Who are these phantom funders?

suicdekng

suicdekng

Active member
I'm about 9 months out from TRYING to scrape together a $150,000.00 budgeted feature film. No reason to get into the details, but let's assume it is a good idea. Who would I go about contacting and convince to give me some of that $150k?

I live in Kansas City, it's a pretty big place, 2.4 million people and virtually zero film scene. Especially not features. There is also a lot of money in this town, having one of the richest counties in the country. I'm not expecting someone to fork over the lump, but I think if I could sit down with several investor-type people I could get enough money on board to make it happen. The question is, where to start?

As many hours of googling as I have done to try to find answers like this, I mostly just find scam sites and people who don't know what they are talking about.

I don't expect anyone here to hand over phone numbers of Kansas City investors, but it would be great if I could get some ideas on where to start. Thanks everyone.
 
Your first step is to have a business plan that is professional and complete with realistic goals and revenue projections. A good place to start with a business plan is www.filmspecific.com.

As to who and where - money can come from a lot of different areas. Look to high worth individuals in the Kansas City area. Sometimes they have an interest in the film business if they have interest in the subject matter, etc. I would advise being careful taking money for money's sake. I have been involved with projects where investors start taking complete control over the project even though they have zero experience in the field. That can make for a miserable experience.

Look to investor type clubs and meetings in the area, attend a few just to study who is who. etc. Look at IMDB for companies in your are that have credits already. You just never know where an investor might come from. Also check with the state film bureau if they have one. Make sure you understand the 35% film tax incentive in Missouri (http://www.missouribusiness.net/film/incentives.asp) as part of the business plan. Research and business plan first. Then research for investors can start.

Michael
 
To someone who can afford to part with the money, you should be looking for 1 investor, a lot easier and it's only $150,000. That's not very much money. It's not like you're trying to raise $5 million here, haha. But it's a high-risk investment for anyone, if you have little track record as a feature director and since you'll probably have trouble getting much name talent involved, especially there.
 
Thank you all so far. I know what is needed as far as pitch is concerned. Business model, distribution methods, storyboards, line-item budget, ect. I also have a good selection of professional actors I can pull from at micro-budget SAG prices. I'm not concerned with ANYTHING except finding who to talk to.

It is correct that I have no experience with feature fiction work. I am hoping that some impressive shorts displays as well as some test shots and proof of concept will be enough to convince someone to part with $150k. By that time i will have had a feature length documentary screen at several local theatres, so I am hoping that will help a bit as well.

I just still have no idea where to start looking. I am a member of the Kansas City Film Comission, but I am afraid that many of the producers involved there will be even more weary of first-time feature directors than people who would find the idea of being a film producer fun. There are plenty of failed filmmakers in film clubs around here, and I try to avoid them.

Open to any and all suggestions! Thanks.
 
do you have a solid portfolio of work you can show prospective donors? that is also important. you can pitch an idea, even a great one, but if you havent the skill to implement it, and in this sense see it through properly, it might not be worth a potential investors time.
 
Zissou said:
do you have a solid portfolio of work you can show prospective donors? that is also important. you can pitch an idea, even a great one, but if you havent the skill to implement it, and in this sense see it through properly, it might not be worth a potential investors time.
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I know that is necessary. Again, I am aware of all the general advice given to someone who asks "how do i get money for a movie." All I really need to know at this point is who do i take all that stuff to? Even if right now I had the best portfolio any director had ever put together, I would have no one to show it to. I am using the next 9 months to beef up my portfolio, as well as finish a feature-length documentary film that we self-funded and are screening in at least 2 local theaters. I will, of course, use those opportunities to look for investors, but I want to have at least gotten a list of people to pitch to before my screenings.

I do really appreciate all the advice, but I have read most every forum post here I could as well as several books, am in film school and have spoken to several semi-successful filmmakers about most of the pre-production work I need to have done. I really, really only need to get ideas of who to pitch to.

Sincerely, thank you all for being helpful. Some advice on the 'who' in the 'who-what-where-how' would be awesome.
 
suicdekng said:
I know that is necessary. Again, I am aware of all the general advice given to someone who asks "how do i get money for a movie." All I really need to know at this point is who do i take all that stuff to? Even if right now I had the best portfolio any director had ever put together, I would have no one to show it to. I am using the next 9 months to beef up my portfolio, as well as finish a feature-length documentary film that we self-funded and are screening in at least 2 local theaters. I will, of course, use those opportunities to look for investors, but I want to have at least gotten a list of people to pitch to before my screenings.

I do really appreciate all the advice, but I have read most every forum post here I could as well as several books, am in film school and have spoken to several semi-successful filmmakers about most of the pre-production work I need to have done. I really, really only need to get ideas of who to pitch to.

Sincerely, thank you all for being helpful. Some advice on the 'who' in the 'who-what-where-how' would be awesome.
Click to expand...

apologies for the redundancy then; you do seem to know where you want this to go, but not where to go with it. perhaps contact some local art stores/galleries and well funded charities and simply ask them for suggestions; it never hurts to ask politely. Try social networking (the old fashioned way as well), and local funded charity events; it is likely someone knows someone etc. I got my first string of ad gigs by showing a series of 'nature' music videos i had made to random people until i came across a few people who wanted web and tv content. The internet is a great way to showcase your work, but there is nothing like physical interaction to get the message across, and to make a REAL contact.
 
1) An investor is ANYONE with enough money to get your film made - get rid of any finance stereotypes you might have in mind and expand your thinking - Every film maker approaches the 'obviously' wealthy but the fellow with the corner Cafe' might be a lot more liquid than he looks...

2) Investors are EVERYWHERE. I am 100% sure that a few have already looked at this thread - I don't see links to a website or a proposal of any sort available for anonymous perusal.

3) Investors want security. Many times, YOU are the security they want - Examples of competence, excellence, confidence etc. - Make sure you are uber prepared all the time.

4) The Law of averages - Prepare to find one strong possibility within every 100 pitches. Make As many appointments as you possibly can and pitch your heart heart out! Use a big number like 100 so that the first 10 people to say "No" don't rob you of your energy and passion.

5) Website, Blog, whatever - it's a lot mre powerful than you might think. Good creative design and taglines create a picture in the investor's head. A picture is worth a gazillion words!

6) Box Office Mojo - it has great examples of high earners and low earners (In case you don't know where to find material for financial projections).

7) Investors are EVERYWHERE.

8) See (7) and (2) - Anyone with cash in the bank is excited about ways to increase it.

9) Even if your movie is the biggest load of crap out there, someone will buy it and enjoy it.
When you get someone to invest, make sure you follow through no matter what the critics or distributors have to say about your movie. If it makes 1c profit, getting investors for your next one will be extremely easy.
Sell it on the street corners if you have to, but MAKE a profit.

10) PRODUCT PLACEMENT. Toothpaste, Sneakers, Tires, The Local Store, Soda, Candy... Everyone wants a cheap way to get their product known - think outside the box.
 
Thank you guys. If I dont get any more advice, at least I now have a really solid place to start. I knew I could count on the sharp mind of the DVX forum folks!!
 
Actually definitely take the product placement advice to heart. I would have never guessed before I made my first feature that a small budget feature would be able to get such a ridiculous amount of product placement, but you can, and it will save you a LOT of money, a LOT of hassle (not Greeking everything), and actually add production value. We got product placement from Microsoft, Bing, XBox (all the same parent company but different brands), Volvo, Food Should Taste Good, Kashi, Coca-Cola, Arrowhead, Budweiser, Corona, Heineken, Boost Mobile, Hostess, Axe, Coffee Beanery (something like 50 pounds of coffee, no joke), JanSport and countless other food and snack companies. It all combined to save us a lot of money, and everything that we needed as a prop, rather than rent it first, we went right to product placement companies and asked them if they could provide ideas. That meant nearly every non-furniture prop we had in the movie was product placed, so we didn't have to pay for renting it and sometimes even got to keep some of the stuff. We got several hard alcohol brands aboard too, kept 10 bottles or so of that, great crew gifts at the end when your pay sucks. It reduces craft services costs.

And if you put that as part of the business plan that you've gotten interest from all of these companies, it not only sounds more impressive but also sounds like you know what you're doing and are able to maximize your small budget and get the most out of it. These companies, at that level, won't pay you to be in your movie, but they're happy to give you free stuff no problem you just have to show them the script and direct them to the script pages where their brand would appear, or if it's something general like bottled water (we got 80 CASES of bottled water from Arrowhead alone plus Dasani from Coca-Cola) they'll ask that you include their brand twice or something along those lines. Very easy. We were incredibly resourceful and creative, we even got Boise Paper to give us 10 cases of paper (yes, 10 cases full of 10 reams of paper each, everyone in the office still has many, many reams of paper left) that we used to print scripts and do all production paperwork. Our office expenses budget went to almost $0 because we got it all from product placement. It also isn't like some people think where you're putting this stuff in your movie and cheapening it. Actually it's just a lot easier, like we had a scene where a character is carrying a box full of envelopes to mail out, and that was going to be a generic box but we made it a Boise paper box. I'd say saving that much money was well worth their logo appearing incidentally somewhere.

We got a $50,000 designer dress for a red carpet premiere scene in exchange for having our lead actress say who made the dress, which was easy because she's being greeted by tons of paparazzi and we just had someone yell, "Who made your dress?" and she yells the name. You see that on E! all of the time anyway, it's expected, so it doesn't come across as unusual and it got us an amazing dress that is one-of-a-kind and adds production value to our film. You'd be amazed at everything you can get, I don't even know half of our sponsors.

I think every film should pursue some type of product placement, but you may need to hire a product placement specialist. You can do so for not too much money usually on a small film and it'll be worthwhile for you.
 
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