After raising gallons of money on Kickstarter from fans, Zach Braff is now out and about defending his decision to do so. Most recently, he spoke with the filmmakers behind the upcoming documentary Kickstarted. Looking manically disheveled, Braff passionately talks about his relationship to crowdsourcing, and how he was inspired to try it out after giving money to a Kickstarter project to develop lights that illuminate bicycle tires. Much of the video, however, is a response to criticism that he apparently read (he admitted to reading blog comments). He explained that this campaign will only finance a part of the film’s entire budget (which he estimates to be about $5-6 million), and that more than anything, it was about building community. And if you don’t want in on that community, Braff doesn’t care: “If you hate me and Garden State… this is not the club for you.â€
Also, in defending Braff news, Kickstarter published a blog post yesterday defending him and other famous people who want to use their site. Besides pointing out that Braff’s Wish I Was Here and the Veronica Mars movie fit their guidelines, they rebut claims that they distract from the site’s smaller projects, saying they’ve brought tens of thousands of new people to the site – 63 percent of which had never backed a project before. Moreover: “Thousands of [these new people] have since gone on to back other projects, with more than $400,000 pledged to 2,200 projects so far.â€
So does everyone love Zach Braff now? No? Well, either way, you can watch or hate-watch his interview below: