It's not the same thing. A more accurate comparison would be to make a film without having a story or a director or anyone to work on it.
Traditional television / film funding works like this: Creators look for investors who put forth all the money in return for potential future profit off the show. They also want creative control over how their large sums of money are spent out of the not entirely incorrect belief they need to be able to safeguard their investment. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars here.
The reason people make web series is so the people who came up with the show and actually work to make the show retain the creative control. If you do any research into how the industry works you'll see that a lot of "big" decisions about your favorite film or show were forced on the showrunners and screenwriters by network executives and investors who want the films and shows to appeal to who they believe the biggest demographics are. They will even force a show to go another season even if the creators never envisioned the show to keep going. A lot of otherwise good shows have jumped the shark because of this.
I want to be independent and not have someone insist I insert some character just to appeal to whatever demographic they think the show needs to appeal to in order to make them lots of money (a good example is Masked Rider, which was forced to basically have a Jar Jar Binks sidekick for the hero in order to "appeal more to kids"). Or have them own half or all the intellectual rights to show, enabling them to cancel it when it doesn't make them enough money-- or worse, make spinoff shows and merchandise which cheapen the intended story.
I mean, look at the live action Dragon Ball movie that Fox made. Look at the Street Fighter films. Look at almost every single videogame adaption film ever made. These films don't suck because they differ from the stereotypical Hollywood format; they suck because the things they are based on don't conform to the stereotypical Hollywood format and people loved them for that, but the executives forced the screenwriters to make the adaptations conform and that betrayed the audience's expectations.
Hollywood has been trying to do a live action Neon Genesis Evangelion for a few years. I'm positive that when it actually comes out it will be garbage because it won't conform to the narrative arcs Gainax used to create it and contributes to why it was so beloved (I point this out because I'm a big fan of Gainax's work and I wrote GKaiser to follow the same narrative arcs used in their shows like Eva and Gurren Lagann).
Look at some of the adaptions of Super Sentai. The stories are very different, and often not as good, because the Hollywood way of making a "successful children's show" are different. I do not believe anyone mainstream will allow me to make a tokusatsu-style show the way I think it ought to be done.
I'm trying to stay independent so I can make things that I want to make and that I think others want to see. I do not believe I will be allowed to make those kind of stories if I go the traditional route.
Kickstarter is a new kind of fundraising route to allow the audience to decide if they want to see something get made. A lot of people have used it to successfully fund everything from music albums to films to inventions. I decided I would try as well. I've financially tapped myself out getting the project to this point; I've just took out a loan to get the camera. It's not like I'm sitting back and hoping everyone else to pay for everything. Making films is a lot of hard work and to produce something quality so cheaply is harder because I don't have a big money hose for everything.
All I'm asking for is some assistance with the funds needed to get the rest of the props, costumes and 3D artwork that have to be purchased. People who make good props and costumes might work for free but they need materials to work with. Really great 3D model makers and animators...not so much because they have education loans to pay off (it's a very technical skill and I don't know anyone very talented who didn't go to college for it) and they want some kind of monetary reimbursement.
Could I do without these things? No, because the show would no longer be what I envision it to be. The show may be cheaply made but I don't want it to look cheap. I want it to be something that can stand the test of time. It would be like Walt Disney saying it would be okay to not have the absolute best animation in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and just settling for whatever his artists could do. That film now stands the test of time because he stuck to his guns and had artists re-draw things until it was right, and took out a loan from the bank (back when banks still loaned money for films) to make it right.
Actually a lot of Walt Disney animations stand the test of time-- even those made before Snow White-- because of Walt's insistence to make quality productions that would stand the test of time. And he was able to insist on quality because unlike other animation studios which were owned by big studios, he was independent.
I'm not saying I want 3D animation on the level of Avatar or tons of explosions everywhere. That's not what will happen here. I'm going for the bare minimum needed to make a quality show that will stand the test of time. We're trying to create a world that does not exist and pays a lot of homage to a genre that is heavily geared around flashy costumes and special effects. I want to do it justice and if possible, do it better than some of the shows which inspired mine. I'm confident it can be done but it will require resources that must be purchased.
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