He calls it "a historic moment." He calls it "an emotional moment." In Spike Lee's latest YouTube joint, he emphatically thanks Jesus and his financial backers for crowdfunding his next film.
Lee set a goal of $1.25 million on Kickstarter, which was met on Friday with five days remaining in the month-long campaign. The distinguished filmmaker even dropped a few f-bombs out of excitement while thanking fans and Jesus. He later apologized for "those couple of profane words."
The film is a love story thriller about humans who are addicted to blood, according to its description on Kickstarter.
As of Saturday evening, 35 backers contributed $10,000 or more to the project for rewards that include a spot on the film's crew and one of the four existing X American flags from the opening credits of Malcolm X. Lee and the film's star, Denzel Washington, possess two of the others.
Lee even gave away 28 of his wife's court-side New York Knicks tickets to $10,000-level backers.
On the campaign page for the project, Lee addresses questions critics have posed about why an already successful filmmaker would resort to crowdfunding, which is a more common course for young up-and-comers.
I’m an Indie Filmmaker and I will always be an Indie Filmmaker. Indie Filmmakers are always in search of financing because their work, their vision sometimes does not coincide with Studio Pictures. But I do put my own money in my films. I self-financed RED HOOK SUMMER. My fee for MALCOLM X was put back into the budget. The truth is I’ve been doing KICKSTARTER before there was KICKSTARTER, there was no Internet. Social Media was writing letters, making phone calls, beating the bushes. I’m now using TECHNOLOGY with what I’ve been doing.
He also references "a study done that had data to prove we did not hurt the young filmmakers on Kickstarter," though he doesn't link to the research or specify who conducted it.
The campaign closes August 21.