Time of the Sixth Sun

There's an Indie film called Time of the Sixth sun about the Mayan calendar and the expansion of consciousness that's supposed to happen in 2012. Most films are made with the help of a few wealthy investors contributing to it to fund the project. These people are doing it in an entirely different, unique way. Instead of finding 13 investors that will fund $100,000 a piece, they're looking for 130,000 individual people to donate whatever they can. In turn, these people get listed as contributors on their website. Barack Obama raised a ton of money for his campaign by appealing to the average Joe for 5, 10, 20 bucks or whatever they could afford, and his campaign raised more money than McCain's.
I love this idea! I met a producer once for a film that was being done on ASU's campus and he said most investors for movies are orthodontists, or lawyers - not artists. And because they're backing the project, they'll want their girlfriend - who's never had an acting lesson in her life - to be the star. And since they're ponying up the bucks, they get it.
You get to call your own shots if you do it the other way - where you have a lot of smaller investors. Plus, I love the holistic quality to this idea. It's really about creating a community, which is why I think Obama is so popular - because the people really put him in office. We counted as individuals, because he valued what we could give - even if it was only 5 bucks.