Miami artists live or die by Knight Foundation grants, but a new(ish) website called Kickstarter gives creative types more ways to score funding. The site makes artists' fantasy projects a reality, much in the same way Etsy made indie crafters' small business dreams come true. Based out of Brooklyn, Kickstarter is a marketplace of micro-patronage where bands ask for help paying for touring and recording costs, and visual artists solicit funding for materials.
This isn't charity. In exchange for their fiscal help, backers are promised tokens such as postcards from a band's tour stops or signed, limited edition art prints. Current Kickstarter projects include a marionette show about the coyotes in Central Park, a live Burlesque cooking show, and a film about a psychic goat named Snowball.
But when we looked for Miami-based projects, we received the dreaded "Sorry, no results." And you're going to hate this comparison but searching for cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Austin, etc. easily netted anywhere from 40 to 400 projects. ¿Que pasa Miami? Even Cleveland has six projects. Cleveland!
A mention on the Borsht Film Festival Facebook feed made us give Kickstarter another look and alas, Miami now has two projects. The recent theater project The Closest Farthest Away reached its goal of raising more than $3,500 with 39 backers.
The other project is Bots High, a documentary about Miami high school robotics teams who will compete in a
national championship. Depending on the pledge, Bots High backers can expect to receive anything from a signed DVD to a
producer credit. The film has only 10 more days to find backers for its goal of $9,000.
