Internet Pushes Kirkwood Movie Toward Big Screen

Crowd-funding, a form of supporting artistic projects through small online donations, can give moviemakers the push they need to see their visions through or fall on blind eyes. For independent film Casualties of the State, Internet users saw the potential of the Kirkwood-produced FBI thriller and stepped up to the plate.

Casualties of the State, a film that examines political elites profiting at the expense of U.S. lives, needed $5200 to cover post-production costs such as sound mixing, special effects, color correction and a musical score.

Its crowd-funding campaign on IndieGoGo . By the time funding closed May 7, the movie had netted $6000.

Before the start of the campaign, writer and producer Alan Lamberg, a full-time geospatial analyst for the , studied successful and unsuccessful online funding drives.

"One of the most significant ones I observed was an old college friend of mine, Mike Flanagan, who wrote and produced Abstentia," Lamberg said.

In his studies, Lamberg discovered that campaigns that offer behind-the-scenes features tended to do better. The Casualties of the State campaign posted weekly interviews with cast and crew members, as well as casting director Michael Ketcher.

Lamberg and Corner Film Productions offered generous perk packages for different donation levels ranging from $5-$750 and added an element of humor and engagement with a separate leg waxing campaign where for every $150 donation, gaffer Michael Leight had to sacrifice an inch of leg hair. The drive was aptly named "Casualty of the Leg."

Lamberg and colleagues will take Casualties of the State to independent film festivals this summer and fall with the goal of getting the movie distributed by the end of the year.

"If we can generate enough excitement in another city, a whole other audience base will be out there which will help when it comes time to distribute the film," Lamberg said.