Pretty much every filmmaker wants to find money to make their movie. Unfortunately, many don’t quite realize that in order to raise the kind of money you need to make anything above a micro budget movie, you’ll generally need a lot already in place. It’s something of a catch-22. Investors need name talent to market the film, and distribution to make it available. Distributors need name talent and a tested team to give any meaningful commitments, and name taken need to know they’ll be paid. There are ways around all of this, but generally they require money up front. This blog is about how you raise it.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic bullet on any level of film funding. The best I can do is offer you tools and tactics to use to increase your chances of success. You will probably need more than one of these tools to get the job done.
Don't want to read? Check out the video on this topic below
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Let’s get this one out of the way fast. Crowdfunding CAN be great for filmmakers not only as a way to raise partial funding, but also to engage yourself with your audience and provide market validation for both investors and distributors/sales agents. That said, it’s not without its drawbacks. Using crowdfunding as an early stage race tool can cause your donors to question whether or not you’ll be able to get the whole film done. If you can’t, it can lead to problems. (Extra special shoutout to my patrons here, since we’re talking about crowdfunding.)
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Friends and Family
Equity
Grants
Soft Costs and Deferrals
That said, while the higher level connectors, Producers, Executive Producers, and the like are generally unwilling to work on a purely deferral or commission basis, the friends you need to make a great crowdfunding video, concept trailer, or something similar might not be. Getting their buy in might help you make it to the next level.
Skin in the Game
I know all of this is really hard to grasp, and quite frankly it’s a lot. While I do consult on this sort of stuff, I’m not cheap. (with good reason.) I try to make a lot of information available through my site, but there are times that you just kind of need someone to answer your questions and re-orient you. As such, I’ve decided to start a special mentorship group.
This special training group gets you access to additional content, an exclusive discussion group, and most importantly weekly group video calls where I’ll answer your questions personally, and occasionally bring on people who would also be of benefit to the groups needs. Click the button below to go to a form and express interest in this group. Spots are limited.
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Author
My name is Ben, I'm an Entrepreneur, Producer's Rep, and Author. I'm the founder of Guerrilla Rep Media, Co-Founder/CMO of ProductionNext, and founder of Producer Foundry. Together, the organizations seek to help make filmmaking a more economically sustainable endeavor. I am dysic, I have capitalization issues, and the blogs are often unedited. opinions all my own.
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