Filmmaking is HARD.  Making your first movie is even harder.  You have to gather all of the stuff you need to make your movie, often working with funds that you’ve saved up yourself.  Sometimes you’ll have some additional funds from your friends and family, an inheritance, crowdfunding or some other windfall, but even with any or all of those funding is likely to be tight.  

If you want to find and close investors for your independent film project, there’s a lot more to it than simply googling a person’s net worth. Here’s an explanation.

It’s not just filmmakers who need to understand the business. Investors do too. Here are a few words of advice on the film industry for new investors from an executive producer.

Making a profit on an indie film is HARD. If you can get your film subsidized by a tzx incentive your job is a lot easier. Here are the basics to get you started on that path.

Documentary and narrative films aren’t just different styles, they’re entirely different beasts! It’s amazing how different the financing systems are. Learn more in this article.

It’s hard to raise funding for a film, and the contracts get confusing quickly. Here’s a glossary to help you understand the mountain of paperwork you’ll need to sign to get your film financed. This blog doesn’t mean you don’t still need a lawyer (I’m not one, and this isn’t legal advice), but it will help you understand the paperwork you’re sent.

I’m not a lawyer, but I know contracts can be dense, confusing, and full of highly specific terms of art. With that in mind, here’s a glossary of Art. Here’s a glossary to help you out.

If you want to make a movie, you need to raise money. In order to raise any significant capital, you’ll need a package, and that cost money. Here’s where you raise the first money in.

If you want to raise money for your independent Film, Here are a few things your investor will need to know.

Most Sales agents don’t want your business plan, and a bank doesn’t want your lookbook. Here’s what stakeholders do want, and when.

Decks and lookbooks are not the same. Here’s how you make the latter.

Generally, when you have your first serious meeting with an investor they’ll ask to see your deck. Here’s what they want.

Given that I work in film sales, marketing, and distribution I get pitched on Series content A LOT. Most of those pitches are declined unilaterally due to one major (Shockingly common) mistake.

I predicted where the state of film industry finance was heading, mixed bag.

Nobody LIKES crowdfunding, but there are good reasons to do it. Here are the 4 best ones IMNSHO.

A legacy port of my breakdown of the 2018 American Film Market.

If you want an ivestor to give you their money, you’ll need to show them how you’ll spend it and how they’ll get it back. That’s what pro-forma financial statements are for. Here’s how you make them.

If you want to raise money from investors to make your independent film, you’ll need rock-solid financials. Here’s how you write that section of your business plan.

Investing is always risky. Investing in Film is moreso. If you’re raising money, you need to make sure your investors know this.

If you want to raise money from investors, you’re going to need a plan. A business plan, to be exact. Here’s how you write the marketing section.