Pixar Artists Are Raising Money For A Short—And They’re Not Using Kickstarter

Pixar artists Dice Tsutsumi (art director, Toy Story 3) and Robert Kondo (sets art director, Ratatouille) have announced that they are producing an independent short film. To help raise funds for the production, they are auctioning some of their exploratory sketches on eBay.

The auction serves as a valuable reminder that crowdfunding is not the only way to raise money for a film project. By auctioning their drawings on eBay instead of offering them as rewards on Kickstarter, Tsutsumi and Kondo are avoiding the often stressful task of organizing a major crowdfunding campaign as well as circumventing Kickstarter’s hefty fees, thus ending up with more time and money to devote to their film.

The two artists could yet end up running a crowdfunding campaign. “We may do Kickstarter too if we get man power to set it up in the future,” Tsutsumi wrote on Facebook. “It takes a lot of work to set up [a] successful Kickstarter.” Of course, there’s nothing wrong if they choose to do that. It’s refreshing, however, to see some out-of-the-box thinking that doesn’t treat crowdfunding as the holy grail, but rather as a component of a diversified fundraising effort.