Can you pre-sell the theatrical premiere screening to finance an independent film?

Can you pre-sell the theatrical premiere screening to finance an independent film?

  • Total voters
    23
GoodLuck

GoodLuck

Well-known member
Alright, so we all know that independent features when they are completed, have a big movie premiere on the big screen where the entire cast and crew come out. The going rate is usually $10 a ticket. You go out and watch the movie, meet the cast and crew, and usually do a Q&A afterwards. Based on my numbers, if you book a large theater that seats around 1,000 people, you can do your split like this...

700 tickets x $10 = $7,000
300 tickets (reserved for cast, crew, press)

Then you can put something up on Kickstarter/IndieGoGo and pre-sell the tickets and if you can find 700 people in your entire city, to pre-order a ticket to your screening, mixed with additional supporters, you should be able to easily hit your $10k goal and shoot most independent feature films.

I have a cast/crew size of around 30 so if all of them got just 10 of their friends, family members, past co-workers to pre-order a ticket to see them in a movie, that would be 300 tickets. I've learned that this is how plays did it back in the old days. They purposely created these plays with really large casts because they knew they could pack a theater on opening night if their cast was large enough. I told my entire cast/crew to all try to get 10 people and once those 10 say they'll go, encourage them to bring just 1 person with them because nobody likes to go to a movie by them self (except filmmakers cause we see too many movies). So that could easily put us up to 600 and really close to actually pulling it off if everyone did their part. And then that's not even counting social networks, people not in it wanting to go that could exceed the goal. That's just for the initial push so people believe it will actually happen.

I believe that this model could ultimately lead to a surge in independent films being made if it can be proven to work. My theory is people HATE being asked to donate for money but they LOVE being invited to a movie premiere. And many people will actually get angry at you if you don't invite them to your movie premiere. I'm personally one of them. Even if I don't go, I still like to be invited. It makes me feel special. The same way when someone invites me to their birthday party or wedding. I may not go but it feels nice to know they want to see me there at their big event. :Drogar-Happy(DBG):


So, I'm giving it a try and I hope you guys follow my progress, I launched yesterday afternoon! Please give me feedback suggestions, maybe help me promote it if you have any connections to bloggers/filmmaker publications, or if it's something you'd watch, feel free to show your support if you like....
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/59092787/paul-and-the-hooker-feature-length-romantic-comedy


If people respond with interest to this post, I'll come back and keep you all updated and answer questions. I'm just a struggling filmmaker like many of you trying to get my movies made. So anything I can do to help, I will. If I ever actually get this movie made, I'll come back on here and create a big thread on it with lots of tips for everyone. I really believe this could be my breakout film that puts me on the map. I got scripts ready to go after this as well to keep making some big exciting things happen. We shall see friends!

My theory is also that there is around $212 million dollars that have flowed through kickstarter, and if I can hit the initial $10k as quickly as possible, the kickstarter crowd may come in and push me over the amount to get the celebrity cameos I have that are interested in this project. But maybe that is wishful thinking, so I'm also going to be looking for sponsors in the meantime to maybe help close that gap. :Drogar-Shock(DBG):


Some of you are probably thinking, there is no way it could work because people aren't going to reserve a ticket to an event when the date hasn't even been announced yet. And that is the biggest obstacle really. So I've packaged every ticket with a digital download of the movie, soundtrack, making of ebook, digital download of the poster and a public thanks on the facebook fanpage..all for $10. That way even if they somehow can't make the screening with a 1 month notice, they'll own a digital download of it to see it no matter what. I figure if at that point they still don't want to reserve a ticket and I don't hit my goal, I'll go shoot another feature and come back to this later. :embarasse

You can't give up, got to keep pushing and try new things. I see that some on Kickstarter/IndieGoGo don't even give a digital download until like $25 dollars or something. Or do their premiere tickets at like $50, it's just insane I think to charge so much more than the normal going rate. But what do I know, I'm still trying to figure all this out.


I hope you're all having a great weekend so far. :Drogar-Happy(DBG):


-AA
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3016534
 
Last edited:
It would certainly let you book an appropriate sized cinema for your opening. That way you won't have the danger of an empty theatre when any invited critics attend.
 
Egg Born Son said:
It would certainly let you book an appropriate sized cinema for your opening. That way you won't have the danger of an empty theatre when any invited critics attend.
Click to expand...
I agree. And that was something else I was thinking when launching it. I notice most filmmakers, after their movie is completed, scramble around to do a few screenings. They do one with maybe 200 seats and then it sells out. Then another, and they just keep going until they get to the last one that barely fills. I think this way you can do less screenings and do one really big one up front based on demand/interest. Plus if you have celebrity cameos, they can fly out to one big screening versus 5-6 smaller ones. We'll see! :)

Plus if you get a ridiculous amount of demand, say 1,400 people pre-order...you can do two screenings back to back in the same theater since you already have the cast/crew there and celebrity flown out. :)
 
Interesting. Will have to see what my finances let me do, but I will get at least 2. How many seats were at the movie grill for Killing Holly (and if you don't mind) what did they charge for that place?
 
Cryogenic Filmworks said:
Interesting. Will have to see what my finances let me do, but I will get at least 2. How many seats were at the movie grill for Killing Holly (and if you don't mind) what did they charge for that place?
Click to expand...

When I screened Killing Holly in 2008, we did a 200 seat theater and sold it out. I remember seeing you there! The place usually runs I believe around $1k but back then we knew the guy who ran the place and we got a deal for around $300. But you can book some of the nicest places for anywhere from $300 to $1,000 depending on which theater you go with and on what night. If you got a very large crowd and celebrities flying out to be there, press coverage, etc. they may even let you use the place for free to discounted significantly because of all the concessions they could make on such a large crowd. The only reason we got that $300 rate was because he was pricing it against anticipated concessions and if you don't do enough in concessions, they may charge you through the difference. But we made the concessions so didn't have to pay the difference back then.
 
How is this any difference than just running a kickstarter campaign and trying to pre-sell something for $10? 700 "units" of something to sell is a lot of units. Actually its a TON of units to sell. If you could get all of the cast and crew to get 10 people to contribute to something on Kickstarter for more than $10 then you'd make even more money, plus you wouldn't have to pay for the theater rental, which I didn't see you factoring in there.

Not to rain on the parade because the concept might be sound, but I think the issue is, and always has been about finding those x people you need to purchase whatever gizmo you're selling in order to finance your film. In this case it's 700 and a theater ticket. In others its 250 and a DVD, etc. Getting the word out, and converting an audience into contributors the hard part.

Good luck! I'll be watching your progress.
 
How long from the Kickstarter campaign or preselling the theatrical run until you have something to show? That could easily be measured in years. And what if the unexpected happens and, for whatever reason, you can't finish the movie? Shrug your shoulders and never give the people who contribute anything in return for their money? This seems ripe for abuse.
 
@Chris, I agree and I think ultimately it just depends on how many people want to see the movie you're making. If you or I can't even get enough people to want to see it, it might be best to go shoot something else. The nice thing about Kickstarter/IndieGoGo is even if you don't reach your goal, it gives you an opportunity to direct some energy at raising more awareness for your project and I think in the long run when it is released, it could help. A month long solid campaign of promoting/spreading the word, etc. with your strongest pitch on your project is worth the effort in itself I think.

@Gary, every film that gets put up on Kickstarter/IndieGoGo is usually offering a perk of the movie, DVD, etc. It's the same thing, they could all end up not finishing it as well but many meet their goal. There is some faith involved in the process based on the team and track record. I think there is a risk/reward with backing any creative venture. It's definitely not for everyone but I think it provides an opportunity to see something different created.
 
It's an imaginativel idea. It's hard to think of ways of funding a feature. I'm working on one for June 2013. The fund raising plan I have now is a combination of crowd funding, formal letter fundraising, fund raising events with all the usual stuff.. auctions, etc along with reaching out to some potential larger donors. My projections are still short of my goal.

One thing I am going to try are screening of completed shorts with Q and A's. This is my first feature. I'll be interested in following your progress.
 
@hscully, thanks! We'll see how it goes. Kickstarter says that the majority of funding usually happens in the first week and the last week. So we may have a good idea after this first week what our odds are. I had all the cast/crew pre-contact people ahead of time to give them a heads up on what we're doing and to see how many would consider pre-ording a ticket. Our number came up to 200+. So we'll see if within the 1st week if they come through and pre-order after all. That will be a nice boost to start things off. :)
 
I have to say I'm a bit surprised by how there really are people on Kickstarter that are looking up projects. I've gotten a few people I've never met before pre-order a digital download of it. One being from Australia. I thought that was awesome. I'm also surprised how many likes the Kickstarter page has already gotten, at around 75+ likes. So people are checking it out. Kickstarter's interface is also really nice. I may post some screenshots of it. It tells you how many plays the video got and what percentage watched it through to the end. They also tell you where the referrals are coming from. It's very high tech with the numbers/stats. :)
 
I dont know if 10k$ can be enough to do a cinema movie, never tried it. I would use this idea of pre-selling tickets together with kickstarter. It´s surely a good idea to boost the budget.
Good luck with your film!
 
GoodLuck said:
@Gary, every film that gets put up on Kickstarter/IndieGoGo is usually offering a perk of the movie, DVD, etc. It's the same thing, they could all end up not finishing it as well but many meet their goal.
Click to expand...

First, the majority do not raise their funding. Second, you can get a DVD/Blu-ray/Digital download to anyone at anytime and any place. But you would be asking people to reserve a ticket at a specific time at a specific place perhaps as much as 3-4 years in the future.

I think you are just trying to think of something different to give yourself an edge because you know it's hard work to raise any kind of legitimate funding on Kickstarter (and frankly, I wouldn't do a feature for less than $100k in the first place...costs $30k to start with just to pay the a small crew low, but okay rates). I don't think selling an actual theatrical performance helps you out at all in that endeavor because, lets face it, anyone who is going to watch your $10k-ish film will be probably watching it via some kind of streaming service. Theatrical performances are highly overrated by budding filmmakers. It's hard enough to get butts in the seats with a 3D blockbuster budgeted action feature, let alone some low budget mumblecore indy drama.
 
I think this is a good idea, since i'm living in Austria, i won't be able to get to the states to watch your movie unfortunately... But i will definitely follow your progress, looking forward to your feature - the cast looks good so far IMO :) cheers and good luck
 
Thanks timbook2! There are a lot of independent features being done for around $10k lately with all the HD equipment that is out there. They tend to be dramas or comedies though. Action movies with stunts and shoot outs run much higher of course. Edward Burns more recently shot Newlyweds for around $9k on a 5D Mark II. There's a DVXuser thread on it:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?271233-New-feature-by-Ed-Burns-shot-on-5D-for-9K-NEWLYWEDS

The Polish Brothers shot For Lovers Only for almost nothing on a 5D Mark II and sold over $200k in downloads through iTunes on it.
 
@Gary, I think a bit of the draw comes from possibly having celebrity cameos at the screenings. If they were 100% a lock, you could probably pre-sell easily for $20 a ticket. I believe Kevin Smith 4 walled Red State for around $40 a ticket, maybe more? I think there is a bit of a draw to the event when celebrities are there. So to get $10 with Terry Kiser there and possibly even a few others, I think that's where the value may be a bit different. We'll see!

@Stefan, thanks!!! :)
 
Thanks Stefan! You're the best, appreciate it! :)

Our lead actor had a shootout scene with Nick Cage in Drive Angry. Nick Cage won of course! :)
 
GoodLuck said:
Our lead actor had a shootout scene with Nick Cage in Drive Angry. Nick Cage won of course! :)
Click to expand...

i hope you don't think that's a legitimate "celebrity".

Kevin Smith did not sell tickets to Red State before production even began. Also, Kevin Smith is a celebrity in his own right, which you are not.
 
I think crowdfunding in general has shifted from funding development to a storefront for initial sales. It's all about pre-sales; tickets, DVD's, downloads or whatever, it's all the same.
It's more about how hard you work it, who you are and how do you keep the interest going to reach your funding. It's a LOT of work.

My one & only attempt failed. I spent hours everyday posting, blogging, sending emails, FB, Twitter...you name it. It hit the first 20% quickly....but after that (which are most likely your friends, family and fans) it drops of quickly.

The best part for me... by personally meeting and contacting connections (along with most people pledging sticking to it), I was able to fund my film (5K)! ...and others are still donating as the project progresses.

My time was better spent talking to people, networking, identifying possible donors and companies that might be interested....and closing the sale. I also don't have to pay Kickstarter & PayPal a cut either!
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?281531-Art-of-the-Bag-a-Speed-Bag-Story

The most successful projects are music (bands have large fan-bases and they are glad to pre-order the next release)...and films (again, if you have a fan-base, you can easily pre-sell DVD's).
I've helped fund 4 films via Kickstarter, to date only one was finished and I still haven't recieved my DVD yet!

Best of luck & spend every moment you can pushing the project.
:beer:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top