Ashley Tindall Talks Crowdfunding for Documentary Film

Film Title: Cue Queens

Length: A three-episode documentary

Status: Currently fundraising

Shooting Location: Various locations around the world

Budget: Currently fundraising for our initial $50,000 to shoot sufficient footage for a proof-of-concept that we will then pitch to streamers and studios. Our ultimate budget for three one-hour episodes is $2 Million.

Logline: Cue Queens crisscrosses the world to tell the stories of four generations of pool players, from the founders of the world’s first women’s professional tour to the reigning world champions & the teen prodigies pushing the sport to its highest level.

Synopsis: Cue Queens crisscrosses the world and decades to tell how women broke into the sport of pool, changed the face of a sport associated with men and vice and established one of the world's first professional women's sports organizations. These athletes have challenged popular perception of themselves and their sport and are continuing to push the global billiards and media industries for pay equal to their male peers and to win a place at the Olympics. This series will introduce you to a group of unique women living unorthodox lives, from world champions to the teen prodigies speeding along the trail that the veterans blazed, and show you what it takes to pursue your passion and a dream for an entire community.

There are pros and cons to every type of film funding. We caught up with Writer/Director/Producer Ashley Tindall, who is currently fundraising for her newest documentary project, to talk about the process of crowdfunding for documentary film, a project that will shoot in locations around the world.

Planning to crowd fund a short film? Learn from Ashley's experience, and check out her crowdfunding page on Seed&Spark.

How are you planning to fund this documentary project, Cue Queens?

Ashley Tindall: We received $20,000 in initial funding from one billiard industry sponsor plus in-kind donations for hotel rooms and food from the WPBA (Women’s Professional Billiard Association) in order to complete our first shoot. As is typical with documentaries that are not commissioned, I and one of my producers contributed about $10,000 of our own funds as well.

Did you have funding in place before putting together your pitch, or get funding together afterwards?

[AT]: We did a significant amount of research and writing for a pitch deck and pre-interviewing players and interested parties before securing our first funding and planning our first shoot.

As documentary is primarily unscripted, we must raise money from a pitch deck and a lot, a lot, a lot of personal conversations. If people who share your mission (such a raising the profile of pro players) trust that you are doing something high quality that will attract eyeballs and help out their business or organization, they will find a way to offer support even if it’s not just cutting a check. 

What are some of the pros about crowd funding for documentary film? The cons?

[AT]: Crowdfunding requires a lot of planning and staying on top of a million things for the entire duration of the campaign. It is an endurance sport, so you need a team that will weather the anxiety of uncertainty and the tedium of detail work.

However, it is critical for figuring out IF you have an audience and then building that audience. For us, since we want to pitch to streamers, we must prove to execs that there is a viable audience for pool and a hunger to see women’s pool. So we need to raise money AND we need to gain followers and shares and likes across not just our Seed&Spark page but our Facebook and Instagram accounts and views on our YouTube page. We will mine all that data to demonstrate our audience. 

We have just launched our crowdfunding campaign on Seed&Spark. I funded much of my previous feature documentary about three Peace Corps volunteers called 27 Months: Journeys in the Peace Corps back in 2011 on IndieGoGo. I learned a lot with that experience that helped inform how I wanted this campaign to be set up for success. Back in 2011, I was doing it by myself from West Africa with very few contacts on social media and an inability to log in daily to post updates and thanks from my room in a Lutheran hostel or from airport benches. I knew I needed help, a long time to plan the campaign and to offer contributors something more than “get thanked in the credits”. Also, I needed to show them footage, not just cheerfully pitch them my idea.

A page from the Cue Queens pitch deck

Our Cue Queens campaign took almost two months to plan for five people, including myself as Director/Producer and my two other Producers, one of whom is a former pro player, and the other an experienced BBC director with close relationships with several of the players we are following. We knew we had an excellent team to make the film, but we weren’t super skilled in outreach.

We needed to find our audience in the pool community before we ever launched a campaign. We brought on a Social Media Producer who is a pro pool player with lots of media/TV experience who was excited to support the project and 100% willing to reach out to her personal contacts on our behalf. She started posting on Facebook and Instagram about the players we’d already filmed with and about upcoming filming. We asked the players we’d interviewed to start sharing our posts as well since many of them already have a substantial following. 

In addition, we brought on an Impact Producer for the following reasons: 

1. She was enthusiastic about the project as an amateur pool player and pool fan

2. She had run a previously successful crowdfunding campaign

3. She would volunteer until we could raise enough to pay her

As I worked with an editor using our initial footage to craft a fundraising video, the Social Media and Impact Producers started publicizing our project. We had a logo designed, decided on a branding style (colors, fonts, etc) that would give consistency to our posts and built our own website. We decided to do a live fundraiser toward the end of the crowdfunding campaign to capitalize on some of the players being a draw for VIPs in New York who might give more money for a chance to have an in-person experience. 

A page from the Cue Queens pitch deck

We contacted all the players that we have filmed with as well as a long list of industry sponsors (think: billiard table manufacturers, pool cue makers, etc) to ask for donations that we could use as incentives for the campaign. That included both tangible (like signed jerseys) and intangible (online lessons or Q&As with players) so that we could manage the costs of the campaign most efficiently, such as reducing shipping costs and the time we needed to commit to deliverables.

What is your long-term vision for the project? 

[AT]: We are planning to film with several players on the road this summer and then edit together a 15-minute proof-of-concept piece that will show a bit of the past, present and future of the world of women’s billiards and have sequences that demonstrate that our three main players are characters that you will want to follow for the next two years. Once we have that and a pitch deck and revised budget, we will approach several media companies that have excellent track records with producing sports documentaries to potentially bring aboard an executive producer or partner with the company. From there we will take the project to Netflix or Disney/Hulu or other streamers to co-produce. If we can raise enough with a strong partner, we will film for the next two years, then have a year of post-production and then be ready for distribution in 2027 or early 2028.

Did you learn anything about crowdfunding for documentary film that you will do differently on your next project? 

[AT]: Right now we feel good about our team members’ skill sets and energy and that we have built so many relationships with players, their governing organization (the WPBA) and industry partners that we will have a successful crowdfunding campaign. I also feel that I have not overspent on my first two shoots for the amount of footage that will translate into editable sequences (i.e. lots of bang for the buck).

However, I do constantly revise my budgets and my ideas about future shooting, including sacrificing things that I want, in order to stay within budget. 

Even as this current field of professional women proves time and again that they can compete right alongside with and BEAT their male counterparts, prize payouts are not equal for women and men.

Any fun anecdotes you'd like to share? 

[AT]: On our last shoot in April with Allison Fisher, widely regarded as the GOAT of women’s billiards, at her home in North Carolina, we were filming her doing jump shots and bank shots and trick shots. In order to get a privileged perspective on the ball’s journey to the pocket, we filmed with a probe lens on an FX3 on a dolly stretched across her pool table.

As she made shot after amazing shot, the lens was so close to the action on the table, that we frequently had to bat a ball away before it could hit the lens. I always carry insurance on a production, but it’s better to sacrifice the shot than damage an expensive rented lens. It’s worth the time to tweak the equipment, reset lights, politely ask your tired talent for another take, in order to get the shot.

What else do you think people will be interested in knowing?

[AT]: If you are going to companies or private businesses that have some interest in your film — perhaps its message, its topic or its cast — they will want something in return for their support, of course. Be prepared to offer an investor or partner agreement or to show their product in your film on YOUR terms. It doesn’t have to be “selling out” or compromising your vision or the story if you can control how the product is used and if their support helps your film see the light of day. Just have your own agreement ready so that you control the terms.

Thanks for sharing, Ashley! Cannot wait to see this project come together!

Writer/Director/Producer Ashley Archer Tindall

About Ashley Archer Tindall

Director/Producer/Writer Ashley Archer Tindall has produced for National Geographic, HBO, and PBS as well as nonprofits organizations and universities. Her feature-length crowdfunded documentary 27 Months: Journeys in the Peace Corps followed the transformations of three Peace Corps volunteers in Azerbaijan, Liberia and the Philippines. She is a competitive rower and fierce champion of women's sports.