Filmmaking: February 2011 Archives
The old way of raising money to make a film consisted of one or a combination of all of the following:
- Use your credit cards, max them out, apply for more and max them out. repeat until deeply deeply depressingly in debt.
- Beg family members, close friends for money for you project.
- Lower everyone's expectations of getting paid, if they had any to begin with.
- Search for and pitch like crazy to investors. This requires connections to those with money.
- Apply for some art grants. This may be difficult unless you or your project fit into the requirements for the grant.
- Mortgage your home.
- Sell plasma at the blood bank.
None of those are really easy. Financing a film is not easy unless your budget doesn't require raising money (like if you think it may cost $400 to make and you already have that in the bank, and can spare it). But if your budget is more like $400,000 and you certainly don't have that lying around to spare, then it's time to get serious about raising money the old fashioned way, right?
Maybe not any more....
Continue reading Raising Money for a Film the New Way.
Yesterday I decided to search for a filmmaking community. I know there are several out there and I know of several people that are involved in them, but I haven't really felt a part of any of them myself. So I did a search on google for 'filmmaker'. That was it. One of the first places I went to is http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/ which had several interesting things going for it right away. Having recently been part of Sundance, I recognized a few of the movies that were being talked about.
I then stumbled on a very interesting article about the value or purpose of film festivals. http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2011/02/the-microbudget-conversation-what-are-festivals-good-for/ I was sucked in and had to read the whole thing.
It mentioned a rant from filmmaker Kevin Smith at Sundance which I had not heard about yet, and so followed the link and watched the whole thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90pcHCF2h44
It sure made me think. He has some interesting points and the article also brings up some interesting points about marketing a film at a film festival.
To boil down the ideas to bullet points to mull over:
I then stumbled on a very interesting article about the value or purpose of film festivals. http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2011/02/the-microbudget-conversation-what-are-festivals-good-for/ I was sucked in and had to read the whole thing.
It mentioned a rant from filmmaker Kevin Smith at Sundance which I had not heard about yet, and so followed the link and watched the whole thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90pcHCF2h44
It sure made me think. He has some interesting points and the article also brings up some interesting points about marketing a film at a film festival.
To boil down the ideas to bullet points to mull over:
- film festivals rarely serve the filmmakers or films as a gateway to getting your film seen across the country in normal theaters, nor getting the filmmakers a deal for a future project.
- getting into festivals costs money and is a gamble
- film festivals still do allow for networking with other filmmakers and industry insiders
- film festivals still provide a means to "get noticed"
- financing a film is hard in the first place, making the film is also hard, trying to market the film to get your money back is really really hard
- distributors only deal in big money- they almost never waste their time on low cost stuff. not enough profit, or potential profit to spend their time.
- Studios are distributors. That is how they make their money. They don't make it from making movies, they make it from selling movies.
- Self distribution is hard because there is not much known or available to support it.
- Self promotion is hard unless you already have huge network of followers on social network sites and email lists, or have access to those that do.
- What Kevin Smith talks about ("road show" approach to marketing/exhibiting) has been done by may other people already- some successes and some failures. Warren Miller does this very thing, and has for 40+ years. Success. Some independent Mormon cinema tried this 5 years ago- flopped and lost money (Handcart).
