This might bounce around a bit, but feel free to follow along....
OK, the KODT:LAS Kickstarter funded for $69,525. IIRC KS fees take 10% off the top so Ken "Whit" Whitman's take for the campaign is $62,572.50. On August 7th, 2015 Ken "Whit" Whitman threw up a list of "expenses". Now most of them are BS because most of the "product" is a no-show, but let us assume that the expenses listed for filming ($30,100) were legit. That leaves $32,472.50 in Kenny's pocket towards fulfillment...which largely went unfilled, but not the point of this post (for now).
Also on August 7th, 2015 Ken "Whit" Whitman claims to have "invested" an additional $20K of his $40K of possible income from 2014 back into the KODT:LAS project. This "investment" left him only earning $25K for that year. The simple fact that $40,000 - $20,000 = $20,000 and not $25,000 is beyond the scope of this post. Since we don't know if this "extra" $20K is Ken's cut from the $32,472.50, we'll give the man the benefit of the doubt and add it in so we have a new total of $47,472.50.
"So, I don't want anyone to believe that they did not get their money for this wonderful project.
Also....
Actors .... $6000
Crew... $5600
Travel ... $1800
Rooms... $5400
Food.... $3200
Costumes and props ... $1900
Equipment rental .... $ 6200
Kickstarte fee. .... $ 6900
Books... 3200
Tshirts ... 600
Shipping if books and shirts ... 1600
Editing ... 4800
Dvd production ... 1800
Shipping .... $5000
New car .... 0
Business fees/printing ... 500
Gen con expenses... 1100
Meetings in il .... 400"
Now according to Jolly, Ken "Whit" Whitman concocted a plan to "raise money" halfway through the KODT:LAS by essentially taping the actors doing some KoDT "Live Readings" to make an audio book. Kenny claims to have spent $15,000 on this failed venture. Scratching off that money we still have $13,472.50 free and clear....well not so free since this would have Kenny losing $6527.50 of his "additional" $20K investment in the project.
"And in answer to the matter of the KODT audio books. NO - Ken never had permission. It was something he wanted to do midway through KODTLAS to 'raise money' for the project."See this is where I try to understand things here. If Ken "Whit" Whitman clearly didn't need to raise any additional funds midway through the KODT:LAS project. By the number given he was $8,472.50 ahead of the game....and this number should have been much higher since we know he did a lot of product selling off-book, and speaking of books.....his expenses were far below what he had stated.
Since we're only going with the given numbers here....he is still ahead $8,472.50 up until this new effort at an un-authorized KoDT Audio Book. Personally I don't understand why you'd go in the hole $6,527.50 for an un-approved project. This just doesn't make sense.
The numbers, if taken verbatim, add up, but the need for an additional personal investment and/or an additional funding project don't...unless the original numbers given were false and/or Ken "Whit" Whitman was just greedy*. According to Ken "Whit" Whitman's latest projects, we know he has camera equipment that was purchased, not rented. We also know that the KoDT:LAS "backer items" were barely fulfilled, if at all. We also know that Ken "Whit" Whitman either lied about the car he bought or fraudulently "borrowed" a new car for the shoot.
*I'm personally inclined to think both as they are not mutually exclusive, but that is just an opinion.
Does anybody know more information about the Chrysler 300 (cost and/or profit off of it)? He has it listed as costing $0.00. Would that figure fit into this cost rundown?
ReplyDeleteDon't forget:
ReplyDelete1) Kickstarter took a percentage.
2) Amazon was still doing payment processing at the time. They took a percentage.
3) A small percentage of backers will have cards that didn't go through. That'll be another small percentage off the top.
just for the record the audio books he had planned would have cost zero dollars initially - only his time. His plan was to have the actors read directly from the comics while he had them on the film location after hours. They wouldn't have been paid (according to him) and simply given a royalty. He had them read two steps as I recall on the shoot after hours as a proof of concept to pitch the idea after KODTLAS was finished. At best he spent $40 bucks for pizza and beer while they read the strips over a period of two hours.
ReplyDelete