Financing
Filmmaking - Financing
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Ted Hope on the Need for a Sustainable Investor Class
“The best thing we can do as a film industry is make sure that investors earn risk appropriate returns on their money. We need to create a sustainable investor class,” explains Ted Hope in this video interview with Film Courage. In recent years, Hope has shied away from producing as a career, doing it purely out of love for the film while paying the bills as CEO of Fandor. In order to return to the trade full-time, he’d need for there to be guaranteed returns on investments, as it traditionally goes in the realm of startups and finance. The issue, […]
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Not an Option: The Ins and Outs of Shopping Agreements
The motion picture and television industries have become increasingly informal in recent years. In the past, agents would sign actors and writers before trying to sell their services or material, members of producing teams would sign collaboration agreements with their partners before taking a project to a studio, and producers would enter into written option agreements with writers under which they would pay money to exclusively option the motion picture and television rights to a property. These days, however, many agents will “hip-pocket” new artists and promote them without a contract to avoid commitment; a collaborator will walk a project […]
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Five Things Tinder Guys Don’t Know about Being an Independent Filmmaker
In addition to being adorable, overachieving independent filmmakers, we (Caitlin and Penny) are both single gals in various deserts of actual human interaction (Brooklyn and Central NY, respectively.) Thus, we rely on our phones and thumbs, through a mostly-unknown dating application called Tinder, to find “love” (or whatever). Here’s a first-date conversation we both get to have all the time: Tinder Guy: “You’re an INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER??! That is so cool! Is that just like, a nonstop adventure of inspiration and creativity?” Uh, yeah; that’s exactly what it’s like. This post is dedicated to you, Tinder Guy. 1) Most of the […]
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Kickstarter: How to Disappear Completely in 28 Days
Filmmaker regularly offers crowdfunding filmmakers on our curated Kickstarter page the opportunity to write a guest essay about their campaign. Here’s Sasha Solodukhina on the struggles of funding a first-time work, How to Disappear Completely. To learn more about her 30-minute film, visit its Kickstarter page, where the campaign is in its final three days. Unlike Spike Lee, or Charlie Kaufman, or The Coolest Cooler, even unlike the potato salad – I am not yet a product. I have no brand to articulate me, or any kind of large body of work to stand behind. At this point, you have […]
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Ranking Crowdfunding Sites: Kickstarter, Seed&Spark, Rockethub and More
Crowdsunite, a website that specializes in crowdfunding reviews like only a millennial startup could, recently compiled a list of the industry’s top 10 platforms based on user reviews. Weighing the funding success rate, customer support and user friendliness, Crowdsunite concluded that the niche hybrid Seed&Spark ranked higher than Kickstarter, while the likes of IndieGogo and GoFundMe didn’t even make the cut. A plausible reason for this is that the survey considered platforms that cater across several industries (publishing, medical), but the reasons behind their viability are nonetheless worth considering for your next campaign. While users have frequently taken issue with Kickstarter’s “all […]
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Fundraising $100,000 a Year for Online Video: Mike Stoklasa on Patreon
“Red Letter Media is Creating Weird Internet Videos and Films” is the tagline for the Milwaukee-based collective’s page on online fundraising platform Patreon. It’s an appeal that has impressively generated the group almost $100,000 a year in fan donations. Red Letter Media is the home of various creators, including Mike Stoklasa, whose critical vivisections of George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels landed him on Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces list in 2010. Offering reviews of films and video games alongside other content (like a comedic instructional feature film, How Not to Make a Movie), Red Letter monetizes itself through YouTube advertising, DVD […]
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Crowdf@*%ing 2014
The following is a guest post from director, writer and actress Bethany Orr, whose untitled Iceland-set, psychosexual drama is currently raising funds on Indiegogo in a campaign titled “Iceland or Bust.” Click here at the link to learn more and to support the project. Okay, so you’re not Zach Braff. The market is saturated with projects competing for attention and the hard-earned dollars of YOUR potential supporters. So why crowdfund in 2014? Hasn’t that train left the station? I mean, it’s a huge risk, what if you embarrass yourself? Crowdfunding is, after all, the quickest new way to get unfollowed […]
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Applications Open for Dogfish Accelerator
Last year, I did a lengthly profile on Dogfish Pictures’ inaugural Accelerator program, which adapts a start up financing model to the independent film landscape. Dogfish equips each of its selected participants with seed financing and an office space where they’ll develop their product(s) over the course of nine-weeks, with added input from mentors. The program is capped off by a demo day, in which a member from each team pitches to a room full of investors, industry personnel and lowly journalists like myself. Applications are now open for the second edition of Accelerator through August 8, but this year, James Belfer and Co. are widening the field. “Content […]
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Kickstarter Simplifies Guidelines, Now Instantly Approves Campaigns “by Algorithm”
Kickstarter announced today major changes to its process for accepting applications, simplifying its guidelines for creators and allowing campaigns to “launch instantly” by bypassing the human approval process. Kickstarter’s new rules boil down, writes founder Yancey Strickler, to three points: Projects must create something to share with others. Projects must be honest and clearly presented. Projects cannot fundraise for charity, offer financial incentives, or involve prohibited items. (The rules in full can be read here.) In his post, Strickler emphasizes that “Launch Now” is just an option; creators will still be able to propose projects to Kickstarter’s Community Managers, who […]
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Thunder Funder Talks its New Independent Film Financing and Production Venture
Thunder Funder is the recently announced film production arm of Thunder Studios, a Long Beach, California soundstage and production house, and it’s making a bold play for independent projects. Rodric David, founder and CEO of both Thunder Funder and Thunder Studios, has announced $12 million in annual investment and partnerships with several other companies — post-production services vendor Pace Pictures, Red Digital Cinema and, to handle distribution, indie vet Cassian Elwes of Elevated Film Sales — to bring to independents “all the tools required to present audiences with a film that is truly the best it can be.” A dive […]
