Kickstarter in the Community: From script to crowdfunding to screen

Vancouver screening of short film ‘Indigo’

By Cheryl Minns, Arts Editor

When Vancouver writer and director Jody Wilson came up with the short film Indigo, she put the project on Kickstarter in order to raise $60,000 to cover production costs. After a 26-day campaign that concluded on October 6, 2014, the project raised $60,140 from 148 backers. One year later, on November 11, the film appeared on the big screen at the Rio Theatre for a sold-out, one-night-only screening.

“I’m super proud of the film,” Wilson said as she introduced the show. “The thing that I’m most proud of is that, for mostly everyone on this film, it is the first film that they’ve ever done.”

The 20-minute short film follows Takumi (Kohei Shinozaki), a teenager who becomes convinced he’s an alien prince after he can’t cope with the deaths of his parents. He’s obsessed with returning to his home planet, and follows the guidance of his toy robot Doka (voiced by Rintaro Sawamoto), which he believes is a guardian in disguise that was sent to protect him on Earth. He’s also obsessed with the teenage girl next door, Yoshimi (Elizabeth Davison), who he imagines seeing all the time but has only made eye contact with 14 times.

Wilson described Indigo in her Kickstarter video as a Japanese movie that offers a glimpse inside the complicated mind of a troubled young man. The short film is done in Japanese with English subtitles because, according to Wilson, it is a Japanese story that needed to be told in that language. This was an interesting choice for the team since most of them don’t speak Japanese.

“We had a lot of great Japanese people who helped us and made sure we got it right,” Wilson said at the screening. “It was really important to me that the film was relatable to a Japanese person if they were to watch it.”

Some of the people involved in the production were the backers from the Kickstarter campaign, who made specific donations for opportunities to participate in the film. Five backers gave at the $1,000 donation level, which allowed them to each submit a prop to be used in the film. One backer gave at the $2,500 donation level for the opportunity to help choose which song plays in the end credits. Two backers gave at the $5,000 donation level, which got them Associate Producer credit on the film and let them choose from any of the previous level rewards.

For more information on Indigo, check out IHeartYoshimi.com