I'm planning on adding to my www.rembrandtmachine.com website so that it can accept small "angel investor" (more like a donor) subscriptions (for example $5/mo for a year), in exchange for a early press finished copy, and credits in the film. The film, shot on High Definition (with the Canon XH-A1 and HV20), is about my daughter, who has an autism spectrum disorder, and how as parents, my wife and I over the last year have had to make adjustments to the diagnosis, which initially brought about relief in explanation, and later sorrow in what it potentially meant for her, and the learning curve we have had as parents.
As I was speaking to my web developer last night, he suggested PayPal would be fine, people use it all the time, and trust it, call me stone age, but I guess I'm one of those that doesn't. Am I just stuck in the dark ages here, thinking I need to set up CC vending accounts, that PayPal could do the same thing, and much cheaper. This is a low budget film, and the money I would be raising would mostly be for advertising, and distribution. I wanted to put this up to all of you - has PayPal gotten to the point where people trust it at this point? I am on the up and up, and therefore want to come off that way from the bat - not asking for or collecting angel investments until I have a fifteen minute short up, so people know what they're investing in, along with my production budget available for everyone to see.
This is the part of filmmaking that I hate, try as I might towards John Singer-Sargent's ideal of being an artist-businessman, I'm truly more of an artist, but I've got considerable help in the way of the business realm, thank G*d. I'd much rather be behind the camera, behind the editing desk, or when my social beast takes over, in front of a Q&A panel. That's fun for me. This part's not. So, what's your thoughts? PayPal trusted, or not? Is there a different way I should approach this - I'm modeling my idea of funding this film after the Obama campaign, small donors who want to make an impact to this issue, albeit the focus of this film will be extremely limited, our experience and our experience alone. I think it will have higher resonance to the topic at large.
Anyway, any of you all with MBA's, or if you're a lawyer, or just have a solid business acumen, tell me what you think about the fundraising potential, and a potential "angel investor"s willingness to go through PayPal. I'd appreciate your help in setting this up.
UPDATE: Thank you to everyone for sharing their experiences. I wanted to make sure I wasn't overestimating the power of the interweb in the way of raising funds, even for a film of this nature. Your collective wisdom and experience will come into play most certainly in how proceed thus forward. What amazing entrepenuers we have among us, something that doesn't really get talked about, given the fact that we're Democrats. First thing I want to do when I can afford to - hire one of ya'll to run my bidness.