Kung-Fu, Kickstarter, and how crowdfunding is changing cinema

Struck by lightning and bitten by a cobra, Kung Fury is a kung-fu freak of nature and the chosen one. Working as a cop on streets drenched in neon and soaked in synth pop, he defends 1980’s Miami. Enter Adolf Hitler, A.K.A. the Kung-Führer. On a temporal murder spree to prove his supremacy, Hitler must be stopped. With the help of his friends Hackerman, Triceracop (it’s exactly what you think), and the Norse god Thor (to name but a few) Kung Fury must travel back in time to defeat the Third Reich and take down the worst criminal in history.

If any of that got you thinking “this is ridiculous, I love it”, then join the crowd. Specifically, the almost eighteen thousand others who, like you, thought this thing should be made, and crowdfunded David Sandberg on Kickstarter. On the strength of a short trailer made with his friends, online backers gave the Swedish filmmaker $630,019 to make a 30 minute long movie , just because they thought it looked awesome. Their faith was rewarded.

Kung Fury is an homage and loving parody to the totally over the top, enthrallingly ridiculous cop shows of the 80’s. It’s cheesy, and it knows it. At its core, it’s a piece of meta-cinema that just wants to have a blast, and pokes fun at the various tropes and cinematographic conventions of shows like Miami Vice and Hawaii-Five-0 to hilarious effect. Indeed, its indulgence of tropes means it’s entirely predictable in the final story outcome, but of course that’s not what matters – what matters is the journey, and making that journey as crazy and entertaining as possible.

Crowdfunding has already altered the bounds of what’s possible in many industries. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the idea is simple: someone with an idea puts their proposal on a crowdfunding site, and when people see an idea they like, they pledge an amount towards the project, sometimes in exchange for rewards such as a copy of the finished product. Many times this simply boils down to people wanting to support a worthy cause, or just thinking something is too cool to not have it exist.

This simple idea has been made possible by the internet age, but when it’s potentially so easy for people to make their own videos and get funding, you’ve got to ask: what does this mean for the medium? When will we see a totally crowdfunded feature length film on the silver screen? The answer is, we already have, and more are on the way. Around half a dozen movie projects have received backing of over $1 million. The biggest of these, Super Troopers 2, is the sequel to the 2001 cult classic crime-comedy detailing the antics of five prankster Vermont state troopers battling budget cuts, Super Troopers. Smashing its $2 million benchmark to end up with almost $4.5 million, it’s scheduled to open sometime in 2016.

More broadly, crowdfunding has had a greater effect on the scale of smaller independent filmmakers, many of whom produce videos on YouTube with high production value. One such channel, CorridorDigital, have produced multiple short films and are currently working on a production of their own movie. Another, RocketJump, has produced three seasons of the series Video Game High School (VGHS) with Kickstarter backing.

The upshot of this is that it’s a great time to be a talented filmmaker. If you’ve got ideas and guts you’re no longer obligated to go through film executives and large production companies to realise your vision. The consequence? Creators can reach a wider audience and still retain creative control over their projects, leading to a diversification of the stories being told in the cinematic medium. Nowadays, it’s a lot more likely that there’ll be something out there to fit your exact tastes, though you may have to do a little digging to find it.

Crowdfunding has and will continue to change what can feasibly be achieved in cinema, making the production of movies a process more intensely involved with its audience. For those with a spare half hour I highly recommend giving Kung Fury a watch and seeing for yourself the first tremors travelling through the world of film. Whatever happens, its sure to be interesting.