Excellent! I’m pretty limited in funds myself right now, but it was well worth $10 to help this very worthy project. And it was very easy. Please consider aiding this worthy project. They’re trying to raise $30k in the next month. very doable, especially with lots of small donations. I think each one of us can find value in a project like this.
And it’ll do way more for the hobby’s image than Gomez Addams every did, altough I appreciate his style, spirirt, and spontaneity. [;)]
She should interview Rod Stewart. No doubt that ought to bring in lots of supporters from outside the hobby.
Jaime
BUMP [Y]
For all of those folks who feel our hobby will fade as the present generation passes on, here is an opportunity to help ensure model railroading’s longevity.
Let’s keep this topic on page one, give what you can if you can, and get the word out about being a part of putting our hobbies’ best foot forward.
I’m in!
Chris,
From the short clips Sarah has videoed and produced so far, it’s easy to tell this is a high quality effort that’s worthy of support. The NMRA is helping support the project among others. I think it’s easy to recognize, as I suspect they did, that they could not hire someone equally talented for several times what the overall budget for this project is tp promote the hobby.
The current balance stands a little past $3500 from about 40 contributors with 20 days to go to raise the $30000 goal. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1007036228/model-citizens-a-model-railroading-documentary-in/backers
Most are modest contributions, so don’t consider what you might be able to help with too small. I’m definitely in the quite modest contribution group, but every bit is appreciated as contributing to the overall goal.
Bumpin this one back to page 1! 8 days to go for the Kickstarter fundraiser and almost at 100 contributers… still well short of the goal but nice to see a lot of support.
The campaign has 5 days left and so far 113 generous people have pledged $12,616 towards it. Sara still needs more support, if they don’t hit their goal of $30,000 in the next 7 days (September, 4 8:31 PM EDT) she will not receive any money from the campaign.
I’ve been following the project for that last few months ever since I heard heard on the MRH podcast. I think its a great way to promote model railroading and introduce new people to the hobby. Its easy to contribute, just create a Kickstarter account and if you have an Amazon account you can pay through that. It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up and contribute. Check out her site and if you can please support the project and pass the word around.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1007036228/model-citizens-a-model-railroading-documentary-in
Well over 100 sponsors now with 5 days left to go to reach the Kickstarter funding target. Pledges now total over 40% of of the $30K goal.
Go down this page or you may have to go to the next page, but there is a thread with the title starting “Model Citizens…” It discusses this program. Do hope it makes it’s goals.
Have fun,
Richard
There’s been some discussion about this over at the Model Railroad Hobbyist website. In one of their recent podcasts, they had an interview with Sara Kelly (the lady behind the documentary). From the interview, it sounded like she was already plugged in with NMRA, at least.
Sounds interesting, and a lot more friendly toward model railroaders than other articles, news clips, and documentaries I’ve seen in the past. Can’t wait to see the finished product!
I’ve seen this pitch on a number of forums. However, it’s pretty clearly a solicitation to invest in an individual’s business venture. In effect, this person is selling something. Isn’t that in violation of the forum policies?
If the producer herself were posting and asking for donations, I’m sure it would be. I don’t think something like this is exactly violating the “no solicitation” rule, because the poster is not affiliated with the production and isn’t exactly asking people to donate.
Maybe on other forums people are explicitly asking folks to donate to the production, and in that case, I’d say that’s crossing the line, even though those people may not be personally involved with the production.
I could be wrong, though. I’ll let the moderators make the ultimate decision.
Here is what the policy says: “Our users are the drivers behind this policy. They don’t want the useful information in our forums watered down with advertisements or solicitations to buy something. If you’d like to advertise on our site, scroll to the bottom of this page and click the “Advertise” link.”
I don’t know what the connection is between the original poster and Ms Kelly. However, the policy is simply against solicitations, and I would think a post saying click to see this wonderful pitch is a solicitation. I would also say, though, that her solicitation is for an investment, and we know nothing about her and her company, except she sorta thinks model trains are neat. If I were the moderator, I would err on the side of protecting forum members from a potential scam.
I’m a little surprised that Mr Otte hasn’t caught this.
Kickstarter is a way for lots and lots of people to contribute perhaps tiny amounts to see a project financed. It’s a new way of funding projects like documentaries that would never get made otherwise. It’s organic and grass-roots. It works because we have the technology to share on forums such as this with like-minded people who are passionate about a certain subject. It’s far different from “Hey, buy my product”.
For every scammer there are thousands of projects that get funded (60,000 so far on Kickstarter) and completed. If you are going to contribute $10,000 then contact the producer and do your homework. If you are thinking of pledging ten bucks, take a chance and toss your money in the hat.
By the way, I write this as a former manufacturer in the model railroad business, and it doesn’t offend me at all that promoting this project is allowed on model railroad forums.
Since we’re not talking about a product or service for sale, it’s a gray area, not specifically prohibited by the Forum rules. Since the subject of the documentary is model-railroad related, and the situation isn’t likely to come up frequently enough to become an issue, we decided to allow it this time. If the Forum gets swamped by similar solicitations, though, we will revisit this decision.
I did not see this posted here. Hopefully enough is raised for it to go into production.
Maybe Kalmbach can help out. Or the worlds greastest hobby organization.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1007036228/model-citizens-a-model-railroading-documentary-in
Also, I merged the threads.
Thanks, Steve, that reasonable. I wouldn’t want a “Weekly Donation Suggestion” thread, but I think this really isn’t that and I would hope it doesn’t become an issue in the future.
As one who has supported the project, I wanted to discuss why I did, as this might be of interest to others considering the same. It was very modest financial support, given my circumstances at the moment. But as someone who has been involved in the media myself – all non-RR-related so far – I also think it’s important to mention these things where others have a chance to consider them. The public market place of ideas has changed rapidly because of the information age. Pubs like RMC have gone under. Others aspire to new forms of publishing. Model Railroader has done a great job within a complex and evolving media landscape in allowing people to discuss all aspects of the hobby in many different ways, from paper to virtual, and allowing space for discussion like this to take place.
I have no quarrel with this thread or the decision to leave it up and running. That is fine with me.
But I can’t help wondering why Sara Kelly doesn’t follow the more traditional means for funding her venture, namely a venture capital source or an outright studio backing.
If the success or failure of the project is dependent on small, individual contributions from model railroading hobbyists, it is probably doomed to failure even though the bottom line is only $30,000.
Rich
This method of fund raising has been fairly common with “small potatoes” musicians producing CDs of their “album” projects. So it’s not that new or singular. The time frame seems awful short though for her “kickstarter” funding. I’ve made a small contribution but agree that it’s a long shot with a short time frame for success. Hopefully it will work out.
I’m hoping that she’ll address or show young kids who are computer game oriented, etc. participating in MRing and showing why they find it equally challenging or “cool” to address the next generation(s) discovery of our hobby.
Jim
Traditional funders don’t generally finance small documentaries with a $60,000 budget. A lot of people can’t even get loans for a car or a house these days, and bankers understand a lot less about filmmaking than those things.
If a “studio” was to take over production, Sara would find herself on the sidelines and replaced by someone else the next day.
I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say by this.
Regardless, it doesn’t have to be that way. If only 1500 of the tens of thousands of hobbyists chipped in 10 bucks in the next 24 hours we could help her meet the goal.