Americans are turning to crowdfunding to cover coronavirus-related costs while the government prepares to deliver on its stimulus plan. But most campaigns aren’t meeting their goals. --- Between March 20 and March 24, the number of coronavirus-related campaigns on GoFundMe shot up by 60 percent, from 22,000 to 35,000. The stories told on those fund-raising pages convey the breadth of destruction that the new coronavirus has wreaked — grieving families facing costs for funerals that few will be able to attend, food pantries stretched thin, and unemployed artists, bartenders, substitute teachers and manicurists simply trying to survive.

To assess a film's odds of success (because even crowdfunders don’t want to back a loser), a prospective funder would want to know what people in the know—who are part of the “industry” in one way or another—make of it. This is the point often missed by those hailing Kickstarter as a revolutionary project that could emancipate the artists: What defines potential “success” for their film is still very much defined by the industry heavyweights.