Director Relies on Crowdfunding to Raise Money for Anti-Nuclear Movie

The sky is the limit when it comes to creative ideas that can be financed via crowdfunding. Over the past few years, more and more entrepreneurs have learned to trust their instincts, have faith in their potential and seek financial aid on popular crowdfunding platforms. From insanely sophisticated gadgets to books and movies, thousands of innovative products have been launched on the market by people and companies that have tested the advantages of a successful fundraising campaign.

Following the same trend, a Japanese movie director planned to make his voice heard via crowdfunding. For many years now, Takafumi Ota has been one of the harshest critics of nuclear energy. After the Fukushima disaster, many Japanese individuals have expressed their disapproval regarding the production and usage of nuclear energy. Despite this fact, Ota still thinks that people are not fully aware of the potential risks triggered by this type of energy. So he decided to raise a red flag by making a movie.

In this context, Ota needed to raise a sum of money and chose to do whatever it takes to stimulate the generosity of his backers. The director was unable to fund his project the traditional way, so crowdfunding seemed to be the one and only valid option at hand. A good campaign helped him collect a significant amount of money, raise awareness, create buzz around his new production and form a solid community of fans and followers.

For some reason or another, movie distribution companies ignored his creative idea and turn their backs on him. Fortunately, Ota was not discouraged by this first impediment. He did his best to encourage people to pool resources and managed to raise $100,000 for his latest production, entitled The House of Rising Sun. The sum wasn’t nearly enough for a full-length film; however, due to the fact that it was created to highlight the dangers posed by nuclear energy-a controversial topic in Japan at this point, numerous crew members agreed to get involved in this creative initiative, despite of the low salaries.

Ota knew how to bring and keep his production in the public eye. All the contributors were rewarded for their generosity in an original manner: by giving them the chance to discover their names on the movie credits.

All in all, his crowdfunding campaign was a total success: Ota managed to raise money and awareness at the same time. The movie is now screened in cinemas all across Japan. Ota’s fundraising project put his idea into the spotlight, but it also attracted the antipathy of people and organizations that are fervent supporters of nuclear energy.

The government catalogued Ota’s behavior as “not appropriate”. Of course, this reaction was anticipated by the bold director. Now he hopes that his involvement in this creative project won’t prevent him from launching commercial movies in the long term. However, the successful crowdfunding campaign behind The House of the Rising sun proves that excellent fundraising strategies can be implemented in any context and can actually trigger beneficial results for the developer and for an entire community, by changing mentalities.

If you have a unique idea that should be put into practice, don’t let it be killed by lack of funds. Use the best crowdfunding tips and tricks to see your dream come true. Rely on L&C Media Buzz, your crowdfunding consulting and promotion expert, to lift your project off the ground fast and with minimal effort.