You’ve heard of projects getting backed on Kickstarter. It’s a lot rarer that projects get backed by Kickstarter.
But that’s exactly what’s happened to Creator Camp.
Here at Tubefilter, we’ve been keeping a sharp eye on Creator Camp. It’s an indie filmmaking initiative turned full-fledged production company that was founded in 2021 by digital creators Max Reisinger, Simon Kim, and Chris Duncan. Its goal? To give digital content creators the funding and production support they need to make big-screen projects without relying on Hollywood.
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Last year, after successfully putting on a 1,000-person film festival in partnership with Patreon, Creator Camp (which up till then had mostly held sporadic creation events for short film-makers) formalized and rented a massive space to turn into a production studio. Not longer after, it unveiled Two Sleepy People, its debut feature-length film written, directed, and starred in by Baron Ryan and Caroline Grossman.
Two Sleepy People was written in 12 days, completed in 100, and follows two coworkers who meet as a married couple in their dreams each night, only to return to being strangers the next morning.
An initial run of the film put it in four theaters across Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. IndieWire reports earnings per screen were around $10,500. Based on its success, Creator Camp snagged a three-picture deal with Attend Theatrical Marketplace, which connects independent filmmakers with movie theaters and other exhibitors who might want to showcase their projects, and sent Two Sleepy Poeple on a longer theater run in November.
Now, Two Sleepy People has snagged support from Kickstarter.
The crowdfunding platform will “support the wide theatrical release of Two Sleepy People,” it said in a press release, praising the film for being “made outside the traditional studio system and carried forward by online community support.”
“The partnership marks a shared commitment between Kickstarter and Creator Camp to champion a new model of independent filmmaking, one where stories are developed in public, backed by communities, and brought to theaters through direct audience engagement rather than traditional gatekeepers,” the duo said.
Kickstarter’s support will help put Two Sleepy People in theaters across the U.S. It’s not clear yet exactly how many screens that will be.
“Kickstarter has always existed to help creators bring bold, original ideas into the world with the support of their communities,” Taylor K. Shaw-Omachonu, Kickstarter’s Film Lead, said in a statement.” Partnering with Creator Camp and Two Sleepy People is a natural extension of that mission. We’re honored to support young filmmakers who are proving that independent stories can still find their way to the big screen. Creator Camp’s model is the future.”
Reisinger, Creator Camp’s CEO, added, “This film is proof that the next generation of directors are emerging from the internet. Kickstarter’s support represents something bigger than sponsorship. It’s a belief in creators, in audiences, and in the idea that independent cinema can still thrive when people are invited to participate in it.”
Reisinger’s use of the word sponsorship there is interesting. In our biz, we’re used to “sponsorship” meaning sponsored content, made by a creator to advertise a brand. But as digital creators secure an ever-larger place in the entertainment industry, we might see more of these sorts of sponsorships, where platforms like Patreon and Kickstarter take almost executive producer roles, helping bring wider distribution to creators’ big-screen passion projects.
