Indiewire’s Crowdfunding Market scours Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and other crowdfunding sites to find awesome films looking for distribution and outreach funds and filmmaking tools that deserve your support. Because these projects will be for films and helpful filmmaking tools that have already been made, we try to focus more on what you’ll get for your donation. Below, you’ll find our latest discovery.
A/V Geeks Digitizing Fundraiser
What is it?
The A/V Geeks have spent the last two decades salvaging over 24,000 old 16mm educational films from landfills, dumpsters, basements and closets. Out of these 24,000 films, they are hoping to digitize 100 miles (over 240 hours) of public domain films and make them freely and universally accessible at Archive.org. Some of these films have not been seen in over 80 years – and the founders of A/V Geeks believe that these 16mm films, in addition to entertaining and informing us, are crucial in remembering and learning about our cultural past. By digitizing these films, we will be able to access these cultural artifacts even when projectors are entirely gone.
The A/V Geeks’ Tumblr allows access to the films that have been digitized so far. Check out our interview with A/V Geeks founder Skip Elsheimer here.
What are funds being raised for?
Money raised for this project will allow the A/V Geeks to portion out the necessary time, equipment and resources to make the digitization of these films possible. They are hoping to amass $50,000 to digitize 100 miles of film (each mile of film costs about $500 to digitize). Every $1 contribution will provide the A/V Geeks with the appropriate funds to put up a short 1970s TV commercial; every $35 donation will digitize 10 minutes of film; every $500 will allow for 1 mile of film to be shared online for public access.
What can you get for donating?
There are many, varying perks for donating to the cause — T-shirts, stickers, DVDs, posters, an A/V Geeks screening at your event — and help the A/V Geeks pick which films to digitize.
To reference the complete list of prizes, check out A/V Geeks’ crowdfunding page and look to the right sidebar.
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