Financing: Shaking the Money Tree

Where do you find the cash for your movie? — There are so many ways to get financing!

• You can use your own money. This is the only way where you probably won’t have anyone looking over your shoulder or calling the shots.
• You can use you family and friend’s money, which can add a load of guild to the disappointment if your film goes nowhere.
• You can create a limited partnership for all those legendary Guys with Moneyin search of the motherload that is the Independent Cinema.
• You can get a grant, except you probably wont, because grants are drying up, especially government grants — at least in the United States.
• You can take the script and troll for a distributor or production company that believes in your film both commercially and artistically and is willing to translate that belief into a budget.
• You can sell the rights to Luxembourg, New Guinea, or any other foriegn territory, and use those contracts to acquire loans or to lure domestic investors or distributors.
• You can shoot a small piece of your film, and then use it to dazzle potential investors.

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Many of the independent films that get plucked out of obscurity at the Sundance independent film festival are made with money from people’s credit cards, or with bank loans or college loans or bingo games or garage sales or bake sales. Or else they’re financed by people who all have the same last name as the director. — they take a LOOOONG time to shoot, and often in spurts.

Media covers the successes, but they don’t write about the thoursands of people who DO go into bankruptcy, lose their houses, etc. For every successful indy film, there’s a hundred that fail and go broke, go crazy, or and ever go to jails.

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Shaking the Tree

When people want to invest, and when you are seeking out investors, you MUST (for reasons bother moral and legal) let them know that an investment in a film is incredibly risky. Of course pinch them hard about how talented you are, and how exhilarating it is to see their names in print in the end credits.

Keep in mind, when you make your movie…if there’s no audience, all you have is a celluloid trophy.

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Packaging on a Shoestring

What should you show a potential financier?

• a script
• a budget
• perhaps a cinematographer and designer (this makes the package stronger)

In the end, what matters most is who’s in front of the camera.

The hardest part is getting people to say “no.” No on really wants to. They want to leave that door open just a little it. They may say, “Welllll, if you do a tiiiny bit more work on the script…” — when usually, with those kinds of projects, it doesn’t matter how much work you do on the script, it’s not going to change what they don’t like. But that door is open in case…in case…you’re dealing with a world of professional bet-hedgers.”

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A Fit of Pitching

One of the worse things you can say in a pitch when describing your project is, “Its a cross between Harry Potter and Crouching Tiger.” — Its difficult to get financing for a project that’s not fresh or copy cat. A critic may spin a story this way, but as a producer, you can’t. It works against you.

What does work is putting across originality of your vision. Assembling a book of images works in your favor.

What is cautioned is pushing a script on producers or distributors at festivals or conferences or anywhere else you can find them suddenly accessible. The reasons for this is:

• The producer at those times is usually busy and distracted.
• They’re heavy and no one wants to lug extra weight on plane.
• The fear of losing the script, and not feeling guilty about it.
• There are people in the office who’ll give them a much less impatient first read.

It’s smarter to cultivate a relationship with someone on the bottom of the totem pole–someone who’ll pay more attention to you and perhaps becomes an energetic advocate.

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Indie Dependents

What does it mean when a company puts money into a movie? What kind of creative control do they ahve? How do you protect yourself? — If you’re a neophyte with a long-shot film, you’re pretty much at their mercy.

The author states that they argue and fight most with companies bankrolling her movies–distributors, investors, studios, whatever–is approvals.–the right as a producer to approve all creative choices:

• actors
• cinematographer
• production designer

If the financiers disagree…who breaks the tie? It gets sticky. Be diplomatic, and be influential.

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Foreign Affairs

Actors are a key factor in predicting foreign sales. The first thing you say to a foreign sales office  is, “I want to make this movie, this is who’s going to be in it. Can I have $50,000, please?”

Many don’t get the money until the film is done and delivered. How do you get money for the cash flow? Find a bank or investor.

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Pieces of the Action

What happens if you can’t raise the kind of money you need even to start you feature film?

Make a short so you’ll have something to show.  It’s a good idea to have several shorts on your resume. — Come up with an idea that’s really commercial-and don’t say “Commercial? Me?” Most important is, think about who your audience is, and pitch your film accordingly.

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