I have a script and funding...now what?

R

rahulvictor

Active member
Hey guys, this is mostly a hypothetical question, but one that I'd love to get answers to as I'm sure others also wonder the same thing (not sure whether to post it here or somewhere else, but I'll start here).

Let's say I have a finished and polished script. I also have a director attached. I also have $1mil in funding (entirely hypothetical - I wish I had that kind of money). What would be the first step in getting the movie made? Should I go talk to an entertainment lawyer to make sure my ducks are in a row? Something else?

If you have suggestions beyond the first step as well, it'd be much appreciated.
 
So you hypothetically got to this point without a budget or any kind of plan? If so, now's the time to figure out your target distribution. Based on that, you can work on making a budget that will address your distribution needs. If you want guaranteed foreign distribution you have to cast some names that work in the target territories.

You need to hire a producer that's made a movie with a similar budget before and knows all of the details. Just wrapped production on a $40K short and believe me, there are TONS of expenses that come out of the woodwork. We could have easily spent double our budget!

Don't talk to a lawyer, talk to a producer and get the ball rolling. But FIRST think about the end-goal and address distribution.
 
Entertainment lawyer sounds like a must-do idea when dealing with kind of money. Production accountant, prod. coordinator & prod. manager then can be a healthy next step in achieving what ur director might have in mind.

Plenty more planning, budgeting, hiring, reading, re-writing, scouting, desining etc. to go after that!

I myself have never had that kind of budget for my own projects, though I've worked on plenty of sets that have...

..maybe one day that budget will come both our ways! ;-}
 
Very good info so far, thanks. I'm not close to this hypothetical yet (still a few months away at the very least) and would be happy with a $100k budget much less $1mil when the time comes. Just want to get some initial ideas for now.

In regards to attracting target audience talent and/or a producer - what's the best way to approach this? Networking or sending a business plan/script out?

It sounds like a producer would make sense, as the main thing I'm looking for is guidance from someone who's been there done that in terms of movie-making before.
 
The lawyer should have come before the funding, otherwise you could lose it all in legal issues. And a business plan should have defined target audience, steps to produce and budget use before even talking to investors.
 
Thanks Cassius, good points. Again, there's no funding yet, no talking to investors yet either (although I've mildly talked to some folks but the numbers are wildly variable at this point). Maybe I should have reworded this to 'I have a script, now what?' :)

Sounds like from what you guys are saying I should get in touch with a lawyer and producer (someone to manage the legal sides and someone to manage the logistics?) while also getting a biz plan in place, then move on to investors...
 
Lawyer after a producer. You don't need to talk to someone about "how" to package it (the lawyer) until you know what it is you're trying to accomplish.

Before you ask for money you need to know how much you need, and that's where the producer comes in. If you want to target a theatrical distribution then your needs are vastly different than if you want to create something that only you will love.

Lawyer before knowing what you have is cart-before-the-horse.
 
Okay, your script has to come first. Everything else will be determined from that. After you are confident you have the best script you can possibly get, break it down so you can create a shooting schedule and know everything you're going to need for your production. Then create a budget! How do you know how much it's going to cost to make without one? On a small production (read: short vanity project) you can probably get by without a budget but for something in the range you're talking about a well thought-out budget is essential. These things really need to be in place before you even think about going to people for money.
 
Lawyer comes after a producer, yes. I just did this, almost like you are describing in fact...

I had a script, very polished, I wanted to direct it, and I had funding. Basically I went about looking for a producer, thought I'd find some sort of line producer or hopefully someone who had some experience handling putting together a movie, but I wasn't sure how it would all work in terms of making my money back, whether that person would have any distribution contacts, etc.

I ended up, through sort of random chance, getting my listing passed on to two great producers, one who is a UPM as well, I had a great meeting with them, they loved my script, they were coming off having done a $10 million film but they've done films in the lower budget ranges as well, so they knew what it would take. They had connections for cast and crew, equipment, locations, you name it. Basically if I drew it up in a fairy tale, I wouldn't have been able to draw it up any better, and they have a lot of distribution contacts having both come from the lot on Warner Bros., just selling DVD rights on another film to MGM (several have gone to MGM), and connections at other distribution companies as well.

We shot the movie, everything went great, now we're doing some pickup shots and post-production, and we'll be on our way towards the business goal -- making money!

Just make sure the producer you find really knows what they're doing because if you have the money, you have the toughest part done, even if it's not a lot of money, it's money, and if it's a really good script you'll get interest.
 
Well there ya go! Why don't you just take your $100k, hire the company that Jonathan used and let them handle everything? (Of course your script had better be great or all bets are off)
 
Haha

Haha

Well it really was good timing, too, between projects for them while they were trying to get financing together on some larger films. I believe one of those projects in the $5M range is now funded, pending some final paperwork, and may go later this year. There are at least 3 more projects I know about they're working on funding and all in the 8 digits.

For real producers to be willing to help produce your movie when there's no upfront money in it for them, it has to be a strong enough script so that they really believe if they pull it off well, they can make some serious money on it. They are taking the risk alongside you. Sure, I risked my money so I had the bigger risk, but they still were willing to risk months of their time when that time is quite valuable all on the prospect of this being a really good film and making us all a good chunk of change down the road. Now, we feel it was all worthwhile and are confident about making some cash on it, but it took a lot of hard work to get to that point and there is still a lot of work remaining.

If you have the money, though, try to hold out for a good producer who really knows what he's doing. If everyone says your script is so-so, don't be stubborn, figure out what's wrong with it and rewrite it. Even if it cost you $1,000 to get that feedback, it'd be worth it not to spend way more money on a bad film!
 
JonathanLB said:
Well it really was good timing, too, between projects for them while they were trying to get financing together on some larger films. I believe one of those projects in the $5M range is now funded, pending some final paperwork, and may go later this year. There are at least 3 more projects I know about they're working on funding and all in the 8 digits.

For real producers to be willing to help produce your movie when there's no upfront money in it for them, it has to be a strong enough script so that they really believe if they pull it off well, they can make some serious money on it. They are taking the risk alongside you. Sure, I risked my money so I had the bigger risk, but they still were willing to risk months of their time when that time is quite valuable all on the prospect of this being a really good film and making us all a good chunk of change down the road. Now, we feel it was all worthwhile and are confident about making some cash on it, but it took a lot of hard work to get to that point and there is still a lot of work remaining.

If you have the money, though, try to hold out for a good producer who really knows what he's doing. If everyone says your script is so-so, don't be stubborn, figure out what's wrong with it and rewrite it. Even if it cost you $1,000 to get that feedback, it'd be worth it not to spend way more money on a bad film!
Click to expand...

Jonathan, out of curiosity, what was your timeline like? In other words, how long did it take from your finishing the script to finding the right people to the final film product? And approximately how long did each phase take (pre, production, post)?
 
For sure

For sure

I'm really excited to get the film finished, and at least have a trailer to show people and whatnot. It's really shaping up, though, I love post-production because you see it all coming together. Also it's like when you see the first rough cut, if you enjoy that and you think it's good, then you know you're going to have a really good film because it's so early in the process that there is a lot left to correct. It's hard to believe when I see the RED footage, for instance, that it's not color corrected! My HVX200 footage doesn't look that good even when it is color corrected! Haha.

Timeline, hmm ok.

Well I came up with the idea for this film in late June, at Dances With Films, hanging out with my two actors / collaborators from The Devil's Matchmaker, my first short. I later cast them both in my feature as the leads, and Brendan (my star) helped me out with story advice on the feature script. I wrote it as a short at first, rather impulsively, in late June / early July 2009. He told me that he thought I had way more than a short and to keep writing, just see where the characters take me. So I outlined a feature screenplay in July and I wrote the very rough draft in August. It was a paltry 72 pages and full of holes, scenes missing, things just not properly developed, etc. Throughout the year it grew to 84 pages after several more drafts and I sent out the first draft for someone to read on December 31, when I also registered it with the U.S. Copyright Office.

I wanted to start the process of finding a producer in early 2010, but I was still working on the script and that is THE key element, so I wasn't going to rush it. It had to be something I was completely satisfied with and it wasn't yet. Throughout numerous future drafts, then being written more quickly, it grew to 97 pages, and then was scaled back down to 95 before resting at 96 for shooting. The script was more or less finished in March, which is when I started looking for help producing it. I was still updating script elements and tweaking, because I figure until you are locked you may as well do that. Even in post your script changes, after you shot the film! Heck on the day of shooting sometimes, a few lines are changed because what you shot before now makes more sense with altered dialogue, etc. It happens, and if you have a good script supervisor they may catch something essential. A party moved from night to day for lighting reasons, a character mentioning "tonight's party" when it should be "today's party" or "tomorrow's party" because it's now day, etc.

Everything came together remarkably fast, to be honest. In March I met with the producers for the first time, they were the only producers I met with. I had gotten about 75 e-mails from wannabe producers, and just being honest I hated 74 of those e-mails. I was bummed. They were all amateurs or hacks. A lot of people with only PA experience (not joking) or very limited associate producing experience, short experience, etc. A few had line producing experience, but only really terrible films. They could be great at line producing but I was bothered by the lack of quality. A few more were legitimate producers making money on their endeavors, but again with awful films. One had done like 9 exploitation films, so they must be making some money, but with horrible titles (hilarious though) and I'm not joking, not ONE with an IMDb rating above 3.1. They were that bad. Mostly in the 1 range.

This year has been kind of insane in that I started the year very nervous and a bit depressed career-wise. I knew that because of my financial circumstances, I really could only afford to give it a shot in this industry for one more year, 2010, and this had to be a good year for me to keep doing this full time and not start coming up with some backup options. Film is the only thing I love, though, so that was just a really depressing thought. I try to remain upbeat always, so I figured, well, here goes everything, 2010 for all of the marbles! I just needed one of two things to work out -- my feature or my corporate work. By the time I was having a lot of difficulty with a client on the corporate site, and on the verge of losing a big contract (which we did lose), I was pretty far along with my feature film business-wise, as far as signing an agreement with the producers to make the film.

I went from just a guy with a script and a few bucks, but no clue what the heck to do on the feature side of things, in March to a DGA director with a feature film under his belt in July. It happened fast all around. Business arrangements were all made by May, and pre-production formally was only about 1-3 weeks depending on the department. I had been plugging away really hard for several months, getting a lot of elements lined up, but we hit the ground running. Originally I wanted to film in July, but because of actor availability issues we decided we could try June. It was going to be really tight, I didn't know how in the heck we were going to be ready to shoot a movie in June, but things came together fast. That's a big part of having experienced producers.

Not only was it a producing team, with two guys who really complement one another well, but we brought aboard a guy who works with them on all of their films and has been moving his way up, so this was his first feature film credited as producer. He was the logistical producer, so we had three producers, each handling different areas. Our third producer helped arrange most of the locations, brought aboard our DP and Joss Sussman (our actor, from Glee), and really did a lot of the little logistical elements that someone needed to take care of.

In that little amount of time we also pulled together product placement and free products from companies like: Volvo, Coca Cola, Microsoft (XBox, Bing, computer stuff, etc.), Kashi, Heineken, Corona, Budweiser, Mothers, Arrowhead, Vitamin Water, Food Should Taste Good, Axe, Dunkin Donuts, Coffee Bean, etc. We got a TON of product placement and free stuff that helped reduce costs for craft services, props, set dressing, etc. Anything we needed in a scene, we tried to find a way not to pay for it and to get someone to give it to us for free. It's tough on a small film to get that much product placement, but our guy had some great connections and was able to do some magic with this thing!
 
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