let's highlight what I think are the most important things:

270 page script

3 years of development already

"we are striving for nothing less than fair wages for all parties involved"

this breakdown applies AFTER crowdfund and reward expenses are accounted for

that last one is particularly important, because my first reaction to this chart was wondering if they were rolling the crowdfunding fees and reward expenses into "production" since they definitely didn't fit anywhere else. this does also slightly complicate the math because I do not know what those expenses will come out to apart from the standard 5% fee that these platforms usually take.

I do also think that the 3 years of development is really important to consider, especially when you combine it with the claim of "fair wages for all parties involved". as it stands, this budget breakdown does NOT do this, because it does not take into account those 3 years of writing and development and pre-production in terms of compensation. this problem of not paying the writers is something I keep seeing, and I think it keeps happening because the writing has already been done and it feels weird to some people to ask for retrospective payment. but if you pitch a script to a director and a studio picks it up, you get paid for that time! you get compensated for the thing you wrote that was a gamble, and if this campaign is making money off of that 3 years of work, why should that not be compensated to an extent?

in a lot of cases this would be the most important thing for me to call out here, that discrepancy between claiming to want fair wages for everyone, but that only seeming to apply when it comes to the production and post-production stages.

now, 270 pages is not nothing. that's a lot of script to write. but it's also not that much script to write if we're being honest. there are shows I listen to that have hour long episodes and their transcripts are 80-90 pages EACH. so comparing that to Shelterwood could have you thinking this is only going to come out to about 3 hours of content.

I actually had to come back to this section and make some adjustments because it's only in the FAQ (where most people forget to look) that episode length is mentioned (40-50 minutes).

now then.

Let's Get Into the Numbers

it's time to crunch some numbers.

it's going to be a bit difficult to divide based on anything except the cast/crew list and the number of episodes that will be produced, but I will try my best to break it down like that.

there is also a bit of really useful information hidden a little further down in the stretch goals section of the campaign (which I am glad I made note of before doing all of my math).

in the "How Much Do You Need to Raise?" section is the following:

For this project to get off the ground, we need to raise $26,000, with a green light to start production at $20,800. But don’t worry, we’ve got some exciting milestones to hit before then! For every $5,000 of our total goal raised, we’ll be releasing a micro-sode in the world of Shelterwood

this has some VITAL information for our calculations, namely that the ACTUAL goal to start production is $20,800 USD, not $26,000 USD.

there is a slight problem with this however, in that a "green light to start" can mean a few things. because the campaign is still a flexible goal, even if they don't hit this number they will get the money, so I am assuming it does NOT mean that they have to hit it to start production at all. I think what it is meaning to say is that it's either hitting that number or the campaign ending that will be the green light.

however, there is an alternative.

this is a group of podcasters with some significant pull and connections, something we've seen some of them deploy for other projects. namely, Re: Dracula.

yeah, we're back at this one apparently.

the reason I bring it up at all, is because that was a project that IN ADDITION to their crowdfund had a $10,000 investment from Seed & Spark. now why might that be relevant? there is a chance that when Shelterwood says it needs $20,800 to green light the production, that is an absolute statement. but that they have plans to try and find other investors to help them hit it if the crowdfunding doesn't get them there. I don't have any real reason to believe this would be the case, Re: Dracula was very upfront about their outside investment. but it does feel like something to point out with regards to how this is worded.

either way, I am going to be doing the calculations for 1. reaching the full goal, 2. reaching the "green light" goal, and 3. as a per episode cost. hopefully these three ways will give a good insight into the actual budget being proposed here.

there is also something in this text about promised "micro-sodes" at each $5,000 hit. that isn't about stretch goals, it's about the whole campaign. so we need to factor it in somehow. luckily there is already the first one up on the Someone Dies In This Elevator feed (another perk of having Tal on your campaign is getting some of the promotion they only seem to reserve for friends) and so I can see that it is 7.5 minutes long (which, side note, it's kind of weird that Shelterwood isn't referenced in the name of this one? it's in the show notes, but I scrolled past it without realizing and then had to take a closer look as I was going through again to figure out which it was).

most of this feed seems to be populated by a variety of micro-sodes, lengths ranging from as low as 4 minutes to as high as 11 minutes. so this one is actual bang on the money for average length. additionally, we know from the FAQ that the actual episodes will be 40-50 minutes apiece. now, I did not know that when I DID the calculations because I didn't check that section until the end.

as a side note, before we get into it: I really appreciate it when campaigns do some of this for me and include their own actual numbers along with the percentages. maybe you don't want to make my life easier, I am in fact largely writing about campaigns that I think are not good, but still. even as a prospective backer it's nice to see the 1 to 1 of "oh if I give $100 that is paying for half of an episodes acting!"

so let's break it down with first the big percentages as numbers:

here's where that little bit of info about the micro-sodes is useful. I was going to use my calculations to basically guess at how comparable all of these were compared to a full episode, before I realized the actual expected episode length was in the FAQ. but then I realized that the phrasing of these goals is that they are already completed and just waiting to be published, about 37.5 minutes of content based on the one we currently have access to. only the stretch goal mini-sodes have NOT been written and produced. so I am actually NOT going to factor them into the costs, because I've already pointed out that we are seemingly ignoring work that has already been completed before the campaign went live, and this is definitely that. so thank you for making my math a bit easier I guess by not having to factor those in.

additionally, I did point out how the campaign says that the percentages will be applied to the number leftover after campaign related costs, but that is an impossible amount of money to guess. so for ease I will be ignoring it entirely.

(I actually just forgot to calculate what 5% of the total goal removed would change the numbers to, and I really don't want to redo all my math now that I've realized this. sorry if that makes me seem less professional with my breakdown, but I can only do so much and don't have all the time in the world to make this perfect. an impossible task as-is.)

so. let's see these numbers in full (in USD):

PRODUCTION - 10% - $2,600 (at the $26k goal) or $2,080 (at $20,800) - $162.50 or $130/episode

so first of all, "production" is a very vague term. to some creators this may or may not include sound design and other aspects of editing, but since sound design is accounted for separately it makes it less clear what this bucket means.

I think that we can get a better idea by looking at the involved crew, but there will still be some guesswork involved.

first up, I think we can assume that this does NOT include payment for writing the script. we've already covered that I think, but I just to explicitly address that since in my mind that would be in the "production" bucket for this categorization of budget.

next we have the producer. again, this is fucking vague as hell in terms of titles, means different stuff to different people. I do however think it is part of this section of payment, given the name, so there is one person.

we also have 2 directors for this project. now, I think a case could be made that the directors are getting paid from the actor pool, but what it really is is part of the production side of things so I am going to assume it is here. that brings us up to 3 people.

lastly we have the graphic designer, a role that definitely falls into production as it almost certainly entails stuff like promotional material, marketing, and unique cover art for episodes (if they go that way, plenty of shows don't).

so we have a total of 4 people to split this money, though not all of these roles are equal. but as an average payment, we're looking at about $650 or $520 per person. I do think that the rate for the directors compared to the graphic design work is not going to paid the same, though I don't really have a clear idea how either of those costs will compare to the role of the producer here.

however.

even if we were to divide this in a way that was VERY generous to the co-directors, up to $1000 each even, that is really fucking low.

if both are taking part in directing all episodes, at 16 total that is $62.50 pay each.

if they are splitting the directing work and each taking 8, that is $125 for the episode in question.

either way, it comes out to the same amount overall, which is not really fair compensation for what will come out to what I would guess is around 25+ hours of work.

that estimation could be really off, but based on my own experiences I think I'm even being a bit conservative on that point. maybe not everything is being directed, some of the smaller parts might be recorded asynchronously, but still.

for a budget this massive, to only be setting aside less than $3000 is kind of ridiculous.

moving on.

MUSIC - 10% - $2,600 (at the $26k goal) or $2,080 (at $20,800) - $162.50 or $130/episode

again, I'm a little confused by the crew list here. we have listed both a "composer" AND someone doing "in-show music". given the context of the framing device as a docu-series, I'm still left pretty confused? this designation of "in-show" kind of implies that there will be a separation between the more professional production investigative documentary-esque side and some other place that music would be. the only things I can think that that would exclude are intro and outro music, which is not hugely significant compared to the main content of the show that will be given original music as background.

it makes it a little harder to distinguish these roles, though I do believe that the "in-show music" is going to be a larger portion of the production, so will likely get a larger chunk of the funds allocated here.

but let's assume for a moment that these are equivalent roles, and look at how much each will be paid:

for the full project, that comes out to $1,300 or $1,040 each (or approximately $81.25 or $65/episode.

now I don't think that the per episode cost here is that valuable, considering music is most often something that is paid a flat fee for. additionally, it's unlikely that every episode is going to have unique music; a certain number of compositions will be done to cover the broad themes needed (i.e. music for action moments, for investigative moments, for emotional moments) and then reused throughout the series. it's not really possible to make a guess at the amount of music that is going to be produced, so whether or not this is a fair pay rate is unclear. I will point out that there is a stretch goal involving an album, so we're probably talking about more than 10 distinct compositions.

even so, let's remember that this is the same amount allocated as for Production, but only split between 2 people. which is interesting. as I said, music can have re-use, but things like direction and production usually cannot, so I would expect those things to take up more time overall. and yet the same amount of money is being split more ways too.

again, this is all educated guesswork. it isn't super common for podcasts to have entirely original music and it's also very nebulous in how many tracks are required to keep things from feeling repetitive and to match the varying tones in a story. this leaves us to kind of just take this section of the budget as a gut check, one that I wouldn't really think much about if not for the fact it is being valued at the same price as "production".

I do think it's also worth asking a question about the need for original music. for a theme and credits track I definitely get it, having something that is 100% solely identifiable with YOUR production is big and helps it feel special. but when we're talking about background music, these are things that are arguably not that important in terms of being completely original?

I do think this isn't that much of an issue here, the music budget is still very tiny compared to the rest of the proposed costs, but it is still over $1000 for something that could be achieved by using a more cost effective solution like a sound library. as an example, Epidemic Sound is $239.88/year for a commercial license, and you could possibly get away with the personal subscription at just $119.88/year (I don't endorse this service, it is just seems to be the one most commonly used). there are a huge number of tracks, more than enough to tackle sound design for a documentary-style horror podcast.

let me be clear: I love music, I love musicians, I think people should have opportunities to get paid for their talent.

but I think it says something about how highly that this production sees itself that they are pursuing costs that are arguably not NECESSARY (we will get back to this, have faith). the more the cost of the campaign climbs, the more you should be evaluating what is most important. if the music isn't integral to the story, how are you justifying that additional cost?

like I said, I don't think it necessarily applies here in the context of the percentage of the budget, but $1,040-1,300 is still a LOT for most campaigns.

but let's keep going, we're about to look at the majority of where the budget is going.

CAST - 40% - $10,400 ($26k) or $8,320 ($20,800) - $1,625 ($26k) or $1,300 ($20,800)/episode

from these numbers we can also break down approximate actor pay.

what we know for sure from the cast announcement is that there are a total of 27 actors (3 of whom are also crew). obviously there are going to be varying levels of supporting vs main, but at this point there isn't anything I can say about the breakdown of that besides a guess (in a cast this size I would personally guess that probably 5ish roles are considered main characters, with 5-10ish as supporting and the rest as flavor characters).

but let's just look at breakdown as though every role were somehow equal in terms of compensation:

that gives us about $385 or $308 per voice actor across all episodes, or an average of $24 or $19.25 per actor per episode.

again, I don't think this is an accurate breakdown, obviously our perspective character is going to be speaking for most of every episode and just from looking at character names in the cast list you can tell quite a few will only appear once or twice.

but when you factor in that over half of these actors are likely doing minor characters and getting paid probably around $25 for their entire contribution, that leaves a lot of money left.

as a quick guesstimation, let's say 15 of the actors are in this group, accounting for only $375 of this budget. that leaves over $10,000 on the table to be split among 12 people, most of whom will not be main characters and probably only make $100-250 each. even if I were to be generous with these numbers, there is still a lot of money left on the table going to the main actors in the group. more than there needs to be for it to be fair compensation.

I want to reiterate that it's difficult to do anything definitive with the information we have, but I think it is somewhat useful to do this exercise as there are some somewhat standard rates of pay within audio drama, at least for smaller sized roles.

I believe in fair pay, but there is a difference between what that means in audio drama and what that means in other voice acting career spaces. I think there is a larger conversation to be had about that, particularly as we keep seeing crowdfunding campaigns of this size that seem to be trying to make their project something that provides a "living wage" to the actors. this is not really a sustainable or reasonable expectation given the amount of work being done, especially when compared to the value that is being given to other aspects of the production process (again, why are the directors getting paid from a bucket that is so much smaller than this one?).

what this seems to be doing is trying to fit a wage mold that isn't really applicable. these are not union actors getting paid industry rates, these are just not those kinds of professional productions. there is something very off about the amount of money being asked here for a project that is not even that large.

but let's move on before I go on an even larger tangent about this side topic.

SOUND DESIGN - 40% - $10,400 ($26k) or $8,320 ($20,800) - $1,625 ($26k) or $1,300 ($20,800)/episode

finally let's address the elephant in the room.

Shelterwood is a project with 1 sound designer. just the one.

Brad Colbroock will be receiving around $10,000 just for this 16-episode project. which is a ridiculous amount.

the claim here is that Brad is worth 27 actors, and 4x the musicians and rest of production team.

oh, but what's this interesting note here at the bottom of this section?

look at that, there is an amount of recognition at the ridiculousness of putting 40% of their budget towards a single sound designer. let's dive into it.

okay, so first of all. this is an extremely unimpressive list of events. I know SEVERAL sound designers who are capable of delivering these specific scenarios in a couple hours each, MAX. if this is meant to show the justification by being the most impressive examples (excluding stuff that would be too spoilery obviously), then I am not very excited for the intensity and weirdness of the show's sound design.

this feels really basic for stuff you are trying to say justifies this high of a price.

I'm serious, this in no way convinces me that his work is going to be worth this much money.

standard sound design rates in audio drama are nowhere near $1,300-1,625 per episode, that is RIDICULOUSLY high. the most I've heard is probably around $500, and that was for an actual play which is significantly more work than your average audio drama episode.

I would like to know how on earth this is a justifiable number.

I would ALSO like to know if "sound design" includes as much as you might think it does.

there are a lot of shows where things like doing the dialogue cut is separated from the sound design aspect. I don't know if that's the case here, but as I'm still struggling to determine what the Producer is going to be in charge of if not the editing, all I can do is try and guess at what tasks are being left on the table.

"sound design" does not necessarily imply all parts of the editing process, and at a price this high that is majorly concerning.

THIS was the reason I decided to do a write-up.

there are a lot of things in this campaign that I think are suspect or just outright bad, but this was the moment that I went "holy fucking shit, these people have completely passed the point of being reasonable in their crowdfunding goals."

I am SO tired of seeing goals placed this high, the only thing it does is take away community funds and resources that could be better spread to a variety of diverse projects.

I'm not saying that Shelterwood doesn't deserve funding and to be made, I AM saying that Shelterwood asking for $26,000 when other campaigns struggle to raise even $2,000 is a big part of the fucking problem with audio drama crowdfunding right now.

this is a form of resource hoarding.

and it's the same people who keep perpetrating and benefitting from it.

I'm just really fucking tired of seeing so many interesting and diverse voices not be given the benefit of the doubt the way that people like this with connections to more established names do. because being friends with people who have a lot of sway DOES make a difference in the long run.

RANT OVER.

before we move on to stretch goals, just a couple small things:

I find it insulting that this team is justifying some of these expenses while still not compensating the writing that Stephen already did. I know I've already brought it up, but having crunched through all those numbers and had to see just how much more they are valuing the sound designer than the person who created the damn thing (which likely included already thought through notes about what the sound design should be), it is a spit in the face of all of the writers in the community. sound designers are very important, yes. but so are the actual minds and writers behind these stories.

Shelterwood is an interesting project because of its concept, NOT because of the promise of the sound design. I would listen to a low budget show with this concept and pitch because it sounds interesting, even if the production quality were barebones. because the actual value is in the story, not the presentation. I think these people have forgotten that.

I would also like to say that as part of a good budget section for a flexible goal campaign, I would expect to see something addressing if there will be changes to the breakdown if that goal is NOT met. before you address stretch goals you really need to talk about this.

now, it IS addressed, but not right here where it should be. it is in the FAQ section (where no one ever looks), so we will be dealing with it there.

I'm not doing a great job at holding back the salt, am I. out of practice forcing professionalism I guess, it's been a bit since I did one of these.

Stretch Goals

I briefly touched on this earlier during the budget section as there was information revealed here that was important for that.

but now let's take a look at it in full and talk about what's left.

Shelterwood has outlined 5 stretch goals:

at $28,000 is promised "off-week micro-sodes with extra scares added to the release schedule". this is an odd one to unpack, but it does reveal a small interesting tidbit in that Shelterwood will not be releasing weekly, most likely every other week. not hugely relevant, just good to know.

what I think IS relevant is that there isn't really a claim to how many of these bonus micro-sodes will be made? the use of the term "off-week" could imply that it is filling every gap in the schedule (i.e. there will be 15 micro-sodes added, one for between each major release and not counting the 6 that would already be out in the world as a side effect of hitting this level of funding).

in conjunction with that, this is only $2k above the fully funded goal, the implication there being that this is enough additional money to cover the cost of what is being promised. which seems pretty impossible at the prices we have been led to believe are needed by the budget section, the math just seem like it would work out to cover that.

at $30,000 the 7th micro-sode is written and released. I would hope that this work includes paying Stephen for their time writing, but the rest of this campaign has made me suspicious that he is not in fact paying himself for that work so I won't hold my breathe on that point. especially since we know that the mini-sodes will require sound design, and that the sound designer is very expensive.

at $32,000 we see "actor payscales increased!"

hm. well that's interesting. there are people involved in this campaign who have been VERY outspoken about how actors should NOT be paid more than sound designers and other parts of production. and yet here we are with a stretch goal that is only going to apply to actors getting paid more?

at $34,000 there is a Shelterwood Album. that's all it says, no clue if that means anything specific as it relates to campaign supporters? might just mean uploaded to Bandcamp for you to purchase if you'd like. to be clear, this isn't a bad stretch goal, I'm just unsure if it's actually going to be something that people get to enjoy "for free" after they've paid enough to the campaign to unlock it.

and finally,

at $35,000 the 8th micro-sode is written and released. I don't have anything to say about that that I didn't say about the $30k stretch goal.

moving on, I promise we're nearly done and all the hard stuff is out of the way now.

Other Ways To Help

always a good thing to have, though to be honest I don't know if it actually ever does anything? I think people are more likely to retweet or reblog a post they see naturally on social media, rather than getting to the bottom of a campaign spiel and deciding to write something up fresh.

giving some examples is a nice touch that makes it much easier, I hope that it is intentionally that they are all somewhat cringey (cringe can be a good thing).

I also this it's really great that there are already crossover episodes lined up with a few other podcasts (though I can't say I'm familiar with any of them apart from Someone Dies In This Elevator, and several seem to be non-audio drama and even nonfiction in aspects, which is an interesting choice for this project?)

I would also like to say that I genuinely LOVE the "more uncanny way to help" section. it is honestly the best part of the campaign and is a model for creative and interesting marketing. I don't know how effective it will be, but this is the kind of fun interesting shit that makes a campaign stand out. it's also a great opportunity for spreading the word if people actually do it. not because I really think people will go to a url on a random flier (I think if you want actual throughput that way you need to add a QR code instead of just the typed web address though, much easier for people to follow through), but because those people will post on social media which will get attention and then you can reblog with some in-universe type response and get free marketing that is engaging.

FAQ

we're done looking at the main bit of the campaign, let's jump over for a look at the FAQ, aka the most frequently ignored part of a campaign.

How long will the show be?

here is the only place that there is mention of the length of the episodes, which gives us a good idea of the full length of the finished product. we are told 40-50 minutes per episode (not including any micro-sodes) so if on average it's going to be 45 minutes each we can math that out to around 12 hours of content. pretty solid amount, I'm not sure why that is buried here though? to me this is important information, I would have expected it to be proudly presented at the top of the campaign when the 16 episodes was first stated.

What makes Shelterwood different from other horror podcasts out there?

honestly this is a good pitch, so good that it shouldn't be hidden away here. move this to your introduction, you want to be sure that people read this when deciding whether to give you money. there are a LOT of horror podcasts, and it's really important to set yourself apart from the get-go. talking about being horror and Gothic in passing isn't going to be enough, you need to really emphasize it.

this is ALSO important in that it is the justification given for the music budget that I was looking for earlier. granted, the necessity of this as being vital to the show will remain to be seen, but "in-universe songs that haunt the whole show" is the kind of thing that would make me more excited to give. highlight that in the main body of the campaign, make a point of clearly calling out why these things are so necessary to the fabric of the show. it helps you stand out and it helps you communicate their importance.

How scary will the show really be?

I honestly don't think this is really a provable thing, people will know if it's scary once they hear it. usually I would lean on the creator's previous work, but we have nothing here to look at for that. so like all things, it will come down to personal taste whether listeners find it scary. hard to quantify something like that, honestly I think the only reason this is here is to try and bolster Stephen Indrisano's experience and why you should trust them to make a good horror show.

the problem being that this isn't being put where we as a prospective backer are introduced to him, but somewhere most will never look.

What happens if the goal isn't reached?

now as I said earlier, I really feel like this should be addressed in the main body of the campaign because most people won't look here.

but here it is, and here we are. so let's talk about what this says:

If we cannot reach our goal, we will have to go back to our budget and start making tough decisions about pay scales, characters, and whether the show can be made at all while still fairly compensating our team. If we cannot raise the funds, there will be large delays in production until we can determine outside funding. We are dedicated to paying our cast and crew what they deserve for high-quality work.

overall, the way this is worded and framed is kind of vague? yes, there's no reason to get into details here about what would need to change, but it feels like a dangling threat that you are meant to fill in with your own worst case scenario "what-ifs". it's also a bit concerning in some aspects, because which pay scales are we talking about here?

while going through the budget earlier, it was very clear what work was valued most of all: the sound designer. now, it's also important to note that he is probably being paid a fixed rate that will be non-negotiable, most sound designers have a per hour rate they give and you don't really haggle that. so I don't believe any of that shortfall would come from his budget.

the next obvious pool is actors, which makes sense given it also calls out whether characters will need to be cut. this is kind of shitty, as all of these people are already promoting this project they got cast in and might get removed from without warning. this is a FLEXIBLE GOAL, so to get cut after putting in time and effort to help get more money means that you just did that labor for free that you would have been compensated for in some way before. just because you aren't paying cast and crew to do promotion doesn't mean that their actual pay isn't in some part FOR that. this is true in any job, if you were organizing a money-making event and then got fired right before it happened, the money that the company made off of the thing you planned is not benefiting you.

I think in a lot of these cases, it's production that takes the brunt of these cutbacks first. these are the people who feel the most investment in making the project happen, and the most willing to undercut themselves to try and make sure it does.

now then. the most egregious part.

we will have to go back to our budget and start making tough decisions about pay scales, characters, and whether the show can be made at all

"whether the show can be made at all".

this is a "flexible goal" campaign. that means that any money they raise is going to be kept by them, whether or not they decide they can actually make the show "at all".

a charitable reading of this would be that in that case they will refund all the donations and not keep any money.

but it's weird not to say it outright because all that does is make you look like someone who will try to get away with keeping the money, even if the project falls apart.

there's also something else I think we should talk about with regards to this:

I think that by creating a flexible goal, you are implicitly saying "we don't think we'll reach the full goal, and we'd still like to get some money if we don't."

if this is the case, then why aren't you creating the initial budget with that in mind?

I think I touched on this in the Arden post, but you should be presenting your "minimum viable product". what this means is that you are stating that for the project to exist it MUST have at least this. and I don't mean in terms of money, I mean in terms of cast and crew and episodes and time that can be given to create the most bare version of the thing that will get to the goal.

that might mean no original music, that might mean fewer side characters, that might mean half as many episodes.

whatever it means, THAT is what you need to be thinking about when you start asking for money. especially if you are already approaching it from the stance of "we will take whatever we can get", you need to know going in what that looks like. it is NOT something to be decide later if you don't hit the goal, it is something that needs to be known upfront and used as the basis for your decision-making.

doing anything else is irresponsible to all parties involved, including those trusting you to put their money to good use.

Campaign Updates

you thought we were done?

so did I god fucking dammit why are we not done yet.

since campaign launch there have been 3 updates.

the first is from about 2 weeks ago, just sharing that the first bonus micro-sode was released with a link and reminder that at every $5k another one will be released.

the second was posted at the end of the first week of crowdfunding (just over a week ago as of right now).

this update actually has something interesting that I pointed out earlier. at this point, the campaign decided to add another reward at the $100 tier and above, a unique page of blackout poetry. which is fine, except that again this is hidden away where most people won't see it, and the actual tiers and body of the campaign need to be updated to reflect this additional perk for it to do any good in convincing supporters to give money at that level. right now it's basically just a hidden easter egg reward.

however this post also alludes to something in the 3rd update. something I fucking hate.

can I just say how much this reminds me of those Instagram "follow and tag 2 of your friends!" contests? I can't be the only one.

but let's actually look at what this is:

We are pleased to announce that, effective immediately, we will be running a referral contest. What does that mean? In a nutshell, we will be offering one of three very special, unique perks to the top three individuals who can gather new pledges through referral links: 1. A walk-on part in the show, to be recorded when production starts 2. A personalised list of horror recommendations from the cast and crew 3. A character named after you, who will die spectacularly in Shetlerwood The rules of our contest are simple: whoever gets first place gets first pick of the rewards. 2nd place gets 2nd pick, and 3rd place gets 3rd pick.

so there is a lot about this that I think is bad, some of which might just come down to personal ethics and what I would be willing to do as part of a fundraiser?

I hope it's at least clear why I find this kind of thing gross and exploitative. in a way you are dangling rewards that are reliant on someone having a relative position of privilege. referrals only count if the person follows through and donates, which means that you need to be friends with people who can afford to do that.

I will say that I am VERY thankful it seems to be based on the number of referrals and not the AMOUNT that is garnered by them, but there is still something very gross feeling about this that I can't shake.

part of it might be that these feel like backer rewards that were withheld for the sake of this contest. like they were going to do this no matter what and they looked at the things they could offer and went "let's hold back these enticing things specifically for that". especially when the actual campaign rewards are really lackluster, to hold these back and have fans compete to try and get them is gross to me.

I fully accept this might just be a "me thing" that I find this to be icky, but none of us are original so at least one other person is going to agree with me. that doesn't make it the right opinion, it just reinforces that it is a valid one.

I don't think that contests are a bad thing, there is just something about a "referral contest" that makes me think of MLMs and other financially exploitative systems.

but now let's talk about the fun part of this update, which is the reveal of the "Haunt-Your-Own-House Micro-Zine".

I am happy to report being right about the quality of this "micro-zine". allow me to draw your attention to the fact that the printed "shingles" are not oriented correctly. you cannot convince me this was a design choice, I'm pretty positive it's just sloppiness.

would just like to point out that this is not a zine of any kind, this is just papercraft. which is fine, but that's a REALLY different thing. I don't want a bit of papercraft taking up space, a small zine that can slip onto a little bookshelf is much more desirable to me.

as an idea, it's not a bad one though. like this is a fun little thing for you to put together and maybe customize, but you should advertise it for what it is, which is NOT a zine of any kind.

but also, the ghost shown in the image is NOT part of it. I thought that was another bit of papercraft when I was writing the image description above, but no apparently it isn't even part of it, they just stuck it in there to make the thing look less boring. if it can't look impressive as the thing you are giving, maybe that's a sign it isn't a good reward.

before we move on from this, they also say the following:

The PDF for these will be sent out to all backers at the $30 level and above within the next 48 hours, so be on the lookout for that!

now I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that backers haven't actually given money yet. they can still cancel their pledge, but you are already looking to fulfill the reward?

I can understand this as a marketing move, get the thing in people's hands so they can make it and post on social media to help the campaign gain traction. but you are jumping the gun and if I wanted to I could back, get the PDF, and then fucking bounce now that I have it. just thought I should point that out.

no, I will not be doing that, I don't need this kind of clutter on my desk and I don't even own a working printer.

okay, one last part of this update: "even more bonus audio!"

here we get an acknowledgment that the campaign is not really on track to hit full funding, so they are adjusting their goals in terms of releasing additional content to try and attract more support.

Unfortunately, our funding has been a bit too slow to reach many of those [$5,000 micro-sode] goals... which is why we're lowering the bar and releasing new audio on our YouTube channel every $1000 instead! This will include exclusive micro-interviews with some of our iconic cast and crew about all things horror podcasting, as well as other terrifying glimpses into the world of Shelterwood

can we stop using "micro" as a prefix on everything?

so I am a little confused by the wording here, in the sense that "lowering the bar" is a phrase usually used to talk about a change to something, rather than the addition of new things? so I'm a bit unsure of whether this is going to impact the existing every $5k micro-sode goal, or if this is something entirely separate that is being introduced to try and get more excitement.

I think it's fine either way, I was just a bit confused by the wording and curious if they are considering adjustments to the micro-sode goals to ensure they will get to release all of them (since I think it's pretty clear the first 6 are completely produced and ready to go).

as for the actual content being promised here, it seems fine enough? I'm assuming that they are having to dig into some stuff they were hoping to save for later, and I hope that the "micro-interviews" are at least somewhat substantial enough to justify their existence.

as a note, it's weird that they hyperlinked to the first micro-sode, but not to their YouTube channel where these new things are going to be posted? there's nothing up yet (unless you could some Shorts) so I'm assuming they mean every additional $1k after the update was posted.

that is all for the updates because I am determined to publish this before they can put another one out. I need this to be done, and we are NEARLY there.

please bear with me, the last section is extremely important.

The Catch-All Section

here's just random stuff that I noticed or thought of but didn't have a real place anywhere else:

in the Cast and Crew graphic, why is Karim Kronfli the only person who's name is at the bottom of the image rather than the top? just a weirdly random inconsistency that bothers the perfectionist in me

please more images and pictures, they don't need to be much (especially since as I stated before we unfortunately don't have any kind of alt text feature for campaigns to utilize) but they keep people from getting bored staring at a massive wall of unbroken text

there were more than a few typos across the campaign (the show's name on one occassion). it's a good idea to put all your text in a word processor first to catch these things, you just aren't going to see it yourself the 5th time you are re-reading the campaign before publishing. let a computer check your work.

it would be nice generally to see more creativity when it comes to rewards. things don't have to be expensive or extravagant to be interesting, even at lower tiers. think about the world you are creating, think about what works within it. as an example, the WOE.BEGONE patreon has a tier at which the creator writes in-character postcards to patrons that when put together reveal a larger story (this is an example of something that I find really creative and like. I know it's not a crowdfunding campaign but whenever I think about rewarding listeners for their support I think about this). and he does this every month. that is an incredibly clever use of the world that show has built and connecting the fans to it in a unique way. you only have to figure out something like that once for your campaign, I believe in you.

Conclusion and a Larger Conversation

so why am I once again talking about a high profile campaign that is asking for a lot of money?

I think there needs to be a recognition of the importance of the context surrounding when you launch a campaign as well. because the financial situation right now is very different from the financial situation a year ago is very different from the financial situation of 2019.

as an example, let's look at the Afflicted Season 2 crowdfunding campaign that just ended in failure.

this was a FIXED GOAL campaign. they were asking for $23,500 USD and they only made it to $13,283, just over 50% of the way there. so they got none of it. it was all or nothing and the result this time was nothing.

and that really sucks for a lot of reasons.

I had some criticisms about that campaign that I kept to myself at the time, in part because diverse voices in audio drama is really important. Afflicted provided a lot of opportunities for marginalized creators to get established and share their unique voices. so often the campaigns that are getting met are the ones that continue to prop up the same types of voices and experiences as we've all heard before.

I am much more interested in the unique horror that a show like Afflicted is bringing to the table as a production driven by a Black woman than I am with hearing from the same types of voices we are used to. we have a lot of similar people making stuff in the community, and frankly a lot of our "diversity" is mostly driven by being white and queer. these voices are important too and there's a lot that is good, but that is the majority in this space. that's why we need to make sure we are getting opportunities to the people who don't have the privilege or connections.

this is a personal opinion, not one everyone will agree with. but we are better as a community when we do extra work to make sure that more varied diversity is highlighted and supported.

Afflicted planted their foot saying "this much or nothing" and took the gamble that most of these high number campaigns are unwilling to do. a gamble that they succeeded in last year to fund the first season.

the difference is partly that the economy looked really different last year. disposable income, rent prices, general cost of living. it wasn't great, but it was better than it is now and that MATTERS. we all know how fucking bad it is right now, especially in the US, so to be asking these massive amounts of money is tone deaf. in this case, Afflicted was even asking for MORE than they raised for season 1. you could argue some of that is because they already managed to prove themselves as creators who were good for the money and deserved that kind of chance.

but the fact of the matter is that people just don't have that kind of cash to give over and over.

which leads into my main point.

every time I see a campaign with this high of a goal I think one thing:

"this is hurting the community."

now, that may not sound reasonable to some of you, especially if you are one of the people who believes that numbers this high are justifiable.

when we talk about supporting each other from a audio drama creator standpoint, it is done so freely and with an understanding that new listeners isn't really a thing we're going to run out of. if I recommend 10 podcasts I like, that doesn't hurt MY show. it just helps the community by sharing things we generally enjoy and care about it. this is how you end up with the networks of support that we've seen in newer places like the Audio Drama Lab.

unfortunately, money is not the same.

the amount of money that each of us has to give to support the things we like is limited based on our individual situations. anyone recommending a specific crowdfunding campaign to give money to DOES have an impact on the amount of money left in the pool for others.

so when something like Shelterwood or Arden or Afflicted or Among the Stacks or The Magnus fucking Protocol asks for these amounts, this is ACTIVELY impacting whether other campaigns will succeed.

while The Magnus Protocol raised over £700,000 (or about $940,000 USD), DOZENS (probably more) of smaller projects were struggling to get less than half a percent of that.

that was money that could have done a lot more community good than supporting a blatant RQ cash grab.

we're looking at a different scale here, obviously. I do not think that the absolutely disgusting amount raised for one of the most beloved audio drama's sequels is directly comparable to what these campaigns are asking.

but it certainly did help them when trying to legitimize those numbers.

$26,000 is a LOT of money.

there are a lot of people who would be able to change their lives on even just 20% of that, be able to create new and interesting things if given just a little bit of support. and most of them are not asking for much.

but repeatedly having these large projects that position themselves as more worthy and better is hurting us all.

I think we also need to talk about what it means to pay "fair wages"? because a lot of people don't even make that at their day jobs. a "fair wage" is a capitalist idea that most don't benefit from, and it isn't necessarily applicable to every industry.

most voice actors do not get by doing projects they care about, they get by doing commercials and audio books and training videos for random corporations. because a "fair wage" in voice acting is not necessarily a set thing where hours and effort given always corresponds to money received.

all creative industries have trouble supporting that, this is a capitalism problem that you are trying to fix with more capitalism. you can't force the concept of "fair wages" into a space that monetarily cannot support it.

because what you are doing is creating an ecosystem where only YOUR cast and crew will get fair wages for their work. everyone else will have to do the compromise for YOUR sake.

there's that phrase, "a rising tide lifts all boats". I think people cling to this when they see these kinds of things, especially when they are successful. "isn't that good for all of us? doesn't that mean everyone will get more?"

again, no. money is a resource that is limited (for us as non-rich oligarchs).

the "rising tide" is not the ocean that freely gives and takes water in cycles. where we actually are is a dam, where water levels are carefully controlled and directed and distributed during times of drought. campaigns like this are part of that, they direct the water towards the richer and more privileged neighborhoods, the people who already have connections and opportunities.

there is less water left for everyone else.

THAT is what these campaigns do, THAT is why it is important to really assess what is necessary.

I don't think think that people shouldn't be able to make a living off of what they love, but I think that there are exploitative ways to do it and non-exploitative ways. these campaigns are exploitation in a way. crowdfunding in theory shouldn't be that, but it becomes that. especially when you start to enter the territory of these numbers, both in what is being asked for and what tiers are being presented as "normal and reasonable amounts for a single person to be giving".

we need to fucking stop this before we let these kinds of campaigns empty the dam completely.

that's it. that's all I have to say on this.

this is a conversation, one that I want us to have. I am tired of watching people who are already privileged continue to hoard the resources.

we can do better.

anyway, I think this campaign is a product of a larger issue. it is NOT "the problem", but it is a symptom of it. one that you are making a statement about in deciding to give or withhold money. it's not in my hands, it's in yours.

just keep what I said in mind, and maybe search the terms "audio drama" on whatever crowdfunder you like best.

take note of all the other projects you see, projects that have promise and talent and don't have connections that make them feel like they deserve to take half the pie home.

#anonymous ad #crowdfund don'ts #shelterwood crowdfund #I shouldn't have to keep saying some of these things #like c'mon #this took too long #oh my god and then I saw the updates and had to go back #obligatory magnus archives reference #the magnus protocol gets a mention too #and WOE.BEGONE #and Among the Stacks because I can't escape the only reason anyone cares about what I say #exploitative crowdfunding #“a rising tide lifts all boats” is bullshit #trust me because I pay attention to all this shit #even when I don't say anything about it #I am watching because I care about this community #go look up what small campaigns are running right now

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anonymousad · 2 years ago

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thoughts on the Shelterwood crowdfund?

oh boy do I have thoughts, and they are coming

#anonymous ad #crowdfund don'ts #crowdfund tips

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anonymousad · 2 years ago

Note

do you have any links to crowdfunding campaigns that you think were good?

yeah, allow me to scrounge up a couple good examples (past and current) for all different reasons. I wouldn't say any of these are perfect, but they all have at least one thing they did really well: right now @tellnotalespod is funding their season 2 and I think their campaign has a lot of really good qualities. in particular I think their budget section is really thorough and makes a point to address why the numbers are broken up the way they are in. even with a goal of only $4044 USD, they made a point to justify the expenses and include things like fees, reward fulfillment, and what will happen if they under or overfund. this is probably the strongest budget section I've seen in a while.

@nightshiftpodcast did their campaign for season 2 earlier this year as well, and I really like how they handled the different backer rewards as a visual chart to show what was and wasn't included at each tier. I think it's really easy to lose track of lists of rewards when they most frequently just reference "and everything before this tier", so a visual aid is super handy. AND it really emphasizes the amount of stuff being offered at the highest tiers so it makes those look even more appealing to prospective backers:

@mortsafepod might have the most beautiful backer reward photos I've ever seen, just the painstaking perfection of the wax seal and the lavender and the brown pages even makes the stickers look fancier than they are:

lastly, @karenonepercent really committed to made sure to focus on the depth and intentions of the project in an interesting way as part of their immediate sales pitch. they start with a super intriguing plot elevator pitch, then a mission statement for why this project matters to the creator, and even spend some time alluding to the driving motivations and thematic elements to look forward to. it's surprisingly brief for how well it communicates the goals of the team and their purpose for pursuing funding, and it was more than enough to put it on my personal radar for future listening.

I know a lot of these examples are recent, but it's a bit harder to dig through and find links to some older campaigns (especially on platforms like Seed&Spark) and off the top of my head it's hard to remember which ones did specific aspects really well. but I hope these examples give some good guidance on some of the more positive things I've seen, I know a lot of the framing is pretty negative when I talk about crowdfunds because let's be honest: a bad campaign just has so much more to talk about than a good one.

#crowdfunding #anonymous ad #crowdfund tips #crowdfund wins #tell no tales podcast #night shift podcast #mort safe podcast #karen one percent podcast #yay for once it's compliment time

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anonymousad · 2 years ago

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ah shit, I'm gonna have to say something about this, aren't I...

THE CROWDFUND IS LIVE BABY

After 3 years of development, 3 full drafts of 270 pages of script, a casting call with over 400 entries, and uncountable hours of support from friends and family, Shelterwood is looming on the horizon. Check us out (and our very dramatic crowdfund video) here:

#crowdfund don'ts #shelterwood crowdfund #crowdfund tips #spoiler alert: it's about the money and rewards again

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anonymousad · 2 years ago

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Hey will you still be posting a breakdown for the Arden crowdfund? I am quite curious to hear your thoughts on it

sorry it took so long, there was more to dig into than I thought and then there were two updates posted that made me do some rewrites, but it's out there now

#arden crowdfund #crowdfund don'ts #anonymous ad

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anonymousad · 2 years ago

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crowdfund review: Arden Season 3

I was sent an anonymous ask telling me I should look at the crowdfunding campaign for Arden season 3. and so I did. and I definitely have some thoughts, though I'm sorry it took me this long to get them down because things have changed a bit since then (I've already had to adjust wording and update images twice because I'm slow).

here is the link to their campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/arden-s3-midsummer-in-new-york-city#/

as well as their prior campaign to fund season 2, as I will be referring to it at several point: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/arden-season-2-a-town-called-elsinore#/

let's get started then.

First Glance, Let's Talk About Goals

so. that's a big number. $26,000 USD.

if you read my other crowdfunding review for Among the Stacks, I talked in-depth about how what you are asking for defines the expectations people have as well as what you need to make sure you provide. this is something to keep in mind as we look through this campaign, particularly because this is a big ask from a production that is established and wanting to appear very professional to justify this high of a goal.

let's compare this with their season 2 campaign. while you can't see the goal on old successful campaigns, it IS mentioned in that campaign video as being $6,000. that campaign wound up raising $17,167 from 461 backers, but the initial ask was VERY low in comparison to the current.

NOTE: there is a notably different set of numbers beneath these saying it hit $15,676 from 409 backers on Feb 19, 2020. I am not familiar enough with the intricacies of Indiegogo as a platform to be able to identify what this means exactly, but my guess is that that was the originally achieved goal when the campaign ended and maybe it has/had a feature where for a short time after the campaign you could still contribute? genuinely unsure, but we'll go with the number that the page highlights rather than this one.

I think it's also worth noting that this date of February 19th, 2020 was RIGHT before the pandemic hit, so people may have had more spare income such that this project could get $10k+ over its goal. I don't know if the overwhelming success of that campaign impacted the current one's goal being so high, but if it did that was probably a mistake because people just don't have that kind of money to spare anymore.

this campaign goal is set as "Flexible", as in they will get whatever is pledged no matter what, and I don't really have a problem with that usually, BUT. I will touch on why it feels a little bit different here towards the end of this post.

but let's hold off on digging too deep into those numbers just yet, we've got some stuff between us and the budget. there will be some.... thoughts in that section though, don't you worry.

The Video

2 minutes and 10 seconds is a length I can get onboard with. in comparison to their prior campaign video (4 minutes) it looks much cleaner and less amateur than the home-video style live action they used for the season 2 one, which I think is necessary for a campaign that asks this much. granted, it still feels very budget with just still graphics and stock images so I'm not particularly impressed by it visually.

the whole thing largely focuses on broadly covering the mysteries of seasons 1 and 2, interspersed with accolades and recognition, before giving the elevator pitch for the mystery of season 3.

as an aside, they tout their first season "being nominated at the Audio Verse Awards" on equal footing with Forbes calling them one of the 10 best fiction podcasts of 2018. all of us know the AVAs are just a "pay to get a nomination" thing, probably the least impressive thing they could be bragging about for anyone in the know. I have thoughts on that whole AVA thing as well, I'll probably put them together into a small post here soon.

but back to the video content. apart from addressing "people of Indiegogo" at the very start, it takes until the 1:38 mark for the video to even get to the point that it is telling you about a crowdfund and ask for support. if you were potentially unfamiliar with the show but stumbled across this campaign, it does a good job at selling you on the mysteries of the previous two seasons without giving away too much about what happens besides a romance between the leads.

the video ends with a call to action to donate, even if it's only a small amount, and then shows on screen as well as reads and spells the url to go to. good stuff, worth including for sure.

however, it feels like there's a disconnect in what the video is expecting from you as a viewer.

if I am finding this for the first time and know nothing about the show, it's a really great elevator pitch for me to add it to my podcast backlog.

if I am already a fan of the show, it just tells me about the existence of a campaign.

there's no mention of the campaign dates so there is no sense of urgency for me to check out the show immediately or go right to the campaign. there's no mention of the goal for me to get a sense of how much my contribution could positively impact it (I do think that with a goal this high there is less opportunity for people to really feel like their contribution is making a difference compared to a 3-5k goal, but still).

the video is not about the campaign at all, and that is kind of an obvious problem.

while the video for their season 2 campaign was 4 minutes with poor production quality and really iffy audio for trying to sell me on an audio medium, it does so much more for what it was trying to achieve. just about half of the runtime is dedicated to talking about the campaign goal, what it will go towards, the exclusive rewards, and why your support matters and makes an impact. based on just these videos, I would have been way more likely to check out and support Arden season 2 than I am to do the same for season 3.

I wish they had found a happy medium between the original low quality, but very charming live action and the new joke-corporate, but not particularly endearing, tone of the current. maybe they'll get it right for season 4.

NOTE - The Update:

right now there is a pretty significant update at the top of the campaign, I am jumping over it for the moment and we will touch on the contents in the "Budget" section where it makes more sense to.

They're Baaaaaack....

it was their joke, not mine.

this first section is pretty light overall, not getting into their sales pitch right off the bat, but informing or reminding the reader that the series is well-regarded by both critics and normal listeners and has already delivered on a successful campaign in the past.

this is very good to focus on upfront here, ESPECIALLY because people will go right from seeing the huge $26k goal to reading this and you have to justify that price tag immediately to not lose them. it highlights the stretch goals and extra content that they were able to produce before going on to say that they want to be even more ambitious for this next season, so that if you were to know or look up that the previous campaign raised about $17k you could maybe extrapolate and justify the nearly $10k increase from that amount being asked for here. it does direct us to the budget breakdown section lower on the page at the mention of wanting to provide proper compensation, which is good.

it ends with another call to action, inviting you to keep reading. this also recognizes that people will be looking at this first section to decide whether they want to continue reading.

overall, good section, but I don't know why I have to keep telling people to include links in here! you should want to direct me to your website, podcast feed, social media, etc. so I can find more information if I'm curious.

Season 3 Rundown

honestly I don't really have anything to say about this section. it's very similar to the plot tease from the campaign video with a little bit more details on the mystery. it's written to get existing fans excited and it probably does that just fine.

so let's move on to more of the meat.

Perks and Rewards

luckily for me, this section is literally just a text version of the different reward tiers with more detail. I am personally very grateful since this means I can skip covering the options on their own altogether because to anyone looking to back this section is very clearly highlighted covering all the details. thank you for giving me less work <3

to that point, I think for any kind of campaign that mostly focuses on digital goods it is really good to have this kind of text breakdown. for physical product focused crowdfunding you will have a lot more tangible images to show off to get people excited. in digital goods we are working with hypotheticals a lot of the time, especially in a story-based medium where you can't take a screenshot of your script to show off that it exists without giving out spoilers to the story you want to tell.

I will briefly say that I like the consistency of the tier images. the fake corporate employee badge is a fun format (though it means nothing to me as an outsider why it is relevant to the fake-true-crime angle of this series). it's also very easily customized to each tier without being a bunch of work to have unique images, which is less exciting, but also much less work.

I do also think it's worth mentioning that NONE of the tiers have a limit to the number of backers that can sign up for them, including the really high up ones that could cause trouble if too many people picked them (like the wrap party invite and some of the more involved physical goods). I think having restrictions on some of them is good for convincing people to go for them early because they're afraid of missing their chance, but also it can mean less work in terms of eventually needing to mail physical goods or coordinate personalized benefits.

but anyway, let's look at these tiers:

NOTE: every tier includes everything from the prior tiers, which I won't point out for all of them.

$1 FRIEND OF THE POD - aka the tip jar. honestly there's nothing offensive about this kind of tier existing, though I sometimes wonder if there's a point to it. but it does have 2 backers at writing so clearly some people appreciate it being an option.

$5 THE GOOD PEOPLE - honestly this tier has a lot of bang for your buck, like seriously for just $5 these are good rewards, but let's go over them individually:

early episodes - this is great, but what exactly does "Be the first on the block to hear S3 of Arden!" mean? I brought this up before for the ATS campaign, but if you just say "early" and don't quantify that you could be talking a week or a day or just an hour and I would have no clue. depending on what "early" means here I would be more or less excited by this reward. granted, this is the first tier with a real benefit which means that everyone above this point will also get this, so it isn't as though you are trying to use it to sell your $25 and up levels. however, the mention of a Patreon in a few sentences does make me wonder whether this is also a benefit patrons will have who don't back the campaign. potentially something worth clarifying.

special thanks in the credits - boy howdy that is gonna be a lot of names you have to figure out how to read and where to put with this also included in every tier from here up. as of right now that is 102 backers and it hasn't even hit 20% funded.

exclusive backer/Patreon minisodes - this is the tier that made me wonder if early episodes would also be a Patreon included perk, which I think its fine either way but worth making clear. I do think that the minimum quantity of minisodes should be specified, if only because "and MORE" is extremely vague. I think at this low of a tier it wouldn't be a big deal if it was only one more than the 2 explicitly listed ones, but specificity is nice even here.

$10 WHEYFACE INDUSTRIES EMPLOYEE - everything from the $5 plus a few small extras:

personalized digital employee badge - honestly a very cute digital reward that seems to go with the whole "Wheyface Industries" thing. this is an example of really good branding tbh, everyone should try to have something like this. we also have a good idea of how these will look because of the tier header images.

exclusive audio commentaries - so this both gives access to season 1 and 2 commentaries as well as the new ones for season 3. I am once again curious if this is something Patreon supporters also receive?

exclusive discord access - I feel like a broken record, but again is this a discord just for crowdfunding backers or is it also for Patreon subs? to be honest for this one I think having both is to the benefit because it means a larger more active community. some discords feel like they just exist because they're supposed to and have barely any activity, which would feel like a letdown if that was part of your incentive for doubling your $5 tier pledge.

customizable digital icons - these are explicitly donor exclusive and honestly another neat idea for digital content. they seem to have a good designer and a distinct style of these things, though seeing a few examples would be nice here.

$25 WHEYFACE ADVENTURER - here's our first physical rewards added onto everything prior:

buttons and stickers - would really love to see some mock-ups or designs here. I would also like to know with more specifics how many buttons and stickers are we talking about?

digital copy of "Escape from Wheyface Radio" TTRPG - we actually do get to see the cover of this in the video/image carousel at the top of the campaign, which I think sets the tone for it pretty well as comedic action (I'm assuming). honestly a good reward, though I'm curious if this has ever been offered anywhere else (i.e. in their merch store or to Patreon supporters).

$50 WHEYCON BADGE HOLDER - more physical and digital goods:

digital dossier of in-universe season 3 prep materials - a very fitting perk for a true-crime inspired show, probably adds some genuinely cool depth to excitement for and using along with the season as it airs.

linocut print - I think the mystery here of "an important location" is fine in terms of being vague. I think you could talk about the colors and size though just to have something a little more tangible for people to get excited about

digital soundtrack across all seasons - if you have a show with original music you should absolutely be making your soundtrack available in some aspect. good reward that is easy to distribute and deliver and will likely have the added bonus of some custom cover art for each of the 3 volumes.

$100 WHEYCON ARTS PATRON - more physical and more exclusive story content:

physical Wheyface Industries ID badge - very logical step up from the digital reward from earlier. I will point out that it does not say whether this is also customized, which considering the added cost of every single badge needing to be unique is probably not the case. but to some there might be an assumption that it is based on the earlier reward and that should be clarified sooner to avoid disappointment.

in-universe article from new character - this feels on the level of the digital dossier in terms of being content that the mystery solving fans would get a lot of value from. good addition, though I would be curious how much of the information will feel unique against the digital dossier.

Andy Wheyface diary - honestly I'm a little confused by what this entails. I'm assuming it's digital, though it doesn't specify. but in terms of format is it going to have a scrapbook journal kind of feel or feel more like someone opened a google doc and started recounting their day? doesn't appeal to me but I'm also not their target here.

$250 WHEYCON VIP - the big physical tier:

professionally printed dossier - the only specifics here about this printed version of the digital good is that it will be "gorgeous", but I think it would be nice to have a little more detail and maybe even a teasing pic of how it will look.

excluive t-shirt - broken record, but show me a mock-up! please! I don't wear a lot of t-shirts, would I even like the design???

behind-the-scenes discussion with Arden composers etc. - very cool if you love the show's music, and probably pretty interesting even if it isn't something you notice that much.

$500 WHEYFACE INDUSTRIES ADVERTISER - the big bucks personal:

full-sized poster collection - 2 examples are given, but if I'm thinking about reserving wall space for something or wanting to buy frames I need to know exactly how many to be expecting and what they classify as "full-size". I've bought so many posters that are just mildly different dimensions and that really matters if you want to frame them, which I assume many people who are spending this much would to best preserve and show them off.

write and produce your own custom advertisement with the Arden team - honestly this is an extremely cool idea that again seems to fit well into the Arden universe. sound like good bang for the buck just based on this alone.

$1000 WHEYFACE INDUSTRIES BOARD - exclusive event and autographed scripts:

season 3 digital wrap party invitation - these things always sound like they'd be awkward to me since everyone else has a relationship with each other, but I also totally understand why this would be an enticing reward for people. definitely worth the price to a lot of people I'm sure.

complete printed collection of autographed season 3 scripts - I know printed scripts (especially autographed) is something a lot of people enjoy having for their favorite shows, no complaints about this reward. tho it might be nice to specify whether it'll be bound specially in any way or if they'll arrive as loose sheets held together with a binder clip.

I think overall these tiers are really good, though I would like to see mock-ups or visuals for some of the promised rewards (particularly the physical ones like a t-shirt or poster examples). I would also like to commend Arden for not selling an "Executive Producer" credit as part of the rewards, I will continue to point out how bullshit those are until people stop doing it.

but let's move onto a big one.

The Budget

IMPORTANT NOTE: so as I was putting this post together (was pulled away from it several times for real world non-anon responsibilities etc.) the campaign posted an update. on March 30th, they added the following section at the top:

Hey, folks! We have some awesome news. Thanks to some additional funding which has come in, WE NOW ONLY NEED TO RAISE $6000 TO GREENLIGHT A SIX-EPISODE SEASON 3. And as of 3/30, we are very close to hitting that goal! [I foolishly deleted the image, but it was basically the same as the one below. The only differences were no "GREENLIGHT ACHIEVED" text, the blue label saying "MARCH 2023", and the progress bar showing that it had made it to $4125 of the $6000 target. Beneath is smaller white text that reads "Help us make Arden Season 3! $6000 raised on IndieGoGo will guarantee a six-episode season, with more episodes the more we raise!" and then beneath that the shortened url to the campaign.] WE ARE ONLY $1875 AWAY FROM GREENLIGHTING SEASON 3. Every $2000 past $6000 will add an additional episode. HELP US GET THERE TODAY!

on April 2nd, it had been updated to the following:

Thanks to some additional funding and your donations, we have now raised enough to produce at least six episodes of Arden Season 3! Every $2000 raised from now until the end of the campaign will add an additional episode to the season. All rewards will be fulfilled. And look forward to Arden Season 3: Midsummer in New York City - coming to your earballs this fall/winter.

I am not going to touch on this just yet, because I think we need to go over the budget breakdown first before we can assess it with this new information.

Budget Breakdown Breakdown

fun fact: the Arden team definitely saw my original response to the anonymous ask telling me about the campaign (or a similar critique elsewhere) calling out their lack of numbers in their budget section. I know this because it has since been rectified to include actual percentages on the chart itself as well as details of the number and approx length of episodes, two things that were definitely missing before. I don't have a screenshot of that section from before, I wasn't ready to dive into another one of these at the time, but it wouldn't be fair of me to show those anyway now as a "gotcha" when clearly they are open to feedback. I don't know if they read my prior post because there are still issues here that I think need addressing, but honestly it's a huge improvement from what there was. they did not however update anything but the image with specific numbers, which isn't ideal.

someone needed to put a little more time into this graphic because the labels are not super readable and for "studio recording" the number is almost completely obscured by the label beneath. we will be referring to these numbers for the rest of the section as this is the only place they are specified.

let's start at the end because it provides some very valuable context:

"Total, we have budgeted a cast and crew of 35 people to produce thirteen episodes with runtimes of 45 min to an hour, in addition to the additional expenses listed in operating expenses."

so that means we are talking about $26k to cover 9.75 hrs to 13 hrs of content, 35 people (26 of whom are cast according to this section), and an unnamed amount of contracted work potentially for commissioned additional art and music. this also doesn't include how much additional time and effort would be devoted to minisodes, digital content, and fulfilling backer rewards, so we can't really factor that in obviously except to just assume that funds for each of those would likely be equally distributed across the average cost. because of this, I'm going to just have to ignore them entirely as a separate thing, especially since those costs will be a bit more fluid until it's clear exactly how many backers will require physical goods fulfillment.

to break that big number down on a per-episode basis, we are looking at $2,000-$2,667 per produced hour of content, or a more round average of $2k per episode. obviously not every person will be directly involved with the creation of an episode, either because music is used in multiple places, a character doesn't appear in every one, and some expenses are one-offs.

but let's take that $2k average in mind as we hit the descriptors for each of the segments in this chart. I'll be using the provided %s to calculate the amount of overall budget and per episode budgets allocated to each.

CAST - 44% - $880/ep, $11,440 total

we know this is 26 actors total, only the main two characters are specifically named. it is likely that some of these roles are extremely minor and only appear a few times at most, so we can't really break this $880/episode number down any further. if it were meant to accommodate all 26 performers being in every episode that would be $33.84 on average, but I don't think that accurately reflects the breakdown in any way.

DIRECTORS - 9% - $180/ep, $2340 total

here we actually have more to work with in terms of figuring out the pay. I will be upfront that I am less sure of what a fair wage is for directing work, numbers on that are much harder to find than for sound designers or actors.

this section says "We are currently budgeted for three directors each working five days of recording." which could mean one of a few things. either there are 5 days of recording TOTAL and all three directors are present for all of that time, there are 15 days total and each director is in charge of a third of them, or a mix of some day with multiple and some days without. it doesn't really matter that much to the budget aspect to know which it is, unless there is a "head"/"assistant" kind of dynamic for days with multiple that might impact their rates. but let's just assume that it will be equal pay and the number of days doesn't really matter. that's leaves us with $780 total for each of the three directors across the full season (though keeping in mind the full number of episodes is 13 and not perfectly divisible by 3).

SOUND DESIGNERS - 17% - $340/ep, $4420 total

this section is also budgeted for 3 sound designers, though it's unclear if that is broken down for each episode with one doing the vocal cut while another does soundscaping and effects with one in charge of mastering or something. that is I think more likely than having the episodes fully split between the three because that could result in it sounding less consistent between episodes. I'm not sure exactly how good this compensation is when split like that, but if it were a single designer doing an episode I do think $340 is decent enough.

COMPOSER - 8% - $160/ep, $2080 total

I give a per ep estimate not because I think it actually provides value here, but just as a comparison point to the other roles.

however, I do think it's worth noting that we do have information about the amount of music from prior seasons to compare to, thanks to the digital soundtrack reward from the prior section. that boasted "60 tracks of music from Seasons 1 and 2 alone", meaning we can assume around 30 tracks will be made for season 3. this is probably not entirely accurate, there's some give and take for reusing music from previous seasons. that comes out to about $69/track (nice). I don't know what the standard rate is for musicians in this kind of work to be honest, but I would assume this is at least comparable to what the composer has been paid in the past or else they probably wouldn't be returning for the third season.

GRAPHIC DESIGN - 1% - $20/ep, $260 total

again, I don't think the per episode estimate is necessarily valuable here, unless there is unique cover art for each episode which I don't think is the case because $20 for that plus any additional graphic design work doesn't seem to be a fair wage.

STUDIO RECORDING - 4% - $80/ep, $1040 total

I think this speaks for itself honestly. the price will be the price that the studio space sets. in the section about the directors it was revealed that there are 5 days of recording, which as I noted could actually be 5-15 days total. however, here it only states "a few days of in-person recording with our core ensemble", so it probably only covers a portion of that total time. whatever the case, not much can be done to lower this and I'm sure they feel the benefit of spending this money for that kind of recording space is worth it.

OPERATING EXPENSES - 17% - $340/ep, $4420 total

to be honest, $4420 feels pretty low for everything they say is in this bucket. some of these things we can't really put a price tag on like rewards fulfillment without knowing how many people are going to be receiving those. especially when considering some of the higher cost and higher effort rewards like the personalized commercials. things like shipping costs also need to be considered (unless they have it setup to charge shipping separately, I do know that IndieGoGo offers this option) and just generally compensating people for the time and materials putting the packages together.

we can probably assume that the mention of SAG (something i covered quite a bit in my last crowdfund review) is for the annual base fee of $227.42 (not counting the additional 1.575% of earnings that have to be paid). it's unlikely this is something that all the actors have, but I would assume at least the two leads do, which alone accounts for about $500 of this total amount.

and that's not counting the misc stuff like the business taxes and licensing fees for any software being used.

there's also a very weird omission here, like seriously weird. where is the funding for the writing? my best guess is that it has been wrapped into "operating expenses", but to be honest that doesn't feel like an actual explanation, so I'm a bit suspicious that writing is not being compensated at all.

I did talk about this on the ATS crowdfunding post, but even if it's your passion project to write and make this thing, you should still be compensated for the time you put in. the fact it isn't mentioned at all is very strange.

I also think we should have larger conversations about how much more we are paying cast than crew. in this budget they have set aside 44% for the cast, with only 26% for the directors and sound designers (not to mention the missing writers I pointed out). this is a BIG disparity when you consider that directors are going to be present every time actors are (with the exception of small role that might be asynchronously recorded) and sound designers will be spending at least twice as much time as that when you factor in the dialogue cut, fitting in soundscapes, music, and effects, and general mastering of the episode.

[the stretch goals should be here, at the end of the budget section, but they are instead in the FAQ so we'll touch on them there]

a note on Patreon: I do also think that for shows that also have an active Patreon/Ko-fi/other monetary support avenue, that is valuable information to provide here. if that's only bringing in $250 per month, it might not feel worth it to address it in your budget section, but I think people can get suspicious about where money you "already have" is going when you start asking for more. I did not look up their accounts to see what they are currently making, I don't think it's relevant to my judgement of what this campaign is looking to provide, BUT if you were to tell me that that was how the writers had been getting compensated for the work they already put in that would ease my concerns on that front. stuff like that is good to know and again, when you ask for this much money people are going to be weird about it, and not unreasonably so.

Let's Talk About These 3/30 and 4/1 Funding Updates

now these both answered and raised some more questions.

needless to say, that portion of it is no longer entirely necessary, but I do think that there are some valuable points pertaining to stretch goals (and the absence of them) which can provide some value to shows looking to crowdfund.

so I have kept that section in below and done a small bit of editing, but mostly unchanged from my initial thoughts on the matter.

let's start with the March update:

Hey, folks! We have some awesome news. Thanks to some additional funding which has come in, WE NOW ONLY NEED TO RAISE $6000 TO GREENLIGHT A SIX-EPISODE SEASON 3. And as of 3/30, we are very close to hitting that goal! [I accidentally deleted the image, but it was basically the same as the April updated one. The only differences were no "GREENLIGHT ACHIEVED" text, the blue label saying "MARCH 2023", and the progress bar showing that it had made it to $4125 of the $6000 target. Beneath is smaller white text that reads "Help us make Arden Season 3! $6000 raised on IndieGoGo will guarantee a six-episode season, with more episodes the more we raise!" and then beneath that the shortened url to the campaign.] WE ARE ONLY $1875 AWAY FROM GREENLIGHTING SEASON 3. Every $2000 past $6000 will add an additional episode. HELP US GET THERE TODAY!

so there is some VERY important information revealed here.

first is that they've received additional funding outside of the campaign, which honestly is great for them and somewhat needed for a goal this large.

I touched on it fairly in-depth in a now-deleted section I wrote about the lack of stretch goals, before discovering they did exist but are hidden away in the FAQ. I talked about how the high campaign goal and lack of stretch goals was likely indicative of them having been wrapped up into that $26k number, which I still think is true to an extent. I think this announcement confirms that theory, and is actually in-line with the suggestion I made in that original section to pursue that kind of financial support in addition to a lowered goal.

however, I think the lack of detail here is really not great. for one, I'm making an assumption of some kind of external support, which is not necessarily what happened in the most direct sense. there could be caveats and stipulations attached to this money that might impact whether someone would support the campaign. maybe it's a grant from an arts supporting organization, maybe they've sold the TV rights to Arden in exchange, or maybe someone has just come into a lot of money from the day job. whatever the case, more details can be provided without revealing too much, i.e. "we've partnered with a network" or "received a grant to help fund season 3 should we meet this $6k goal" or something akin to that.

transparency is a good thing, especially when it comes to mystery money and me questioning why despite that you did not lower your $26,000 goal.

further, we have no idea how much extra funding was secured, so at this point it becomes unclear what amount of the goal is "extra" and what is required for the entire season. some math can help us extrapolate based on the $2k for each additional episode number we are given.

$6,000 (6 episodes) + $2,000 x 7 episodes (based on 13 episode number from budget section) = $20,000 total

so did they secure $6,000 in funding? at this point who knows.

the second thing that this reveals is that apparently there is a version of season 3 that could work with only 6 episodes total, which is not even half of the marketed 13 episode season length they claimed to be aiming for in the actual budget section! this is a pretty massive discrepancy with no kinds of qualifiers about "we'll be able to do the story, but it will be paired down and abridged in some parts" vs "the other 7 episodes are basically filler that could be cut". I feel like I don't need to explain the difference between these two sentences and why the first is superior in every way in terms of how people view your production as a whole.

okay, third thing. the goal arguably could have been for six episodes from the start with plenty of stretch goals for adding episodes and more. now, with the additional context of our budget calculations, this brings up some significant questions.

if we are to go with the average episode cost of $2,000 that we estimated, this means that $6k on it's own is not enough to actually make 6 full episodes. however, from our earlier calculation, we estimated that they maybe received $6,000 in funding, which actually solves the potential issue of underpaying themselves for the creation of those now guaranteed 6 episodes, which is a good thing. costs are costs and don't go down just because you have less money (unfortunately for all of us living in capitalism).

without this outside funding, this brings the actual (assumed) minimum goal to $12,000. this is SIGNIFICANTLY less than the current goal (though still higher than a lot of other AD campaigns).

so yeah, quite a bit of important information here.

what this update doesn't answer at all: are minisodes still going to be made? this already feels like barely enough for the core content based on their own operating costs, so that gets called into question for me and isn't addressed.

another thing that occurs to me: are there going to be some roles that are still getting full or near full compensation? I'm mostly thinking about the graphic designer and the composer, since the extent of their episode-by-episode contributions vs the overall season isn't as clear cut as it is for actors or sound designers or even studio space costs. I'm also curious how this impacts the fact there are 3 directors involved, that's a lot of voices for as little as 6 episodes total.

and now let's look at what else was revealed by the April one, which arguably has the most off-putting and concerning sentence in the whole campaign:

so. what is concerning to me is the sentence "All rewards will be fulfilled", because there is a BIG implication to how that is stated.

what this tells me is that up until this point, the backers had absolutely no guarantee of actually getting the rewards of the tier they may have chosen, despite this being a flexible campaign meaning that they would still have been giving the money in part for those rewards.

so, there are three interpretations of what this means:

if they hadn't hit $6k, season 3 wouldn't be made to any extent

honestly there's nothing to imply that this would have been the case in the campaign's wording, so I don't think this was the reality of the situation.

2. if they hadn't hit $6k, season 3 would still be made to some extent but some rewards just wouldn't be delivered

I have read through this campaign several times, and there was NEVER any implication that backers wouldn't receive the promised rewards, not at any point before this April update. and that is a big fucking problem if that was up in the air. I know we'd like to think that if someone was willing to shell out money to support a thing they will still want to without obvious rewards, but for some people we're talking about hundreds of dollars that maybe they could only justify spending for the promise of physical or otherwise unique rewards. if all it took was wanting to give support with nothing in return, people would just select to donate without a tier.

the rewards are not the point, but that doesn't mean they aren't really important to the campaign.

3. if they hadn't hit $6k, there would be refunds to some extent for backers whose rewards wouldn't be delivered

this feels unlikely considering they wouldn't have made much to begin with if we're at this point, but it is the more charitable version of the prior option.

but none of these are ideal and as far as I knew 2 days ago, none of them were even on the table! what kind of trust does that foster with your community to not have been upfront with the realities of the campaign? if they hadn't hit this point and one of these, or some unknown 4th option in which rewards wouldn't have been fulfilled as implied happened, why would I ever want to give this team money again? crowdfunding for season 4 would be basically off the table based on this.

this is what we're talking about when people say they want transparency, all of these questions brought up by these updates ARE important! it is on the Arden team to provide those answers as best they can because this is not some faceless megacorp doing behind the scenes decision-making that might trickle down to individual consumers. this is a small team that is seemingly passionate about their project and cares about fostering their community. and these are exactly the kinds of things that hurt that.

adjacent to stretch goals, a campaign having milestones is also a great way to drive engagement. and Arden does have these. on their twitter only it seems. I've heard from a lot of people (and seen it myself) that twitter is not really a great way to connect to listeners. it's a good networking tool among creators, but especially as more people leave twitter it isn't getting the reach that some people think it does. I can tell by looking at their statistics that even when a post is getting a lot of "views" (how twitter is tracking that and whether it's accurate are up for debate) it is only getting a couple of likes or retweets, or a single comment if they're lucky. I've actually seen this for a lot of AD accounts, I don't think this is an Arden problem.

BUT, that means they need to be promoting these milestones outside of this little sphere of twitter! I didn't go searching other social media, I only looked at the twitter because it came up very early in the google results, but these things should be captured ON the campaign! at time of writing, the next benchmark is at $3900, something they are only $59 away from. if I came to the campaign and saw that we were close to getting some extra content or information I would be much more inclined as a fan to immediately pledge rather than putting it off. this stuff can seal the deal and turn a scroller into a donator.

Other Ways To Help

nothing wrong with this section except that once again you should be providing links to stuff like your website and podcast feed. at least there are links to the Twitter and Tumblr accounts, with the carrot of winning prizes for paying attention to those.

FAQ

only two small sections here, but I don't think this section was utilized well generally to be honest.

all of this feels like information that should have been in the main body of the campaign. a lot of people don't even look at the FAQ because to be honest you should be using this section as a TLDR for the campaign rather than giving unique information.

When Will Season 3 Launch?

here is the reveal of a planned late summer/early fall 2023 release, information that I think would be better suited a part of the actual body of the campaign.

additionally there is mention of something known as "WheyCon" which was alluded to earlier in the campaign, but still unclear what exactly it is for the uninitiated. I assume it is a little studio event where they'll make announcements and maybe have some special stuff like a livestream. either way it is unclear and doesn't even provide a clue of where to watch for information about it.

Do you have stretch goals?

so I'm gonna be honest, I wrote this whole thing before checking the FAQ, including an entire section about why you should have stretch goals and my theory that the stretch goals were actually just rolled into the funding goal because they were fully committed to making them.

the existence of this proves me wrong.

I've salvaged what I can of it, but let's look at what is actually said here:

$27,500 - recorded version of DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANDY WHEYFACE, exclusive to donors

this $1500 above the goal is probably enough to cover this, since they probably wouldn't need as many actors or as in-depth of sound design based on the diary format.

$30,000 - special recorded Art Gallery tour with Bea and Brenda

the way that "Art Gallery" is non-specific and capitalized makes me think this is a fictional gallery within the world of Arden, but either way this is a clever use of the setting and theme of this season for something unique. I don't know how interesting it would be, but still.

at $2,500 above the prior stretch goal that probably covers the costs for something about the length of an episode, if not longer since a lot of guided art gallery tours are over an hour in length.

$35,000 - series of minisodes set behind the scenes of the Julie Capsom film

curious how many is considered a "series", but it's a logical follow-up to the prior campaign's minisode stretch goals and it's clear they enjoy making them. I think the "film" is a bit of in-universe content they've already made and is apparently popular enough for them to be interested in expanding on it.

this only being $5k more than the previous tier implies it'll be a short series (3+ episodes, much shorter length) which is probably fine enough.

$100,000 - purchase the audio drama rights to Stephen King's Under the Dome so they can say the show takes place in that universe

ngl this means nothing to me, I'm unfamiliar with that story or the potential significance of it here. but it certainly is a goal I guess, though I'm not sure this is quite how that kind of copyright stuff works.

all well and fine, but these shouldn't be here. they should be in the main section with more details. stretch goals exist as a tool to get people excited to exceed the goal, and can have an impact on how much they are willing to give extra to achieve that goal. they should be proudly advertised as part of the campaign, the same way that the donation tiers are. this is where you want people to go "wait, what might they do???", something I think the final stretch goal does actually do because of how impressive it sounds. you gotta use that temptation or it may as well not exist formally.

Closing Thoughts

Use the "Updates" Section

this is a small general note, but I found it weird that instead of using the built-in "Updates" functionality to post about the funding updates they instead just put it in the body of the campaign.

there's a couple reasons I think this is probably a mistake, the most obvious being that your supporters will get emails when you add an official update like this, but not if you just edit the campaign text. these updates could be driving your supporters back to up their pledges to help you reach your milestones. plus it keeps you on their minds so they keep posting to support you and maybe helping you gain new backers.

Funding Transparency Please

being vague about your "additional funding" just feels kinda sus, like there's a reason you don't want to share the details...

Milestones

these are a great way to drive engagement. and Arden does have these. on their twitter only it seems. I've heard from a lot of people (and seen it myself) that twitter is not really a great way to connect to listeners. it's a good networking tool among creators, but especially as more people leave twitter it isn't getting the reach that some people think it does. I can tell by looking at their statistics that even when a post is getting a lot of "views" (how twitter is tracking that and whether it's accurate are up for debate) it is only getting a couple of likes or retweets, or a single comment if they're lucky. I've actually seen this for a lot of AD accounts, I don't think this is an Arden problem.

overall I have questions and concerns but not a horrible campaign.

it was, however, unable to convince me as a prospective donor that all this money is necessary, especially in light of the updates. I think the overall lack of transparency is concerning as a whole though.

okay that's it, I'm tired of having to look through and revise this.

best of luck to Arden on however many episodes they get to make <3

#Arden crowdfund #crowdfund review #anonymous ad #crowdfund tips #crowdfund don'ts #please learn how to write a budget #like oh my god how is it this bare #sorry I'm late #I did my best to get to this but there was more to get through than I thought

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