• Location: Earth Prime
  • Joined: December 28, 2008

Topic: Patreon

This be the site in question, arr.

So I seem to remember MindGame making a Patreon page a while back, but I've never really given it much thought. I thought I'd take it to the floor: what does everyone think about this kind of crowdsourcing platform?

The idea behind Patreon is that people ('patrons') donate to your work, either per piece of content (in our case, a brickfilm) or per month, and like Kickstarter or Indiegogo you have rewards for patrons. You can also set goals, such as if you got to $20 per month/per video, you'd make another Cashman or No Crawme brickfilm.

I've never really considered creating a page myself as I don't think I have a big enough audience to reach even $2 per video, but has anyone here made a page? Does anyone want to? Or do you think this platform takes advantage of viewers?

Thoughts?

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ZoefDeHaas/stuff/sig1.png
"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

jampot's Website

  • Location: I'm a very private person
  • Joined: August 12, 2012

Re: Patreon

I know KG/SpastikChuwawa also has a Patreon, and Jackson Dame/Repelling Spider recently set one up too (albeit for writing, not Brickfilming, since he's quit that for now).  Personally I don't know much about Patreon and haven't really looked into it since my audience is nowhere near big enough for this to be worth considering, but it sounds like it might be useful for Brickfilmers with an established audience.  I'd be interested in know how much money one can make from this system, what the ratio of subscribers/followers to Patreon supporters is, etc.

I think perhaps it might come across as "asking for money", but the system itself seems pretty sound, since people can choose to donate a fixed amount, and opt out any time if they want to.

If I can keep continuing to make Brickfilms in the future (and somehow magically acquire thousands of subscribers in the process) I might contemplate it--although I'm perhaps not entirely comfortable with basically asking people to give me money.  (Either way, the likelihood of this happening in the first place is extremely low, needless to say.)

Last edited by Mr Vertigo (January 13, 2015 (06:24am))

Retribution (3rd place in BRAWL 2015)

&Smeagol      make the most of being surrounded by single, educated women your own age on a regular basis in college
AquaMorph    I dunno women are expensive
  • Location: New Jersey
  • Joined: March 22, 2012

Re: Patreon

I don't like "mooch" web sites.  I did once donate to a documentary, though.  It was about Brickfilming.

https://vimeo.com/channels/holdingourown      http://holding-our-own.tumblr.com

"None practice tolerance less frequently than those who most loudly preach it."

HoldingOurOwn's Website

  • Location: Earth Prime
  • Joined: December 28, 2008

Re: Patreon

HoldingOurOwn wrote:

I did once donate to a documentary, though.  It was about Brickfilming.

I don't think I've heard about that one mini/lol

I can understand your viewpoint too, to an extent. Genuinely putting crowdsourced money into creating content is one thing, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who take advantage of systems like these to make a quick buck.

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ZoefDeHaas/stuff/sig1.png
"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

jampot's Website

  • Location: Welcome to Darkmoor
  • Joined: March 27, 2011

Re: Patreon

I'm uncomfortable about asking for money so I probably wouldn't.  And besides that I'm not sure many people would be willing to give me money anyway.  However, if you become moderately successful on YouTube, you can just make it so that all of your viewers "pay with their eyes" so to speak by putting adds on one's videos.
I think it would take about 6 or 7 K views a month to get 20 dollars.  That might be more feasible, and feel slightly less strange.

-Squid | Twitter | Welcome to Darkmoor

Squid's Website

  • Location: I'm a very private person
  • Joined: August 12, 2012

Re: Patreon

Why not both?

It depends.  I can see it being useful to artists who don't have a steady job, or are short on money generally (as many people are whilst starting out), and would need these funds to survive, or work their way to success.  But I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with people using it who do something as a side hobby--such as many brickfilmers, myself included. 

Ultimately, though, everyone pays, whether through ads or voluntary donations.  In that sense, the use of ads is almost more insidious than Patreon.  Whilst Patreon is voluntary, ads are not--everyone who visits your YouTube channel (or whatever) has to watch ads.  Not only that, but Patreon pays with money, and ads pay with time.  You can always earn more money.  You can't buy more time.

With all that being said...

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Retribution (3rd place in BRAWL 2015)

&Smeagol      make the most of being surrounded by single, educated women your own age on a regular basis in college
AquaMorph    I dunno women are expensive
  • Joined: December 26, 2008

Re: Patreon

Perhaps this is obvious by now but I don't really have a problem on an ethical level with sites like Patreon or Kickstarter. I think as long as you're not hassling your friends and family to contribute and making them do out out of a sense of pressure or obligation, it's perfectly legitimate as a way of raising funds. It lets us democratize funding for independent film projects to a degree that was impossible ten years ago. Instead of needing one or two wealthy financial backers, you can build up a smaller body of people who enjoy your work enough to support it so you can make more, without the creative hindrances of corporate backing.

That said, I've never backed a Patreon because I don't have a lot of money to burn right now and I kind of don't like paying for content that is nebulous in nature, simply "more content" by somebody whose work I sometimes like. It's just a hard sell, and I haven't seen one with a solid enough pitch to get me interested.

I've backed some Kickstarters. Kickstarter is a lot more appealing to me in that I know exactly what I'm giving funds to help create, but it's different in that in my experience, most small-scale Kickstarter projects are budgeted to fund just the project. I didn't profit from the BiM Documentary Kickstarter (in fact, I am spending a lot of my own money to make the film), maybe I'll make some money off of the film eventually but for the time being I just get the experience of making the film in return, which I otherwise could not afford to do. Whereas Patreon could potentially provide some living income that makes it possible for somebody to approach their videomaking as though it were a part-time or even full-time career.

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Sméagol's Website

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Re: Patreon

I don't have any problem, really, with Patreon, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, ads, etc. That said, certain methods are much more "tasteful" in my opinion. Thus, these statements by Sméagol really sum up my feelings.

Sméagol wrote:

I've never backed a Patreon ... and I kind of don't like paying for content that is nebulous in nature, simply "more content" by somebody whose work I sometimes like.

Sméagol wrote:

Kickstarter is a lot more appealing to me in that I know exactly what I'm giving funds to help create