Today I got an email from the people making The Surrounding Game movie (about go) saying they need another $30000 to finish it. This project was originally on Kickstarter last year with a goal of $15000.

They raised more than $25000 after promising to make a better movie if they reached that goal. I supported their original fund raising campaign (along with 400+ other go players) and thought it was great when they were funded. I've really been looking forward to seeing the movie.

The original Kickstarter page seemed to imply that they would finish the movie for that amount, but now it seems that's not the case? I guess I'm just worried about what's going on. Does anyone know what happened to the original money and why this additional money wasn't budgeted for to begin with? What will happen if they can't raise another $30000? Will they still make the movie? I read Kickstarter's policy about this but it seemed vague about what would happen.

I thought someone here might know more about this and could set me straight please?

This is the first time heard of this project, so I have no knowledge.

I looked at their website, and it says:



I wouldn't touch that project with a long pole, but that's only my personal opinion.

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I would assume that some costs must be associated with travel. I don't know where they all live, but it can be a couple of thousand dollars to pay for a round-trip plane ticket to Asia in some parts of the world. If they have, say 5 people, that's $10,000 for one round-trip. Maybe if they're staying in a hotel, maybe it could cost a couple of thousand dollars per person, depending on how long they stay. That comes to $20,000 if each person gets their own room.

If they need $55,000 in total (the $25,000 obtained from before plus the $30,000 now requested), I guess that means that it might be another $35,000 they need for movie expenses.

That may or may not be unreasonable. Maybe someone with experience in making movies knows.

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be immersed

Tj's quote says they're spending it on proffessional editting and post production. I have the armchair opinion that production value matters a lot, probably moreso if you're not an existing go fanatic.

If they don't get it, they'll do it cheaply/themselves (this is also known as 'badly'.)

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That could be. I think part of the confusion here is that the descriptions on the website are somewhat vague, and money is not precisely and publicly accounted for. People have different philosophies on the matter, but my personal opinion is that, when you are spending other people's money, it's important to be detailed about how their money is being spent, even to the cent.

This isn't unique to fundraisers like this:

• Money spent on business trips, for example, is accounted for with expense reports.
• Volunteer organizations such as Hopelink (an organization for homeless and low income people), for example, must precisely indicate what money is being spent and how. This is essential for the life of the organization.

Being truthful and detailed about how money is spent benefits those that are running the fundraiser, because it extinguishes all doubt about how money is being spent. Everyone can clearly and openly see how their money is being used. The only sentiment left to give, then, is positive, because everyone supporting the fundraiser not only supports the cause, but also knows exactly how their money was spent, and how they made a contribution to the effort.

When you have vague phrases like "everything in between" from the website:


it leaves room for doubt, which may not even be founded. It's perfectly plausible that every cent spent on this project was needed for the cause, and that it is necessary for more money to be obtained. But this cannot be verified without a precise account of how the money was spent and what additional money and services are needed. For example, it's unlikely that precisely $25,000 has been spent to date, and a detailed report would indicate how much was spent and on what.

Some may argue that it's not the responsibility of the project owner to specify how they spend the money. I disagree. The money that is being spent only exists because of the contributors, and I feel the contributors should have the right to know exactly what was purchased and from whom.

It's excellent that these guys are putting together a go documentary. I think it's a commendable effort. I think that any doubt about the project could totally be cleared out by having a clear and detailed description of how the money of contributors is being spent.

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be immersed

If I had to guess, I would say the simplest explanation is "Some people who were making their first feature length documentary underestimated the costs by a factor of 2". Lots of large projects have costs people aren't anticipating, or have the scope expand prior to completion...It's not uncommon in project management to pad a budget up front with a fudge factor to account for this. Of course if you're pitching your project to a crowd-sourced grassroots funding website, instead of adding an extra 40% for unknown costs that will inevitably arise, you probably aim low to make sure you have a project at all in the first place.

We could go back and forth, and discuss what production costs should have been, what they have been, what has been done, what could have been done, what should have been done, ad nauseum...but at the end of the day it is going to boil down to two questions: "Do you think this project is worth it?" and "Do you really trust these guys?". Beyond that our other discussions will be largely academic.

Personally, I think the AGA pro system has a chance to be an important event in Western go history. If it's going to be documented, this is our shot at doing it. If it's going to be documented and completed, I'd like to see it done well, up to and including hiring film making professionals to help polish the project. In the long term this project has the potential to pay dividends for the go community if it has mass appeal and can bring in a new flux of players.

Likewise, for me personally, even being fairly inactive in the AGA last year (I think I made it to one AGA tournament? maybe 5 club meetings?) I managed to see them filming events twice. They've been traveling far and wide both in North America and East Asia, and if you believe their website they have 400 hours of film. They now have to figure out how to throw away 99.5%...I could understand if that was an unexpectedly large task, and can further understand why there might be some anticipated costs here. I don't think it's some people who have been active in the AGA trying to cash in on their years of trust building in some kind of hustle.

If I have to answer the questions: "Do I think this project is worth it?" and "Do I really trust these guys?" my answers are going to be "Yes" and "Yes". It's going to be up to everyone else to figure out their own answers, but I've made my choice.

I think they should be clearer about what they do and don't need, whether they ran over their budget, or are expanding their goals, etc. But I'm also with Mef that my gut reaction is to trust these guys, that they're giving every reason to believe that they're doing a lot of work (21 updates that I've received as someone who gave money in the initial Kickstarter drive).

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Maybe you could ask for some percentage of ownership. IE you own X% of whatever it is they produce forever subsequently are entitled to royalties. It is the old Angel investor trick. Angel investors are usually more than willing to add additional funds under those terms. Some people call them Angels, others call them Sharks take your pick.

Does anybody know these guys? Does/did kickstarter mention names? How long a history do they have with the AGA?

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The general public has no clue how expensive and unpredictable film production is. If they knew how movies/documentaries were produced, they would stand in sheer shock at the absurdity of it. I have a good friend who is in the middle of post-production on a documentary about the Rubik design studio and the obstacles being encountered are insane and typical.

I understand the naive notion that Kickstarter "investors" should have access to detailed accounting data, but if the project is a professional-calibre feature film or documentary that is simply never going to happen. Transparency in film production does not exist, and probably never will. This is true regardless of how it is funded.

From my perspective, this is an amusing intersection between grass roots crowd sourcing and (commercial) film production, two worlds with virtually no philosophical or ethical common ground. And I don't say that to disparage these particular filmmakers or their (undoubtedly) good and honest intentions. I'm sure they are learning these cold hard realities right along with their Kickstarter supporters.

Mef, while I agree that the issue of trust is important, I disagree that discussions of transparency are academic (in the non-practical sense of the word), and to do so would be to brush off a very important aspect of community supported activities.

For the long-term success of fundraising for go, it's essential that those willing to support the cause know clearly what they are actually paying for. I'm *not* saying that those that support such activities necessarily have any decision making power once they have agreed to give their money.

But the very fact that someone has supported this cause and is now questioning their actions (as evidenced by this thread) indicates that the individual may, at the very least, feel more hesitant to support a fundraiser related to go in the future. This is very sad. It's not that the OP did not trust those making the documentary - if he did not trust them, he would not have paid them money to begin with. To say that his doubt, which caused him to start this thread, was because of a "lack of trust" would be belittling of his original contribution.



It would sadden me if a group of people that have raised so much money from people that love go would cause for the community to doubt their intentions, when it could all be easily fixed by simply providing clear and detailed communication of what the money is being spent on.

If community-sponsored go activities are ever to become widespread, the community needs to really feel like they are a part of what is being produced. This can't happen when you take the community's money and close doors to the details of what's happening.

Doing this not only promotes trust, but it allows for trust to be strengthened and reinforced as people experience the joy of watching the project unfold. It would be a large mistake to shove such an opportunity under the rug as "largely academic."

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be immersed

As may be evidenced by my other posts on this topic, I am someone who holds this "naive notion." I very much agree that film production can be expensive, which is exactly why providing detailed accounting data could be very informative to the public!

I am not experienced with film production, but I know for a fact that a number of sponsored organizations do provide transparency in this information, which allows for supporters to really know that they are a real part of what is being produced. Forgive my ignorance, but why can't this happen in film production? What differentiates film production such that they are unable to act as some other community-supported organizations that are able to provide such information?

And as a second question, can you see the difficulty that might arise in the long term when a community-funded organization refuses to provide this type of transparency?

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be immersed

Yes, Joaz. The Kickstarter website lists five people, several of whom have been organized various things.

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I am also one of the naive supporters and I received a T-Shirt and a Go stone and postcards and enthusiastic reports. That made me happy.
If I trust the team that means: I trust their intentions und I'd never blame them for being naive themselves.

This project is going to become a great success regarding the spreading of Go in the western world. I am sure of this. And I consider putting in some more money - but first I have to convince my wife

Cheers,
Rainer
(GoChild GoRo with 1658856 points)

Ultimately, here's my gut instinct. High contributors got expensive rewards like go boards paid for, signed and shipped to them for free; special cameras and equipment were bought; they've gone or are going to several tournaments in the USA, Canada, China and Korea; this is all on their kickstarter page, so they knew this was going to happen before they even started. They promised a film if we turned up $15k, but paid for expensive trips to China and Korea before asking whether they'd have enough left over to produce it. They got almost double what they wanted, and now they "need" to double it again, or else the project doesn't get completed. Everyone here seems so trusting, but I can't trust anyone who asks for $15k, gets $25k and works as if they have $55k. What am I missing?

To Mef's questions: (a) do I think it's worth what? $15k? Yes. $55k? No. It's worth exactly what it takes to produce and nothing more. (b) Do I trust them to do what? Genuinely want to make a film, and not run away with contributors' money? Yes. Ask the go community for help or advice, or consult them for ideas on how to use their money? No. Be responsible with their money, use it efficiently, be honest about how much they need and where it goes? No.

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

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:


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.

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

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/

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