Clarification of ProjectMouthwash Pledges (Patreon)

We got a note recently that we weren't clear about how we charged our Patrons, so I wanted to cover our bases and reiterate here(and get feedback on if this is clear or not.) just to make sure you all know how things work here, and nothing catches you by surprise~!

How We Charge

Our payment system isn't a per-month system like most abridged channels. We generally manage to make more content on average than essentially all other channels doing what we do(barring when we have to work on a large movie or what-have-you) so we adopt a slightly different system. 

Rather than charge once per month, we charge up to 3 times every month(which are all payed out at the end of the month). We only charge for things which we decide is "substantial content", which means several things. In terms of Abridged series, it means we charge once per full episode preview or once per preview that is over 6 minutes long. The later case is much more common when doing movies, as our work on those tends to be a minimum of 36 minutes in run-time, which takes us out of the running for a while when we work on them.

Apart from Abridged episodes, the only other things we charge for are things that are unique, creative and took a fair amount of time and effort to make. Things like music we commissioned for use in our work(which wouldn't be available elsewhere), song parodies(that AREN'T from episodes, as those would be considered part of episodes themselves) or other pieces of content that are meaty enough and "exclusive" enough to warrant it. Generally, if it's not an abridged episode we only charge for it if we sunk money or a notable amount of time into creating it in the first place.

In short, we charge 1 to 3 times per month, for large chunks of content. 

The Writing/Production Pledge

There is one exception: the "Writing Pledge", or "Production Pledge" as I've been calling it lately. This is a pledge that we do (when necessary) at the end of the month if we've done a lot of work like a lot of writing, pre-production, creating special materials, etc that can't be quantified in preview form. We only do this type of pledge if A) it's deserve and we earned it, and we always accompany it with a full list of our work, what we've written/produced, our expenses, etc and B) if there aren't already 3 pledges up that month that fit the usual criteria. This pledge exists only to make sure we can pay rent and maintenance fees and keep the baot floating so we can keep making content.

You Have Control

Now, here's something I'd like to stress about this system for those who don't want to be charged 3 times per month:

You can set your Patreon settings to only pay up to a certain amount every month. In other words if you are a $5 donator who doesn't WANT to pay $10 or $15 per month, you can cap your pledge at whatever you're comfortable with.  This way you can essentially sign up for 1 or 2 pledges instead of all 3. This is entirely within your control as a Patron.

Where Does The Money Go?

Our money goes, obviously, first to rent and living expenses. Our two project heads/show-runners are Logan Laidlaw(me) and Aaron Robert Parnell. We both work in the same house to make the process more efficient(incidentally we also live with the core members of the Something Witty Entertainment channel), and our studio is also located in our house. In fact it dominates most of our living space. The space is paid for first, which is where most of it ends up going(our AdSense money basically entirely dissolves into this as well). 

Second, our money pays for equipment repairs, expansions and investments. Our recording setup costs just shy of $25,000, most of that in our recording gear and editing equipment. When things break they're expensive to repair, so we lose money there. Luckily nothing MAJOR breaks, but there are always cords, adapters, plugs, and other small unreasonably expensive things to maintain. 

Third it goes to acquiring the footage of anything we work on, even if we have to get it from Japan. I don't believe in working on things that I don't own if I can help it, so I always acquire footage and materials as a sign of good will towards the copyright holders/original creators. It's important to support the official release. I also like having control over my source footage for consistency. Sometimes this means paying absurd amounts of money to import(like importing the Blurays for Digimon Adventure, which aren't printed anymore, generally are basically impossible to find online and amounted to almost $1000 CAD by the end of importing them) but I feel it's worth it in the long run.

Fourth, things like commissioning art, music or what-have-you. We're trying to create more truly original content within our work, and it's costly . We never ask people to work on good faith. One of the reasons we put commissioned music back up as pledges is because it helps to absorb the cost, supporting both us and the artists making it simultaneously. Even our actors don't work for free, as they are given access to our studio space, my sound design work and audition coaching(my offline jobs). I also do on-set sound work for films they're producing and do sound design for short films as a trade for their work(on that note, look up any films by/directed by/produced by Ariel Hansen if you are curious what some of our actors are up to).

The rest falls where it falls. All the things I mentioned absorb about 80%-90% of our money(along with the $25+ tier rewards, which for financial reasons we're reviewing). Right now, our goal is to make enough to get Aaron Robert Parnell out of Starbucks(where he's working) for good, and get him on ProjectMouthwash work full-time. I hope we make enough to do that within the next three months, but that's on us to see through.

So That's It

If you have any other questions about ANYTHING, please ask me. I want to be fully transparent with all of you, since you are the reason we can do this full-time. If you ever have a question about anything regarding where the money goes, how much and why please ask me. We have on thing to hide. We're just trying to produce fun content for everyone after all! When we started this Patreon we were trying to afford renting a small office space to work from, and even though we missed that opportunity at the time we've managed to create something amazing. I have no intention of stopping watching it continue to grow, as long as there's wind in my sails.