Life In 19x19

Hi everyone,

This is Cole Pruitt from the Surrounding Game documentary. I just joined lifein19x19 (please forgive me if I make any board-specific etiquette faux-pas, like making gigantic posts).

I wanted to respond to some of your comments and questions as best as I can to give you a better sense of what's going on, in the spirit of openness. Apologies for the wall-of-text - there's just a lot to say. We understand your concern and we've decided to make a big post and update about this through the Kickstarter and on our website, so you will be able to see more detailed information about the budget, project scope, how we've spent money, etc.

background

When we started the project, Will and I sent a business proposal to a representative of the Ing Foundation detailing a documentary costing anywhere from $25-$60k depending on length of film, quality, and distribution. We'd gotten our rough budget item estimates from a professional distributor in LA (for example, $3000 for legal fees, $11000 for film equipment, etc.), and we came up with three possible 'tiers' for how good and extensive the project could be.

The lowest tier ($25,000) was for a wholly amateur produced film - we record, edit, and distribute everything ourselves, and the film is only 45-60 minutes long. The middle tier ($40-45k) allowed us to increase the length of the film, hiring professional camera operators, and opening up travel for us to go to Asia for a few weeks (about $15,000 for a team of five, including pay for a translator and two camera operators). We'd still edit the film ourselves, basically limiting how good it could be considering our inexperience. The highest tier ($60,000) allowed us to hire an asst. editor and provide for a modicum of distribution, meaning that the film could be shown at several film festivals, we could produce real replicated mastered DVDs and not just homemade copies. At this stage, we didn't dream of actually being able to hire a real pro editor because the project hadn't even started yet, we were inexperienced, and it seemed like way too much money.

We had expected $20k-40k in support from the Shanghai Ing Foundation based on their responsiveness to our grant request, but we received only about $10k plus costs in-kind while we were in China. We decided that we would make a decision about which project tier to aim for based on Kickstarter response. We set the initial Kickstarter goal low ($15,000) because we wanted to ensure that if we hit the goal, we could produce a film, albeit a lower-quality and wholly amateur-produced one. After hitting $25,000, we had about $35,000 to work with, which meant that we could travel to Asia briefly, but no money would be left over for an editor or distribution after hiring a cinematographer, so the film would still be largely amateur.

New decisions

At that point, with several extremely important film-worthy events opening up for the summer, we needed to decide which road to take: produce the low-tier film with what we had, or front-load our expenses and raise more money in the future to make the film truly professionally done and able to really reflect Go as we saw it. So we expanded the scope (and budget) to include a professional editor, a dedicated trip to Japan for Japanese Go (on the order of $8k for a few people), original music (we're not sure yet, but on the order of $5k), and real bona fide distribution rather than us doing it on our own DVD burner. After talking to dozens of Go players and non-Go players, we realized that a film done well could actually make a big impact on public perception, and we thought that was worth it. Raising more money would also allow Will and I to keep our own personal savings out of jeopardy, something that really concerned us as college-age kids without much to work with.

If, from today on, we didn't raise another dollar, we could still finish the film ourselves. But it would not be nearly as good as it could be, and I think it would have a very minor impact on social perceptions of Go. It'd be something Go players know about, but no one else, and we hope that with the expanded scope made possible after the first Kickstarter succeeded, we could make an actual difference. I hope that answers a few more questions about why we're doing a second fundraiser.

The numbers

All in all, this totals about $60k. Thanks to help from in-kind services from the AGA, the Ing Foundation, me picking up a second job, and others, we were able to cut this down about $15k from this budget. A lot of that came from travel in China, free stay at the US Go Congress, our website being done entirely on a volunteer basis (Ken Kansky + Christopher Hsing), and farming out a lot of Chinese translation to the Go community.

This leaves us with our current status: in total, we've raised about $40,000, with a few thousand dollars left in our bank account after all the filming and editing work we've done so far. We have enough now to simply make DVD copies, and send out rewards to all our Kickstarter backers, nix the rest of the distribution, editing, mastering, music, and travel plans, and that would be it.

Rather than do that, we want to make it as good as we think it can be, so we want to raise $30,000+ in additional funding. This would pay for E/O insurance to allow theaters to show the film ($5,000), hiring a professional editor for several months ($15,000), master the film in a production house (not sure for the quality of our film, maybe $2000-4000?), hire a composer for original music (again, not sure, on the order of $5k), and include one final filming trip, to Japan(~$8k). We're also planning on selling some of our film equipment when we're finished with it to free up some more funds. It is hard to budget some of these things in the process because it might take an editor many more months to create the story, and it's hard to gauge the creative process. I wish I could give a more accurate answer, but it's a big unknown.

Hopefully, this is helpful - we've been extremely frugal throughout the process and worked a few thousand hours each for no pay, so I can truly say we've maximized every dollar that has come in to fund the project. We're going to include a full, more detailed history of expenses and projected budget in an update soon to clear the air.

Questions/advice/comments? I want to know what you would like to see or hear from us to address your very reasonable concerns and thoughts. And thanks again (!) for your support of the project!

Cole

Hi Cole. Thanks for the reply - let me jump straight into my main concern (as I'm sure you'll get a lot of replies). I really support what you're doing, but I think you could be a little more open about it:

cdpruitt wrote:New decisions

The most important thing you can do for your contributors is let them make the decisions. You don't get to decide whether or not you get another $30k. You can decide whether or not you think it's best, but you need to let your contributors decide whether or not they want this upgrade, since this is no longer the $15k project they were supporting. (If you tell them what their options are, they'll probably agree with you, and support you anyway. But if you don't tell them what their options are, they will distrust you!)

At the moment, your website says "to see this project through completion, we need to raise..." - that is, the decision has already been made, and you want need more money. As you've just said, this isn't entirely honest. $5k of that will go towards music; $8k towards funding a Japan trip; $15k towards professional editing; etc. etc. but none of it is truly needed. There are many ways to get the community involved in saying what they want, the simplest being simply to state your intentions and ask them what they think. You could perhaps also have saved money elsewhere, for example by asking whether anyone on L19 would be willing to do some translation for free, rather than hiring a translator, or asking whether anyone with a good camera going to a big tournament somewhere far away from you would have been willing to do some work for you. Perhaps you had good reasons not to do this - I don't know, and it would be nice to know if you did. The idea behind all this - as well as gaining others' help and advice, of course - is to make sure that everyone knows exactly where their money is going and remains in support of your good cause. People won't stop contributing just because you tell them where the money's going - nobody imagines you'll be sleeping on the streets to save a few cents, of course.

Basically, I'm glad that you've made this post, I fully support the project, and I do (and already did) trust you far enough to believe that your intentions are genuine. We'd just like to know what they are - it's our money, and we've entrusted it to you, so please don't give us reason to doubt you. You're doing a great job so far.

billywoods wrote:The most important thing you can do for your contributors is let them make the decisions. You don't get to decide whether or not you get another $30k. You can decide whether or not you think it's best, but you need to let your contributors decide whether or not they want this upgrade, since this is no longer the $15k project they were supporting. (If you tell them what their options are, they'll probably agree with you, and support you anyway. But if you don't tell them what their options are, they will distrust you!)

You're 110% right billy, and we are realizing we could have given better communication and back-and-forth to the online Go community about this. We've spoken to so many people in person about the options for the film and what the project can accomplish, and in person and with the longtime Go organizers in the US and abroad, we've gotten near-unanimous support for the sort of additional fundraiser and expanded scope that we've set our course upon. However, we realize that we haven't done enough to make the project as community-driven as it could be, especially in terms of online feedback and openness, and it definitely has been a disservice and lost opportunity.

Part of the issue is that it's sometimes hard when you're working on an intensive creative project to ask for guidance and input from the general public and it's something we intend to improve upon. From some of our interactions so far, we had been worried that too much exposure and openness would weaken the project and support for it - for example, many of our European supporters had expressed dismay at the American-centric nature of the AGA Pro system featuring heavily in the film, but we consider it the fundamental, character-driven narrative necessary to the function of the story. We've also gotten scolding from both sides of the aisle on some seemingly arbitrary points ('You said Go is 4000 years old - it's only provably 2500 years old, and if you say that, you're going to completely lose your credibility!' vs. 'It could be up to 5000 years old, and unless you stretch its age as much as possible, it won't do the game justice!').

In the end, though, it's our responsibility to the project and the community to facilitate the entire discussion with every viewpoint, and make decisions only after serious consideration. I can assure you that we're completely comfortable with the decisions and work we've done so far, and we hope you will be too, but we could definitely have gone about it in a more community-driven and supportive way.

Look for more about this this week on Kickstarter, on our site, through our mailing list. We're going to publish a public list of all our expenses, projected budget, some goals in scope, and our current financial health.

Thanks again for raising these important and valid points, it's really valuable and productive for us to get honest feedback from the community on every aspect of the project.

Cole

billywoods wrote:

cdpruitt wrote:New decisions

The most important thing you can do for your contributors is let them make the decisions. You don't get to decide whether or not you get another $30k.

This is what's happening already. If the contributors say yes to the new decisions, then they will donate the money. If they say no, then they won't.

For those who are interested in helping out, the site seems to be: http://www.surroundinggamemovie.com/

cdpruitt wrote:Part of the issue is that it's sometimes hard when you're working on an intensive creative project to ask for guidance and input from the general public and it's something we intend to improve upon.

Absolutely. Don't worry about the small stuff, of course - whether go is 2500 or 5000 years old is a difficult and unimportant question to answer. I think asking about the big stuff is important, but the salient point here is that, provided you say "these are my views - what do you think?", people will probably mostly agree with you.

xed_over wrote:This is what's happening already. If the contributors say yes to the new decisions, then they will donate the money. If they say no, then they won't.

But, according to what the website says, if they say no to the "needed" money, the project won't be completed. That's my concern: people will feel duped. Bullied into giving more money than they had originally bargained on giving, because it seems as though nothing will be produced if this extra $30k isn't raised, and their $25k will be wasted. This doesn't just breed resentment - it also makes people less likely to donate more. If the website said the honest thing - "we think this project upgrade would be awesome [insert details here], but we can always just fall back to what we originally promised [insert details here]" - people would gladly reach back into their pockets for more, because they're donating purely for the love of the game, just like they always were.

Thanks Cole and everyone else for replying. I'm relieved to see I wasn't the only one who felt concered about this. I think Kirby and Billywoods hit the nail on the head. You're doing a good job. What's needed to reassure your backers is just a bit more transparency.

For example, based on some early impressions I'd thought that Ing had given you much more money and wondered what it could possibly have all been spent on already. A detailed public accounting of how much money you received, what it's been used for so far and a budget of precisely what you think you need for the remainder of the project (with options and milestones) would do a lot to increase your credibility and the strength of your case for more funding.

A more serious approach and detailed plan could also improve your relationship with Ing. I'm sure they've already given you a lot more than 'only about $10k' because those in kind expenses while you were in Asia would have added up quickly. Did you consider that they might have hedged their bets and given you $10000 initially so that they could see what you did with it? They may have wanted to force you to manage your finances more carefully. If you're able to go back to them with all the finances in order and future costs really nailed down properly they may be able to provide more assistance.

To be honest, if someone came to me with a business proposal and the kind of one sentence explanation you have on your homepage at the moment it would set alarm bells off. The moment I really started to question you was when I clicked 'Why?' and got a one liner. That doesn't convey respect for other people's money. If I were Ing, I wouldn't give you another $10k under those circumstances. If you don't provide details people are going to fill in the blanks themselves and not everyone will do that the way you want them to.

For example, you don't want to give the impression of a project that's being poorly managed, with cost and scope blowouts. You also don't want to give people the impression that a bunch of college students are going on a junket on someone else's hard earned dime. Those characterizations may well be unfair, but you still need to do your best to convince people otherwise if you want more support.

So, apart from making your costs so far available can you also tighten up the future budget a bit and show people what exactly they'll be paying for with funding milestones? For example, you should know fairly well how much music you need for the movie. Can you get a quote from someone to compose original music now and hold them to it? That doesn't seem unreasonable. Will the first $10000 you raise now pay for editing and post-production or will it pay for a trip to Japan?

You also need to ask yourselves whether it's really necessary to go to Japan. Was it really necessary to go to both China and Korea for that matter? For example, was it possible to ask a TV network like Baduk TV to provide footage and the permission to use it and save a lot of money? Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe some of that money could have been spent on post-production? It's ok if you made a mistake, nobody expects you to be perfect. The most important thing is to learn from the experience you've gained so far. Can you ask the Nihon Ki-in to get footage of the recent Honinbo from a local TV network in Japan? Can you interview the Japanese pros who regularly visit the US instead of flying all your people to Japan? Can you interview people over the internet and have film crews record a high quality picture at both ends?

If you're not going to put your own money on the line in this venture, as you've said above, you also need to be upfront with the people who are about what happens to any potential profits. Maybe the movie won't make any money, but if you raise enough money to start taking it to film festivals, maybe it will. In that case, will the profits go back to your 'investors', will they go towards other projects in the go community or will they end up in your bank account?

Please understand that I'm partly playing the Devil's Advocate here to get you to think about these things and to try to help you refine your own thinking. Some people may want answers to these questions. You want to convey that you've seriously thought about how to do this in a cost effective manner and that you're not taking other people's money for granted. In general, the more confidence you can give people in your professionalism and exactly what you're going to use their money for, the more money you should be able to raise. This is something that's worth spending at least a few days on.

You still have my support.

billywoods wrote:But, according to what the website says, if they say no to the "needed" money, the project won't be completed.

Odd, I don't see that at all.
Everything I've read so far, says to me that it just won't be completed as professionally has it could have been otherwise.

billywoods wrote:I hope it turns out to be worth it, and no contributors feel ripped off.

I donated a little money. And I'm in a trailer. That's more than I hoped for. In fact, as a game recorder, it had completely escaped my mind that that might happen -- until I saw the cameras.

Hope they don't show me nodding off while broadcasting games. I got so little sleep that week. I stayed in the same cabin with the filmmakers at the Go Congress -- they got more sleep than I did.

Its been worth it already. I don't feel ripped off (except when they drank my Dr. Peppers from the fridge -- but they replaced them)

cdpruitt wrote:Hi everyone,

This is Cole Pruitt from the Surrounding Game documentary. I just joined lifein19x19 (please forgive me if I make any board-specific etiquette faux-pas, like making gigantic posts).

cause it might take an editor many more months to create the story, and it's hard to gauge the creative process. I wish I could give a more accurate answer, but it's a big unknown.
...
Questions/advice/comments? I want to know what you would like to see or hear from us to address your very reasonable concerns and thoughts. And thanks again (!) for your support of the project!

Cole

...And transparency has been somewhat established. While some parts were a little vague, Cole's post here shows an example of what a small effort of communication can do to clear up people's questions. I feel that this type of communication, including numbers, estimates, and maybe even what was actually spent on various items after the fact (eg. when estimates differ from actuals), allows for people to have a good understanding of how their money is being used to produce the final product.

Without such communication, people are pretty much in the dark about what is happening. People ask, "Why is there another fundraiser? Was my donation not sufficient? Does it really cost that much money to put together a documentary?"

With numbers out in the open, these questions are answered, and people can understand how their money is being used.

The more clarity in this type of situation the better, and I'm glad that Cole has taken a step toward clearing this up for everyone involved.

xed_over wrote:

billywoods wrote:But, according to what the website says, if they say no to the "needed" money, the project won't be completed.

Odd, I don't see that at all.
Everything I've read so far, says to me that it just won't be completed as professionally has it could have been otherwise.

Aside from the website, the sentiment that billywoods may be referring to might be from Cole's post earlier in the forum:

Cole wrote:we needed to decide which road to take: produce the low-tier film with what we had, or front-load our expenses and raise more money in the future to make the film truly professionally done and able to really reflect Go as we saw it.

Given this, basically, the guys had raised a sum of money - enough to make the low-tier film. But they decided not to do this, and that's why they are raising more money - to "make the film truly professionally done and able to reflect Go" as they saw it.

This may be fine and dandy, but I think that billywood's point was that the people that gave them their initial sum of money did so under the impression that a film would be produced for that amount of money. But it's not really what's happening - the goal has changed, and the amount of money required has also changed.

There are many supporters of the film, and some may support this decision and some may not. There's no problem for those still supporting the decision. If some people no longer support the decision, I could see how they might be upset.

In any case, the point remains that detail and clarity in communication on how money will be spent (and how it's already been spent), and maybe even in decisions that are made as the case may be, will alleviate these types of troubles.

cdpruitt wrote:... It is hard to budget some of these things in the process because it might take an editor many more months to create the story, and it's hard to gauge the creative process. I wish I could give a more accurate answer, but it's a big unknown.
...

I'm sure that a report of what was actually spent after the fact, once you know how much everything ended up costing, would be welcomed by your financial supporters.

Owari, are you someone who is in the habit of entertaining business proposals? And if so, are you also under the impression that if you ask a subcontractor to submit a bid on a project that has no funding, he's going to bust his ass putting together an accurate proposal?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge advocate of transparency. Knowledge is power, free Bradley, all that jazz. But it's one thing to ask for accurate accounting of money already spent (this is what Kirby wants, I think), another to ask for full disclosure of aspirations about where new money will go, and something completely different to ask for accurate accounting on parts of the project that haven't been started yet. They could spend the next two months hassling musicians and producers for cost estimates, and what they would have at the end would be no better than what they had now.

By the way, for the team; how much would it cost to license music, instead?

jts wrote:... But it's one thing to ask for accurate accounting of money already spent (this is what Kirby wants, I think), ...

What I would expect is:

• Estimates on futures costs.
• Discussions about changes of plans.
• Communication of what things actually costed after the fact.

But I don't feel like this is a binary switch ("Yes, they did this" vs. "No, they didn't do this"), but rather a continuum. That is, the MORE they do this, the MORE they establish the trust of their supporters, and the MORE they make their supporters glad that they did what they did - and even in the know about what they did. Conversely, if this doesn't happen much, you'll be bound to have a number of supporters who regret their decision.

To me this is not just about the Surrounding Game documentary. It's about future efforts in go as well. If we have widespread disappointment with this project, it will be all the more difficult in the future to gain support for go related aspirations.

And that would be a pity.

Thanks for the update Cole, I was somewhat perturbed when I got the email asking for more money.

jts wrote:Owari, are you someone who is in the habit of entertaining business proposals? And if so, are you also under the impression that if you ask a subcontractor to submit a bid on a project that has no funding, he's going to bust his ass putting together an accurate proposal?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge advocate of transparency. Knowledge is power, free Bradley, all that jazz. But it's one thing to ask for accurate accounting of money already spent (this is what Kirby wants, I think), another to ask for full disclosure of aspirations about where new money will go, and something completely different to ask for accurate accounting on parts of the project that haven't been started yet. They could spend the next two months hassling musicians and producers for cost estimates, and what they would have at the end would be no better than what they had now.

By the way, for the team; how much would it cost to license music, instead?

I've never hired someone to compose music before. I have dealt with many other kinds of contractors though. Composing a short score to match a story that has the general elements x, y and z seems to be a well defined task. In contrast, editing and post-production isn't well defined at this time and I didn't suggest that it could be. This is where project costs are most likely to get out of control, so if it were my project, I'd get an estimate of the minimum cost, triple it and manage this contractor more carefully.

My point isn't that all estimates need to be exact, but that controlling the elements that you can control and coming up with contingency plans about what and how you can cut (if you have to) shows good discipline. It also lends credibility to your other estimates, that are by necessity more rubbery.

Looking into the licensing costs as an alternative (even if only to dismiss it as too expensive) would strengthen the business case and sounds like a good idea.