focuspuller said:
I see nothing wrong with asking for donations (within reason), or offering clips (exclusive or otherwise), I do however think that combinig the two is dangerous, for you, and this project. If someone wanted to make a case against a project like this, this would be one of the ways of doing so.

I greatly support and respect this project, so I speak bluntly, but I mean no offense. I just think you should cover your bases and be careful to a degree.

I understand what you're saying, but I think the difference here is that whatever he's giving to the donators will eventually be released to everyone, for free. It's not like he's giving away a special deleted scene, or an alternate edit of the project, or something like that, which contains copyrighted material not owned by him, that only the donators would get (which could lead to the argument that they were buying the footage). He's just showing it to the donators early. I've seen other fan projects do this before; Ryan Vs. Dorkman 2 is a notable and successful example.

Take care,
Sojourn