Crowdfunding: Be Brave

Crowdfunding is often used to raise money for products, experiences. public causes and services. Products include the manufacture of a new design or invention such as a new type of skateboard. Crowdfunding also helps to host an experience such as a dance performance. A public cause is to support an individual or group in need, such as raising adequate funds for a child’s expensive operation Services might include funding a meals program for the poor. In the case of the film Be brave, crowdfunding was a way for a sister to help make her dying brother’s dream come true.

When he was twenty years old, Daniel Northcott began ten years of travelling the world with his video camera. Eventually, he would undertake trips across forty-two countries on four continents, visiting different cities, war zones and sacred sites. He ended up with more than one thousand hours of film. At each special place he visited, he collected a small souvenir, often in the form of a circular or ball-shaped object. On one of his last trips, he visited a sacred cave in Mexico. The floor was covered with the ancient bones of people who had been sacrificed there. Daniel took one bone, despite the warning of his guide who said that he would be cursed.

Later, the curse seemed to come true. Tragedy struck Daniel in the form of leukaemia, a cancer of the blood. Despite being sick, he allocated time to continue to film and focused on two objectives. The first objective was to make a full-length film from the one thousand hours he had shot, and the second was to return the bone to the sacred cave. But he was unable to remember where he’d put the bone.

When Daniel died, at age twenty-nine, he had succeeded in making a forty­ minute video that gave an overview of what he wanted to be done with the footage, but it was incomplete. He asked his sister, Erin Northcott, to find a way to finish the film and to return the bone. After Daniel’s death, Erin found the bone among her brother’s possessions. Three years passed before Erin found someone capable of taking on the film project: Mikki Willis of Elevate Studios. A title for the film was chosen, Be Brave, and a film crew accompanied Erin to Mexico to restore the bone to the cave.

 Both the film and the trip were funded through an Indiegogo campaign called Be Brave-The True Story of Daniel Northcott. The campaign website included many essential components. A video explained the purpose of the project in a personal way. Text and photos gave more information about the film, how crowdfunding works, the people involved in the project, what the funds would be spent on and answers to frequently asked questions. There was also contact information and a section on incentives called perks, which were rewards for pledges.

The campaign identified the need to raise $183,000 and quickly exceeded that amount. People interested in helping fund the film had twelve levels of perks they could receive in return for their pledges. These started with a thank-you on the website for an S10 contribution, to an executive producer credit on the final film for an S10,000 contribution. Between these amounts were perks in the form of posters, T-shirts, DVDs, hand-made art and other shows of appreciation.

In the end, the use of crowdfunding did more than simply raise enough money to make the film Be Brave. The website and the perks served to draw attention to the issues raised in the film and attract more people to see it.