Kyle
Last month we brought you an interview with Passer.by co-founder Todd Metheny about this new crowdfunding platform exclusive to the film industry. When we spoke with Metheny that hadn’t quite launched their donation platform.
They’ve now announced their launch and have three films that the public can donate to and help fund. If you’ve ever wanted to partake in the movie business, now’s your chance. This unique service allows ordinary people to invest in movies and independent films. Passer.by is a welcomed source of funding for independent film producers who typically bootstrap their projects, in a very competitive business.
The three films open for funding via passer.by are: The Lovely Passing Life by filmmaker Daniel Leeb, Mrs. Henderson’s Cat by filmmaker Will Pelligrini and Fit To Print by filmmaker Adam Chadwick. Leeb is seeking funds for production while Pelligrini and Chadwick are raising funds for post production.
To introduce the service Metheny told us last month that they are allowing filmmakers to pay them, “what they want”. Once the films reach their funding, they will hopefully pay Passer.by something for helping them raise funds. This promotion is available for the first 20 films that are funded by Passer.by’s crowdsourced funding platform.
More after the break
Right now the funding is in the form of donation. Passer.by is currently working towards becoming an SEC approved funding portal. Once that happens, people that choose to support the films on Passer.by will get an equity stake in the movie itself. Passer.by is hopeful that they will bring the investment portion online sometime next year.
“We believe we have something unique to offer. We spent a lot of time listening to what filmmakers wanted specifically in this type of platform — and we hope we’ve delivered that. We’re going to try to improve it every day and hope to become a helpful resource in the filmmaking community. We’ll keep listening. I’m very excited about the films that have already committed to funding with us,” Metheny said. “I could not be prouder of all the work our team has put in.”
“We get a lot of questions about whether film needs an exclusive platform in the business community, but in the filmmaking community, people get it right away. They start nodding early in the explanation. Based on the feedback we’ve gotten from people actually out there making films, we believe we’re filling an important void,” Passerby CCO Josh Clayton said.
As it stands at the time of publishing this article Fit To Print has raised $705 of their $10,000 goal with 26 days left. This Lovely Passing Life has $28 of a $50,000 goal. Mrs. Henderson’s Cat has raised $386 of their $5,000 goal.
Linkage:
Check out our interview with Co-Founder Todd Metheny Here
We’ve got our own crowd-funding project going on for our nationwide sneaker -strapped startup road trip. You can check it out and support us here.
