Zach Braffs Garden State is a film that means a lot to me. It is a movie that I enjoy on a superficial level where I find it funny and entertaining and also on a deeper level, in that its themes of isolation and losing a sense of home have felt uncannily relevant as I enter my twenties. I wouldnt say that Garden State falls within my top ten favourite movies of all time, but I would say that the connection I feel to it is very rare, and only a handful of films have engaged me in this way previously. Also, I cant stress enough how much I love Scrubs, that show is essential late afternoon viewing in my university household. Therefore, when a chance to help to finance Zachs follow up film, Wish I Was Here presented itself, I jumped at the opportunity. On the 25th of April 2013 I officially became a proud backer of the film on the website Kickstarter. I donated $30 for the pleasure and as a result of this will receive a live screening of the film online, a copy of the script, sneak peeks of the soundtrack and production diaries. As a fan of films and filmmaking this is well worth the investment and I honestly wish I could have donated more, but unfortunately as a student it would have probably meant sacrificing eating for a week.
Following pledging the money, my friend and I checked the counter on the Kickstarter page nearly every waking hour until it hit the target amount of $2 million dollars to finance the film. When this target was surpassed I was glad that I had been a part of this achievement and truly felt like part of a community that cared about getting this film made. Since then I have received what has seemed like daily updates from Zach Braff about casting announcements and production decisions (and I couldnt be happier with the casting of Anna Kendrick, Josh Gad and Mandy Patinkin so far). Having enjoyed being a part of the Wish I Was Here experience so much, I have been surprised at the amount of backlash that Zach has received online and in international press for deciding to crowd-source funding for the film. Most of the criticism has been directed at the fact that an established Hollywood star should not be using Kickstarter as it draws attention away from smaller indie projects on the site. I find this argument utterly ridiculous. Prior to Wish I Was Here, though I had heard of Kickstarter, I was never tempted to go on the website to check out if there were any projects I would be interested in donating to. The publicity of Zachs decision to source the film in this way made me check out other projects and though I havent donated to any of them yet (again student, I have to eat and drink), I certainly intend to do so in the future. I am sure that I am not alone in this and that other people have found themselves looking at the wealth of other projects that Kickstarter has to offer. I dont see how bringing more publicity to the site can be seen as a bad thing. Also, the ethics of the operation have come under scrutiny. People have questioned if it is right to get a group of people to help finance a film when they will not receive a cut of the profits. Again, I find this argument fundamentally flawed. Nobody forced me to invest in Wish I Was Here. Nobody held a gun to my head and insisted I give Zach Braff all my money. I invested on my own accord as a fan of Zach as a filmmaker and as a film fan. I did not and do not expect a cut of the profits, I have paid for the privilege to be part of a community that wants to see a film get made and who want to get inside details of the production process. Again, Im fairly sure that my circumstances are fairly common with the other investors, either that or Zach Braff has been extremely busy running around the world holding people to ransom.
This morning I awoke to find another email from Zach, which explained the recent controversy to hit the production. Some news outlets have been reporting that, following the Kickstarter endeavour, the production has received backing from a financial company, something Zach said he hoped to avoid when he started the project. It was explained in the email that this is what is known as Gap Financing, where a company has agreed to fill in the gaps between the money raised so far and the budget until foreign distribution rights are secured. For me this seems completely reasonable and as long as Zach retains full creative control and final cut of the film I honestly couldnt care less where the rest of the budget comes from. At the end of the day I would prefer to have helped finance a good film that got backing from elsewhere than a bad film where the budget doesnt match the ambition. I do accept, however, that scrutiny on the financing of the film like this is to be expected due to the relatively unique nature of the funding so far. So, I would just like to say to the international press (yeah, they all read my articles) that I am proud to be a backer of Wish I Was Here and to stop bashing my film, our film.