Tag: film financing

Categories
Truly Free Film

A Quick Word On Exploring Your Film’s Essence Through a Financial Lens

Financing an independent film is no joke. For those of you who have gone through this process, you know just how grueling it is — taking meetings and phone calls with potential investors, entering your script into conferences and competitions — it gets overwhelming.

We’ve seen and experienced this firsthand with the films we’ve put together, and with clients as well. The process for our films and our colleague’s  films begin with a process of cutting, compromise, and parring the script down to the very essence of the story.

While attending this fall’s film festival circuit and working with writers across the globe in mentorship programs, we saw a lot of great stories get wrapped up $50m-$100m bows.

Coming from film finance and production backgrounds, we were able to help these writers par their screenplays down to reasonable budgets while keeping the essence of their story in tact, and conveying one simple truth — the essence of every story costs nothing.

Continue reading “A Quick Word On Exploring Your Film’s Essence Through a Financial Lens”

Categories
Truly Free Film

A First Time Writer/Director’s Trial by Fire, Part #4: Unhealthy Obsessive Persistence

Welcome to the game that everyone trying to make a movie wish they would never have to play but do: Unhealthy Obsessive Persistence and Unlikely Approval! (Applause) What do we have for our contestant behind Door #1… wait, Door #1 is locked? Then what’s behind Door #2? A brick wall you say? What about Door #3? It just revolves back to point A. Congratulations! You don’t win! (Audience moans) Adding insult to injury, I have to pay for my own craft service.

At times, working to get a project noticed appears to dip into pointlessness,

Continue reading “A First Time Writer/Director’s Trial by Fire, Part #4: Unhealthy Obsessive Persistence”

Categories
Issues and Actions

Can EB-5 Investments Be Used To Fund Films?

Has anyone used EB-5 investments for film financing?

Continue reading “Can EB-5 Investments Be Used To Fund Films?”

Categories
Truly Free Film

Who Will Sell Your Film Internationally?

I would like to go to the site of one of the many organizations dedicated to supporting filmmakers and easily find links to a list of foreign sales agents.

For that matter, I would like to be able to find such links to US Distributors, Worldwide Distributors, Distribution Case Studies, Funders, Agents, Crew, Platforms, Legal Documents, Production Forms, Tech & Equipment Recommendations, Recommended Best Practices, Expert Opinions, Ideas & Inspiration, Recommended Reading — and that’s just off the top of my head.  You know, I would like it to be clear that that these organizations were driven to help filmmakers, and not just “furthering their brand”.

Continue reading “Who Will Sell Your Film Internationally?”

Categories
Truly Free Film

Your Investors Know You Are Not Serious About Making Their Money Back.

I am talking to you. Or at least 98% of you folks who are trying to raise money to make a film. 

You know how in poker it always pays to look for other players’ “tell”?  A “tell” is the subconscious gesture most people make when they are not sure of themselves.  The “tell” helps to show when people are bluffing — or in everyday terms, when they are lying.  The most common ”tell” is

Continue reading “Your Investors Know You Are Not Serious About Making Their Money Back.”

Categories
Truly Free Film

What Do Film Investors Need To Become A Sustainable Class

Note: If you’d like to share this, please use this shortened link: http://bit.ly/JKytyB

By now I think you know that creating a Sustainable Investor Class For Indie Film is a priority for me.  I have been sharing my thoughts on a weekly basis in this regard for some time now.  Today is a good time to collect those thoughts and take stock as to where we are. Our future depends on us.

If you want to make films for the rest of your life, you not only need to help increase the pool of capital for such creative practices, but you also have to make sure that the money behaves in a smarter fashion than before. You can’t expect people to just do something because it makes sense.  Knowledge rarely influences behavior. To make change, you need to create a system.  That is the next step.

Right now, we can improve the knowledge base, and it is time we focused on the investor base.

Continue reading “What Do Film Investors Need To Become A Sustainable Class”

Categories
Truly Free Film

Towards A Sustainable Investor Class: Recognize Non-Financial Returns

In my quest to create a Sustainable Investor Class for Indie Film, it is easy to get bogged down in the numbers.  When one says “investor” hopefully we think first of “profits”, but that is not the only thing that positive choices can generate.  After all, we are talking about investing in culture, right?

American art film is under threat.  Independent film that is not based on the “Oops, I Farted!” template (thanks again to Mike Ryan for naming this category for me) is currently at risk.  That which has been deemed commercial is not only what gets the most traction, it often seems all that people want to talk about. Generally speaking, the industry aims to create what will sell; the harder that get,s the lower they reach.  Independent film was once about what we aspire to be; now it frequently seems to be focused on what we wallow in.Do you really want to be part of that?  It is not just about the money, is  it?

I remain convinced that we all entered the film biz driven to make something great.

How do we

Continue reading “Towards A Sustainable Investor Class: Recognize Non-Financial Returns”