How are you financing your films?

M

Matt Dunn

Active member
To be clear, I am not talking about paid client work. I am interested in how people are financing their pet projects that don't have a clear payday in site.

I would love to have a Red and be able to pay for professional actors and crew and I totally envy you folks who can and do. I am just interested in how the money aspect of what you are doing works.

Are people financing their own films just out of love of the hobby and the art? Rich Uncle Harold, may his soul eternally rest in peace? Has the fancy equipment been bought in connection with a business and therefore not really part of the cost of your project?

I totally understand that this tends toward a personal question so if you want to tell me to go pound sand, I will totally understand. No one is going to ruin my mood today as the Celtics won last night... :)
 
I use my own money. I work on the side of being a full time student at a job I can do homework at (computer lab assistant) so that gives me free time and money to buy basic equipment (own a DV camera, 8' crane, basic sound stuff, hand-built dolly, and basic lighting/grip gear). Now I've been filming for a while and won a few thousand $ at film festivals so for my next film I'm hiring several professionals, a RED, and pro actors. Hopefully that'll turn out my best film yet and get into larger festivals (I never submitted my earlier films to big festivals because I already knew I wasn't professional enough and I choose to save my money and keep learning to make better films along with using better equipment).
 
For me...and I am a newbie...it was timing. The business I'm in allows me to purchase video equipment as an expense, that is, I use video in my products, so the gear is a write-off. I've spent so much over the years on video production that it is now time to test the waters. I've started with the DVX100b (most of what I do for work are talking heads, paramedic skills, nursing skills, stuff like that...I know BORING...but it pays the bills!).

Now I haven't funded a film as of yet, but that's the plan in the near future as I hone my skills. The added benefit is that I can offer my services to local indi filmmakers or rent gear to local video houses to get some return on the investment.

I'm also at a point in my life that I can play a bit...like I said, I'm just testing the waters.

Go Celtics! (my daughter attends BU)
 
I begged people I knew with money, told them I would give them credit, advertising, owe them a favor (I do commercials and videography) and that it would be a tax write off. I still had to put some of my own money in when disaster struck.
 
I wrote a business plan, approached someone who had invested a very small sum in a previous project (about 5K) and we discussed the terms. I demonstrated how movies are bought and sold, demonstrated my ability to make a quality film for a meager budget and agreed to:

1.) make a short film first as proof I could deliver the goods
2.) attended the AFM to find case studies for our film
3.) redid my business plan based on these findings

The short film got into 8 film festivals and won awards at 2 (and only 4 offered awards.) From there it was fairly easy to convince my investor to invest $120,000.00 and provide a secured loan of $40,000.00. The secured loan is secured with the tax rebate from New Mexico.

That's how I raised 160K to make a feature film.
 
Prodigi Pictures said:
2.) attended the AFM to find case studies for our film
Click to expand...

Hopefully more people can start to realize what a benefit it is to attend these events.


As for me, I have a side job consulting for various on-line businesses and I use that money to pay for rent, some food, and now my camera supplies.

My first project was comprised of renting a bunch of equipment, which was a bit of a downer for me. I'd rather have more equipment and serve as a producer and keep getting my names in credits (or potentially rent it out to people i trust) than rent.
 
Prodigi Pictures said:
I wrote a business plan, approached someone who had invested a very small sum in a previous project (about 5K) and we discussed the terms. I demonstrated how movies are bought and sold, demonstrated my ability to make a quality film for a meager budget and agreed to:

1.) make a short film first as proof I could deliver the goods
2.) attended the AFM to find case studies for our film
3.) redid my business plan based on these findings

The short film got into 8 film festivals and won awards at 2 (and only 4 offered awards.) From there it was fairly easy to convince my investor to invest $120,000.00 and provide a secured loan of $40,000.00. The secured loan is secured with the tax rebate from New Mexico.

That's how I raised 160K to make a feature film.
Click to expand...

Nice work, Prodogi : )
 
Matt Dunn said:
To be clear, I am not talking about paid client work. I am interested in how people are financing their pet projects that don't have a clear payday in site.

I would love to have a Red and be able to pay for professional actors and crew and I totally envy you folks who can and do. I am just interested in how the money aspect of what you are doing works.

Are people financing their own films just out of love of the hobby and the art? Rich Uncle Harold, may his soul eternally rest in peace? Has the fancy equipment been bought in connection with a business and therefore not really part of the cost of your project?

I totally understand that this tends toward a personal question so if you want to tell me to go pound sand, I will totally understand. No one is going to ruin my mood today as the Celtics won last night... :)
Click to expand...

I'm hopefully to finance future work through money I've already made in the film industry, so through corporate work, commercial work, music videos, etc. That's how I'm financing some of the reel work I'm doing this summer, because the project I'm doing now is a substantial sum of money to keep me going for a bit.

That aside, though, I invested a lot of money in this business so far, about $100,000, and yeah it was something like an uncle passing away, but worse. Also had enough money from other sources to pour some cash into film.

Going forward, I'd really like to be financing anything in film through money earned from film. So my first feature I'd like to shoot in a year and a half using the money I've earned in that time, hopefully it's enough, sort of a "double or nothing" plan.
 
Prodigi Pictures said:
I wrote a business plan, approached someone who had invested a very small sum in a previous project (about 5K) and we discussed the terms. I demonstrated how movies are bought and sold, demonstrated my ability to make a quality film for a meager budget and agreed to:

1.) make a short film first as proof I could deliver the goods
2.) attended the AFM to find case studies for our film
3.) redid my business plan based on these findings

The short film got into 8 film festivals and won awards at 2 (and only 4 offered awards.) From there it was fairly easy to convince my investor to invest $120,000.00 and provide a secured loan of $40,000.00. The secured loan is secured with the tax rebate from New Mexico.

That's how I raised 160K to make a feature film.
Click to expand...

nice...is the short online by any chance?
 
I used to think I wanted to finance my films with proceeds from previous films. But then I realized that meant I was constantly risking my own money, which isn't really what I want to do. So my goal now is to make movies so interesting and so profitable that I will have no trouble finding plenty of investors willing to risk their money in exchange for a piece of the action.
 
Yeah

Yeah

That's the goal, ideally. Of course it's better to have other people invest their money as long as you can maintain creative control.

On my first feature, though, I'll finance it myself and take the risk, because I don't mind risking my own money on something I believe in. Worst case scenario I lose the money, oh well, life goes on. But after that it'd be nice to work with increasingly larger budgets, outside of my realm of financing, I mean if it's a $3-4 million film I'd have to get investors.
 
One way or another all filmmakers finances their own movies, whether it's their money or somebody else's money. When you make a movie, you are responsible for its success or failure as a business. It may be commercial movie or it may be a labor of love, but whatever it is, you're going to be held accountable by someone, even if it's yourself :-)

Making a movie, especially a feature, involves the lives of many people. Here I'm not talking about a movie's influence on the world, but strictly from the point of view of its investors and its participants actors and crew also.

It's a big responsibility. Eventually we have to get more serious about making movies. For my personal projects I prefer to use my own money, which means shooting with my Sony Z1 and editing in FCP 5. I keep the expenses down to a minimum, and it means essentially no-budget filmmaking.

For the bigger movies involving SAG talent, I seek out distribution deals based on the strength of the talent. If I can find a credible distributor, I can borrow the money from a bank. If I'm approached by investors, I'll consider the options; but I prefer going the distribution contract route.

I believe in great scripts and big name talent for major movies. That's the best way to attract distributors.
 
A great way to get money is from your family, friends, and fans. If you get each of them to contribute a little amount of money (why wouldn't they? they should be supporting you), then you can get enough money to make a film.

A new website that lets you do this online is IndieGoGo. The site allows you to raise money through small contributions from your supporters. Nobody in this thread has really talked about leveraging the power of the Internet...I think it could be really helpful.

There are some other sites out there that do this. Check it out: www.indiegogo.com
 
It's not easy getting even friends to contribute any amount that is significant. I would need to raise $100,000 to make a feature, so I don't think any of my friends who are in grad school, law school, med school, or just entered the workforce have that kind of money ;)

My dad, of course, is my major financial backer at this point. haha
 
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