Why do we crowdfund? Why do we do events?

If you've been following Dust Wave's exploits since August 2024, you may have noticed a few developments:

• We have launched 7 successful crowdfunding campaigns for Dust Wave short film projects! With several more planned later in 2025.

• We have expanded the number of events, fundraisers, and screenings we host manyfold.

And you may be asking: why? More specifically, why does Dust Wave need all this money? Valid questions, and ones that I intend to answer as thoroughly as the blog format will allow without boring folks to tears.

Movies Cost Money

The heading says it all. Since September 2024, we have raised $36,570 (and counting) through our crowdfunding efforts on Kickstarter (minus platform + processing fees and taxes). Every one of those dollars goes directly to supporting film project costs, including but not limited to:

• Craft services + meals
• Rentals (equipment, transportation, etc.)
• Equipment purchases
• Permits
• Location costs
• Set decoration/art
• Props
• Makeup + costumes
• Crew/cast
• Fundraising fulfillment

Something we’re proud of is how creative we are at controlling costs. We often cater our own productions (thank you Tina!), create our own sets/props/costumes by hand, borrow equipment from our friends (big shout out to MOOD for their generous support), shoot in locations with minimal permit fees or other costs, and most importantly, rely on the good will and passion of filmmakers within our collective (and our creative friends and supporters outside of Dust Wave) to volunteer their time and talents to help make our projects great.

Outside of DIY outfits and collectives like Dust Wave, the creation of one short film can often cost tens of thousands of dollars — or more. And we simply don’t have access to those kinds of resources. At least not yet.

As long as I’m part of Dust Wave, I will always advocate for a scrappy approach to our projects. Often times, limited resources force us to get more creative. Shoot, we built a whole miniature city out of cardboard for our kaiju vs. mech film Movie Monsters — we are most definitely practitioners of DIY.

However, our ultimate goal is to compensate every person that contributes their blood (rarely), sweat, and tears (perhaps less rarely) on our projects what they justly deserve — and on many projects, crowdfunding and fundraiser events have allowed us to get closer to that goal.

Movies Cost Money, Pt. 2

Cool. But what about operating costs? For example:

• Rent
• Insurance
• Software
• Equipment
• Merchandise fulfillment
• Administration

Again, we strive to operate frugally and efficiently. We often purchase second-hand equipment, we screen print T-shirts ourselves, we hand code our websites and host them on Github Pages for free, and we use free software when possible. Dust Wave operates as a multi-member LLC — administrative burden is low compared to other entities, but still significant (GRT payments, annual tax filing, etc.).

Though we don’t skimp on insurance, our studio rental costs are low for the value we get from the space — it serves as a basecamp and sometimes location for our shoots, a storage space for our equipment, and a meeting place for our collective members.

But because our crowdfunding efforts directly support projects, and don’t provide indirect payment for operating costs (and we don’t charge dues to members), the special events we host, the merchandise we sell, and to a lesser extent in 2025, grants, are critical to covering those operating costs.

Events like Dive-In Movies, repertory screenings at the Guild Cinema and other locations, premiere screenings, and merchandise like our T-shirts, stickers, mugs, posters and the like, allow us to do our thing. Thanks to our collective model (and our 40+ beautiful, special individuals that contribute their sweat), we are able to organize, produce, promote, and staff events and create, sell and ship Dust Wave merchandise. Not everything we try is fabulously successful (we try many weird things), but enough succeed to keep us going strong.

Ultimately, we couldn’t do it without our partners, who clearly believe in what we’re doing, and the broader DIY film community, with whom we stand in solidarity.

Promotion

Another benefit of doing all of these additional activities is that they serve as natural vehicles to create awareness, to promote, and to market our film projects. In my experience, transparency in process is not only the right thing to do, but also happens to be a cogent practice.

We love sharing our fundraising campaigns, behind-the-scenes material, our tried-and-true approaches, and anything else we’ve learned along the way — we hope that the material we share inspires fellow filmmakers, artists, collectives, and organizations to make art. In large part, I don’t see the value of competition in this respect — filmmaking is a global practice with a global audience. I believe there’s plenty of room for everyone to make their art.

I also know that in the course of sharing, we create awareness of who we are, what we stand for, and what we make. In an attention economy, this is critical — I’m pretty sure that most of us want our work to be seen and connect with an audience.

So there’s that bonus effect as well. Which is pretty sweet.

Access

As I mentioned before, Dust Wave does not charge dues to our members. I have noticed, particularly in American cinema, the pernicious effects of gatekeeping, nepotism, and other barriers of access to the art of filmmaking. Because of the expensive and time-consuming nature of the craft, working class folks rarely get the chance to be part of that exclusive “above-the-line” club (a term I loathe) and tell their own stories.

For many folks in Dust Wave, crowdfunding and other kinds of grassroots fundraising are some of the few clear paths to seeing their ambitious filmmaking visions come to life. I root like hell for filmmakers that don’t have famous film industry family, or the right connections, or fashionable but disposable, shallow ideas, but do have creativity, vision, humility, and grit in spades. And it seems imperative that they get the support they need from the artists and communities that share their values. When they win, well, score one for the rest of us.

I’ll go one step further and predict that these creators, in the shadow of a dysfunctional, sick behemoth of a film industry, are the future of filmmaking. Or at least I can hope!

We are humble enough to imagine that the way we do things is most certainly not the only way — we take inspiration from others and remain in a permanent state of learning. And undoubtably, as the climate changes, we will change and adapt our methods.

I will say though — I am often surprised by filmmakers for whom crowdfunding (or even fundraising generally) is beneath them.

“Must be nice,” I can’t help but think.

Oh well. Onward!

Alonso Indacochea

Dust Wave co-founder