Production

How the numbers work

4 May, 2014 |  8 Comments | by Ton Roosendaal

Supporters

Screen Shot 2014-05-04 at 12.40.39A supporter is someone who decides to support the project by donating about $225 for a film credit, paid in advance or in monthly terms via subscription.

For teams and companies we offer group discounts (25 to 40%). In total we added about 250 Supporters this way.

To weight our Bronze/Silver/Gold sponsors similar to group accounts, we count them as 3, 7 or 20 Supporters respectively. Some might actually convert their sponsorship to a corporate cloud subscription later.
All these bigger sponsors count in total for 370 Supporters. 

Startup funding

This is the actual amount of money that’s been pledged and/or has been paid already (for the first 3 months cloud especially). The startup costs will allow is to invest in preparing well, and give the studio partners an advance as well.

Note that almost 2000 people in total have pledged or donated for Gooseberry already, every small donation counts!

Grand total

This is the startup funding + the 15 months of additional cloud subscription income. The grand total we expect – with 10,000 supporters – is almost $2.5M. That then is 1/3rd of the total film budget still.

The actual numbers

5720: Total amount of cloud.blender.org registrations
4400*: Total amount of people who donated, or pledged, or joined cloud.
3380: The amount we call “Supporters”
2760: Total amount of paying cloud subscriptions (not including the ‘free’ accounts for teams, companies, sponsors)
1870: Total amount of people who pledged a donation (can overlap with subscriptions)

These numbers add up to very impressive totals already. All of these people want us to make awesome free/open content and software – and be involved with it, in one way or another. Where is the threshold to define if or when we can do a feature film? That’s the next blog post – about feature film budgets and the work it takes to do film.

-Ton-

(* to be confirmed, needs additional sql magic, will check asap :)


8 Responses

  1. Anton says:

    Hey Ton,
    In the comments I see you answering the same questions again and again.
    You put a lot of efford in the blender cloud already, make it visible to people who havent subscribed yet!

    Two ideas on that:

    People want to see, what blender cloud looks like inside, before they subscribe.
    Just do a short screencast of Francesco logging into Blender Cloud and showing how great it is and how you will be able to interact and take part in movie production!
    Its something I am very curious about myself, because I pledged and my Account will only get activated if the goal is reached!

    This inofficial Trailer by Gabriel Hackett is exactly, what’s missing on the campain page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QUmbQRiaHU
    Maybe you could make it “official” and add it to the Tabs “Story”, “Team”, etc?
    Or ask the author, if he could provide a customized official version.
    This would be a first step to make use of the community…

    So thanks for your great efford so far and I hope, we will make the movie!

    • Thomas says:

      Hi Anton,
      we got several movies with insights into the Blender cloud already like Sebastians or this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO8y48bJRFU&feature=player_detailpage&list=PLfceNesfWvLUv-7eplXEB5UAvkdJ-QA9V

      I don’t think that the lack of insights is stopping people from subscribing – I talked a lot with different community members and and “outsiders” – all came to the point that they miss the physical “value” of the donation. They want something in their hands to show to friends, put in their bookshelves or take with them to show others.

      I donated already in the first days a substantial amount and I know how important this campaign is for Blender & for the independent movie industry – but I got the impression that many are awaiting some physical goodie.

      Let me finish with a big “Thanks Ton for your vision, your efforts and believe in the community – together we will create an awesome software & movie – no matter if we make it or not.”

      Greetings, Thomas

      • I support Gooseberry,
        because Blender deserves a chance.

        Blender needs opportunities to assert itself with full-length movies.
        Commercial software had this opportunity.

        Lets help Blender to close that gap.

  2. shashank singh says:

    @Anton : Sebastian Konig did a blender cloud video on https://vimeo.com/89337027

  3. Thomas says:

    Hi,
    it’s chilling to see that the numbers are crawling slowly, very slowly…

    Is there a chance to post something on slashdot, Ton?

    The release of Blender 2.70 was not mentioned there nor the awesome gooseberry project (or the Blender cloud, which I’m really, really waiting for!). We have three days left, and a few slashdotters can make a difference. :-)

    Like many others, I’ve pledged and will not step back from it.

    Thomas

  4. JG Loquet says:

    I know we’re below the mark, but you were (right to be) ambitious !

    It’s already a huge, record breaking engagement of the community,
    so that’s already a big step for the blenderheads worldwide ..

    Head high for the finish !

  5. Gerry says:

    How about looking at this a little differently, what your doing on the support side is great! But a longer term funding needs to be worked on, why not (If and when the film is made) say the first 12 months after release any revenue in made in theaters (released as a normal film) the profit be put back into the Blender foundation for future work, then the film is released as a full open source. Of course any contributor would have full access to the movie and movie assets, and the early rights to incorporate it into there work. This could be the avenue to provide some funding for future projects, and still keep the project open (after 12 months), since any movie must really re-cope there production cost in that time frame.

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