Your Money or Their Money: The Funding Game

I don't know what it is about the indie film industry, but the number of people I've encountered who make outlandish promises (that they have no ability to keep) seems preposterously high. I'm a very optimistic guy, but when someone starts talking about what kind of money they can raise or deliver for films, I've become quite skeptical. I've seen it happen over and over and over and over; not just to me but to many, many aspiring filmmakers. There must be some sort of diagnosable clinical disease that these "fundraising" people get infected with.
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I haven't even been in the dealing room, and I'm pretty much there already. People around LA always talk about raising this kind of money, raising that kind. I'm pretty much like "uh.. .then why aren't you shooting?". It's so much fluff, man. The ones who have the ability are out doing it and not talking about it. Thankfully, I guess I don't seem to come off as the "what can you do for me?" type and have been working with the people who can make things happen.

On the other hand, I've also had the privilege to pitch my project to the guy who personally financed The Cotton Club. Here's a man with experience, loads of cash, and the actual ability to deliver. I was young and dumb and didn't have the business end thoroughly plotted out, so you can imagine how well the pitch session went. The guy didn't care one whit about what the story was, he wanted to know what my success rate was. "What have you made?" was the question; I could answer with lots of things but each answer was followed up with "and how did that do for you?" "er... well... we haven't yet sold it..." (after a couple of those answers it was really obvious as to how the meeting was going to end. Yet it was still probably the most valuable learning experience I've had in the film biz!)
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Can you post this and back up my next DVXfest idea: PitchFest? xD This is the exact reason why I nominated pitch-fest to begin with.
 
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Hey Kholi, I hear ya loud and clear... and the thing is, sometimes people who throw numbers around about financing do it to make themselves look good... but until I see a product... it's all talk to me... I have no issue hearing people talk hypothetically who have already done stuff, no matter how small... they did it.
 
Ohhh.... I thought you guys were talking about real paying work. Not your own short movie.

There is no such thing as OPM for your own short movie. OPM only works if the investor sees ROI which there almost never is in peoples short movie dreams.

S.
 
I suppose my short was niche, and long enough, and cheap enough (6k) for these three private investors to go for.
 
Brandon Rice said:
I suppose my short was niche, and long enough, and cheap enough (6k) for these three private investors to go for.
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If I read an earlier post correct... you had a finished product and showed them that...

That makes a world of difference.... because its finished they can see it and say "hey I can market that."

I think Barry has been pretty right on with most of his posts...

Finding funds is a hard game...

For every THE SIGNAL, BLAIR WITCH, etc... there are at least a 1,000 films that never made it...

Or these poor guys in Texas (or really guys from Texas who got jobs in the industry and made their own movie later) they make a movie sell it to Miramax... Miramax then turns around a year later and sells it to someone else...

At least I believe they got their money back for making it... but in the end it panned out... they're making a movie for someone else because Miramax bought their first one...
 
I would never spend any decent money on a short but would for a promo for a feature.
 
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