Seed&Spark powers stories from everywhere. Anyone can participate. Everyone belongs.
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A new model for creators
Seed&Spark is building a new studio model, with fair and transparent business practices. We provide every filmmaker the opportunity to create a sustainable career, no matter where they live or what they look like.
We build a better world when all voices can be heard.
Seed&Spark delivers education, tools and resources that create access for all storytellers to get their work made and seen. We want to ensure creators can build a better future for themselves and their communities by retaining ownership and building career equity with each new project.
New work, new world
Because we’re creating a path for talent to rise up outside of the conventional gatekeeper systems, Seed&Spark gets wild and wonderful new movies and shows made at a record pace. Hundreds of shorts, features and series come to life each year. Creators who come here don’t just want to make a living: they want to move the culture forward. We’re committed to constantly innovating and building new pathways for creators to build sustainable careers while maximizing the cultural impact of their work.
Building bridges & expanding empathy
Community is built by people, so in order for our creators’ work to make an impact, it has to reach people outside of streaming algorithms and online ads. It has to reach them where they spend their time with others - where they live and where they work. Seed&Spark bridges online and offline experiences connecting people - in person - through stories that matter.
These are the principles from which we will not depart. They reflect the standards by which we conduct business and our vision for building a sustainable and balanced future.
Empathy
Empathy not only helps us understand the world around us, but shines a light on the world inside us. We build and use our platform and technology with the same devotion to empathy as the stories our efforts support.
Community
We believe empathy is built through community and communication. We connect filmmakers and audiences, collaborators and peers, like and unlike perspectives.
Integrity
We care about sustainability, transparency, accountability and honesty. We act with integrity with our filmmakers and our audiences, and we hold our content to the same standards. We are not afraid to challenge even the most core assumptions that drive our industry if it means more effectively delivering sustainability for artists.
Creative energy
We strive to be an unstoppable force of relentless positivity and momentum. We make space for entrepreneurship, creation, empowerment, originality, independence and rebellion. We are problem-solvers. We are solutions-oriented.
Belonging
We celebrate all identities and perspectives. We’re here to champion the most diverse set of stories and ideas and make it possible for everyone’s story, no matter how specific or personal, to be seen as universal.
"Storytelling can change the world – when everyone can see themselves reflected in the stories we share, we empower all people to take part in shaping how we see our past, our present and our future."
Our story
In 2011, film producer Emily Best was working with an all-female team to makeLike the Water, a film they hoped would be at least a drop in the bucket toward more holistic representation of women on the big screen. Unsurprisingly, they hit every imaginable roadblock in putting the project together, and with just 60 days left before they were scheduled to start shooting, she needed to find $20,000 to finishing financing production. Taking inspiration from the wedding registry model, she and her team created a simple website that listed the items they needed to finish the film — camera, car rentals, grip and electric, coffee — and included a PayPal to accept donations.
Over the next month they raised $23,000 in cash – and more than $200,000 in loans and gifts of locations, goods and services.Like the Waterwould go on to play more than 20 festivals around the world, and the lessons Best learned while crowdfunding – and then trying to get distribution for her film – became the foundation of Seed&Spark.
It was too powerful to keep to herself. She and co-founder Erica Anderson got in the car and took their knowledge and tools to the people. They drove across the country and back teaching workshops to creators on building sustainable careers through crowdfunding. In 35 workshops in 65 days, they weren’t just teaching — they were learning about the challenges faced by storytellers from every background in almost every state in the country. Those learnings came back with them to LA, where we built Seed&Spark’s technology and processes not with a coastal mentality in mind, but with the real human needs of communities diverse both demographically and geographically.
Since that initial proof-of-concept website for a single film and subsequent cross-country road trip, the Seed&Spark team has developed a best-in-industry crowdfunding platform that retains the storytelling focus and key features that contributed toLike the Water’s success. And it worked: Seed&Spark’s crowdfunding platform has the highest campaign success rate in the world and is the foundation of a broader creative platform that supports creator sustainability and increases representation in all stages of storytelling — from audience building and funding all the way through many channels of high-impact distribution.
It’s been an incredible journey...we’re still just getting started.
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