Concept Trailer to secure funding

A

Alicia Ferrows

Member
Hi,
I am currently part of a team trying to secure funding for a feature film from any sources available but without a strong reference to anything of similar nature from previous work we are finding it hard to make people see our vision and what we are capable of. I was thinking on spending some time and money (from the little we have) to create a very high impact concept trailer for the film by bringing in some of the actors and filming parts of key scenes from the film (obviously on a smaller scale) to give a visual taster to what we are trying to achieve. Is this something that is commonly practiced in the industry or are there any pitfalls i need to be aware of before committing to such a task?

Thanks guys
 
Here is the trouble with concept trailers for me.

It is an inefficient production, so ultimately wastes resources. Except in unusual cases, a trailer would require multiple locations, set ups, etc.

When shooting a feature, you shoot scenes by locations, which means you get ALL the material shot at each location. With a trailer, you might need ONE SHOT at a location. So, all the set-up that might ordinarily allow you to get 11 pages of a script into the can nets you 5 seconds for a trailer.

Also, and I'm saying this from the perspective of someone who is aboard a project as a consulting producer that may go this route ourselves despite my obvious dislike of this method, ordinarily on a much more limited budget you are NOT going to achieve the quality that you'd get from cutting a trailer from "real" movie footage.

I've had a lot of people compliment our upcoming feature film's trailer (www.battle-movie.com) and they think I can help them shoot a trailer for their project so they can get financed. They don't understand that our trailer was cut only after 97% of Principal photography was complete on the film itself. We had the benefit of almost ALL the footage to choose from which helped make the trailer what it is. Trying to guess at what scenes will be most effective simply from the script will be difficult.

Also, consider this as well, the project that I'm involved with that is wanting to go down this route right now is meant to hire A and B level talent in the key roles should we secure funding. Those talents WILL NOT be available to shoot this pre-Investment trailer. So, an investor will not have the benefit of "seeing" exactly how you intend to present the film.

I can imagine putting together a trailer with John Doe as the lead and showing investors who are supposed to be considering a project with Johnny Depp as the lead...I can just imagine the following..."Now, remember, in the movie That will be Johnny Depp, so picture him in your head rather than our buddy John Doe here..."

In my mind, it's creating an excuse for yourself.

It may be valuable to a small extent but overall, I lean away from the practice.

I think a plan that is well designed and with professionals who have a good reel and resume should be enough to sway a serious investor. But, hey, who knows. There seem to be so few real investors (for independent film anyway) out there anyhow, that I don't know what will work.

As far as how common a practice? I'm not sure. I know a lot of people have that idea, don't know how many times it's actually been effective.

-Martin
 
Thanks for the reply Martay,
Im based in the UK and around a lot of sport related figures who want to invest in creative outlets like films etc however many of these people are not of the industry and so are driven by what they can see rather than a convincing business plan etc but with your points raised it is very scary at the prospect of spending time and resources on something that wont reflect the true quality of what i want to present. Im still unsure which way i will go
 
I'd say you should create an award winning short film that shows people what you and your team can produce, not necessarily in context to the feature you want to raise money for.

You admitted it already, you're an unknown commodity without a body of work. You need to change that. What I'm in the middle of doing right now is finishing up a short film that is designed to do exactly that for me, the crew, and the cast.

In fact, the short was funded by the parents of the lead actress who's looking for a break to help her land lead roles. She's done tons of extra and commercial work, but hasn't broken through yet.

So at least in my opinion you'll serve your career the best by doing something to showcase your talents. An award winning director, or writer, means a lot more to an investor than someone who patched together a trailer, which still doesn't show they can actually pull off a full project.
 
Make a film, any film.. whether it be feature/short.

Its just like any job, noone is going to hire you if you don't have a resume.
 
Take a representative scene from your production and shoot it as an example of what you are planning.
 
Alicia Ferrows said:
so are driven by what they can see rather than a convincing business plan
Click to expand...

I suspect your wrong about this. Or perhaps you are pushing it because the business plan is not viable. It's really impossible to get people to invest reasonable sums of money because they are just in love with the script/idea. At the end of the day investors really only care about the whole business plan. The best a concept trailer can do is convince them that you and your team really are able to execute some of the business plan, despite the fact your resumes aren't that solid. But the whole plan is much bigger than the script and the film, it's more about how the film will be sold and who will do that.

If your plan calls for $500k of funding and films like your's only made back on average $100k last year, no amount of trailer magic is going to convince someone they should invest the money anyway.

If you need $25k to shoot a ultra-low budget short and plan on licensing it to Netflix to make it available online, but they are only paying $2-4k for a nine month online window, your business plan will have a hard time finding investors.

If you really must sell the film's "idea" there are other ways to do that. Ways that might be cheaper and easier than trying to make a concept trailer. Animated story boards, voice overs, comic books, etc have all been used as part of successful pitches.
 
I like what Blaine said, that is a better idea, but mostly...

I think everyone else is right that it's about your personal accolades and experience as well as your business plan.

I consider myself a pretty new director, I'm young, I haven't been doing this for very long, but even so before I directed my feature my work had been selected to 40 festivals and every project I submitted had won at least one award, so I could say my work has played from California to Alaska, Oregon to Florida, and I'm an award-winning short-film and award-winning music video director. Even WITH funding, if I had approached the producers of my film with the script and no directing experience or really no significant experience, they would have probably been very concerned about going ahead with the project and I'm guessing might have tried to talk me into how they could find a good director to do my script, because they really liked the script. I don't think it would have been easy for them to trust me to bring the project in at the quaity we needed, when they were risking months of their time with basically nothing but points on the back-end. Investors and producers want to know that you can do what you say / think you can do.

As for the landscape of indie investing, this is how I see it and I'm not an expert so you should take my words / advice with a grain of salt, but this is from years of observation, reading a lot of books, and observing what some producers I know do...

Essentially, I think there are three levels of financing, personal / family / friends, independent film investors (this is almost always combined with bank loans against foreign pre-sales, equity, etc.), and studio financing (also always combined with various pre-sales, bank loans, lines of credit, etc.). We're only really concerned with the first two here.

If you're doing a film for under $500,000, I think you should be focused on personal financing, which means yourself, your family and relatives, your friends, or maybe business associates who are "friends of the family," etc. There are new options of course for raising money from people who like your work, thanks to the Internet, but essentially the people who would invest in an Ultra Low Budget or micro budget film are going to be people who know you and who on some level you can make them trust that you won't lose all of their money. These aren't "real" investors in the sense that they're more like angel investors than anything. It's more about you than the project. I personally think if you don't have any success with that option, it's time to consider other routes to success, like winning screenwriting competitions, short film competitions, etc., and trying to position yourself with some producer(s) as an up-and-coming talent. This is a tough road, though, to be honest it's a lot more winding than just pulling out a few hundred thousand and directing a film, which can be a strike to the top. Or it can be a forgotten failure and you're back at square one, but that's a risk you take.

Independent film financing is not done in general by just random people, but by film investors, people who regularly invest in film, whether that's a financier who arranges funding through hedge funds or individuals who are known film investors and have seen quite a few business plans, know what to expect, etc. Everyone talks about how risky film investing is, so there is this entirely mistaken idea that the investors must know they are taking a huge risk and therefore not expect much. This couldn't be further from the truth -- they know there is a significant risk, but that risk can be reduced by proper planning on the production's side and a viable business plan, so they expect a far greater possible return on investment. If I was going to give you $250,000 for a movie, I want to believe that there's a solid chance I'm going to make at least 33% per year on my money, so I want $500,000 back in three years or less. The reason I'd be investing in film at all is because I can only make 5-10% per year on other, safer investments, and I want to pursue more aggressive gains for my wealth. That's how an investor thinks. These people then expect to see a bulletproof plan for how at least SOME money is going to be recovered, like for instance if I see that your film is able to secure an A-list actor for the lead role and a solid cast of B-listers around him, who have proven market value in foreign territories and domestic, then I'm going to be pretty confident that with the competent director you attached to the project and the strong script / story, I will be able to get some of my money back in even a worst case scenario.

The biggest problem with most people making independent films is they really are not qualified filmmakers. They are hobbyists just screwing around with a camera, not really sure of how to do things professionally, the Hollywood way. And they have too little money to afford any real names, so there's no sense that there is a guaranteed sale of the film at all. There's a very real chance on a $25,000 to $100,000 film that all of the money is lost. I would argue that on a $200,000 film, done by the right people, there's no such risk at all, but it's still a lot riskier than a film with $5 million and name stars. At the same time, a film for a few hundred thousand is very lean and that's hardly any money to recover. It's just such a small investment that it's not difficult to make that much back, whereas when you start spending well into the 7 figures, you often need a theatrical release to help you recoup the investment (because foreign sales and TV sales, etc., are made richer with a successful theatrical release, not because you are going to make a bunch of money in theaters -- after P&A costs that may not be the case).
 
Define industry - Studio or Indie?

Studio side? It's all pitches. No trailers, just people with a damn good script (that is tracking well) who can tell a story and convince development execs to acquire the project.

Indie? You crowd-fund, do medical research trials, beg family, max out credit cards.

The best real world example I can think of is the SAW franchise. It's been a while since I spoke with one of the producers from the franchise, but if my memory serves - they produced a short of the concept. I think they did a scene of the film and brought it with them on pitch sessions. It was the short that got the attention going for the project. And ultimately got it funded.

PS. I don't think any investor ever expects a 33% ROI per year...
 
Mattykins said:
Define industry - Studio or Indie?

Studio side? It's all pitches. No trailers, just people with a damn good script (that is tracking well) who can tell a story and convince development execs to acquire the project.

Indie? You crowd-fund, do medical research trials, beg family, max out credit cards.

The best real world example I can think of is the SAW franchise. It's been a while since I spoke with one of the producers from the franchise, but if my memory serves - they produced a short of the concept. I think they did a scene of the film and brought it with them on pitch sessions. It was the short that got the attention going for the project. And ultimately got it funded.

PS. I don't think any investor ever expects a 33% ROI per year...
Click to expand...

HAHA, then you don't know venture capitalists. My dad certainly expects that is at the upper end of a project's potential. I got that on a condo development investment in Los Angeles before the downturn, doubled my money in about 2.5 years. You're looking for 20% at least on those type of investments, at least, otherwise you'd never make that type of investment at all. Why risk losing all of your money if you can't even potentially make 33% per year? There's no point. I make low-risk investments where I can reasonably expect 15% per year on them, so why would I make a high risk investment where I am not going to double that? It doesn't make any sense.

You need more friends who are investors ;) I certainly didn't put up my own money for my feature film thinking any less than 33% per year, no. That's a huge risk for me, what I invested, and I knew there was some risk of losing it all, so at the upper end of course I hope for even more than 33% per year. Expect it? No, you don't expect it, but I certainly would be aiming for doubling my investment in a period of three years, absolutely. You sit down and you make projections, and in a case like an independent film you figure, ok worst case scenario I probably really could lose it all. Best *reasonable* case scenario, maybe a few hundred percent ROI in 2-3 years total. Middle-of-the-road estimate? At least 20% per year.
 
I have to say I agree that if you had to perhaps filming simply a scene from the script very well would be more efficient and perhaps get the point across.

I also like the idea of making a short film if you have those resources available. As it would do more to show your team's ability. Perhaps it can be a similar theme to your feature so that you keep the feel of what you're planning with a feature.

Either is still a risk of resources that I think matters less than the solid business plan. However, if your team is that novice, then your business plan may not be solid enough to attract them...which is why a short film which gets some festival notice instantly helps elevate the team's status.

-M
 
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