Financing
Filmmaking - Financing
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Rickey Henderson and 8 Tips for Pitching
Part of the No Borders orientation the first day is getting up in front of all the other participants in the program and pitching your project. I am very glad they made us do this–it prepared us for a week of meetings and pitching–but this was something Kat [Candler] and I were not exactly prepared for. To our credit, this fact was buried in a rather lengthy email (way to keep us on our toes, IFP). You could feel the collective nervousness from the group, but regardless, it was no big deal and it went great, no one fell off […]
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12 Tips from James Schamus and Christine Vachon at IFP Film Week
The IFP’s Independent Film Week’s Filmmaker Conference kicked off today, beginning with a case study of Beasts of the Southern Wild and ending with a conversation, moderated by IFP Executive Director Joana Vicente, between producer and Killer Films head Christine Vachon and producer, screenwriter and Focus Features CEO James Schamus. Below are 12 tips from the latter event — advice aimed at producers and, in some cases, anybody else, from two veterans with deep, decades-long roots in the independent community. 1. Consider producing. Christine Vachon and James Schamus are producers, but they both remembered a time when they were not. […]
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Should Filmmakers Be Financially Accountable to their Kickstarter Supporters?
A recent NPR story, “When a Kickstarter Campaign Fails, Does Anyone Get Their Money Back?”, raised the issue of failed crowdfunding campaigns and financial restitution to supporters. It’s a relevant topic as Kickstarter is increasingly acting as a pre-sale, customer-financing platform for sundry consumer, tech, and design goods. iPod wristwatches, RAW-shooting cameras, tripods and remotes, aquariums — many projects, some from creators with manufacturing backgrounds and some without, are bypassing the angel investor round and raising start-up capital directly from their customers. And while these are creative projects, they’re different from the short films and features we highlight on our […]
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The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Doron Weber
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation was created in 1934 by the then head of General Motors to bestow grants related to science, technology, and economics, and to make these subjects more appealing to the general public. Part of a shift towards doing so via the arts can be attributed to Doron Weber, who runs the Public Understanding of Science and Technology program. Weber introduced the concept of providing sometimes sizable grants to narrative films, dealing with science or the science community, over a decade ago, when the idea was relatively novel and returns were a total question mark due the […]
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How We Financed When Harry Tries to Marry Through Staged Readings
This blog is a result of a comment I posted on Scott’s article, 15 Steps to Take After You Finish Your Script. People have always discouraged “readings” for investors, and I know why. They are usually boring for a number of reasons. Now I’ll lay out how my producing partners and I successfully raised money for our first film by staging readings. First, here’s a little backstory on what led us to this idea that everyone tells you not to do. Our journey started in 1998 when my writing partner Ralph Stein and I first wrote the script for When […]
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12 Tips on Networking from the Cannes Film Festival
While the concept of dropping into the world’s largest film event and competing with 999 other short filmmakers for the industry’s attention may seem like a Survivor-like TV show, it’s the reality each year for participants in Cannes’ Short Film Corner. Many of the filmmakers who screen their works in the basement of the Palais are arriving in Cannes for the first time, and the event is a crash course in networking and navigating the business side of film markets. “You can get lost in a sea of films,” admits filmmaker Bradley Montesi (pictured here with producer Elle LaMont), attending […]
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Kickstarter CEO on Equity Crowdsourcing: “We’re Not Interested in that Model”
When the JOBS Act was passed into law last month, I immediately wondered about the effect it would have on the crowdfunding of independent feature films. Many independent films are successfully raising into the six figures by banking on the generosity of their supporters and giving them only creative, non-monetary rewards. But the JOBS Act, as detailed by Matthew Savare and Richard Jaycobs at Filmmaker, allows filmmakers to seek actual equity investors via crowdfunding platforms. These platforms, like Kickstarter, will have to register with the SEC and provide investors with various disclosures. Some filmmakers are excited by these new regulations, […]
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Kickstarter is for People!
A filmmaker asked me, “Do you think I can raise $400,000 on Kickstarter?” I told her that that sounded like a lot. Start-up technology companies using Kickstarter as, essentially, a customer-financed pre-buy platform, are raising in the seven figures. But $400,000 would be on the high-end of a feature film raise. Blue Like Jazz raised about $350,000, and that was based on a New York Times best-seller. Koo did great with Man-Child, scoring about $125,000, but he spent a couple years seeding his campaign by building an audience at No Film School. But as I was talking, I realized the […]
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Senate Passes JOBS Act with Modified Crowdfunding Rules
The JOBS (Jumpstart Our Small Businesses) Act, a collection of six bills intended to make it easy for small businesses to raise capital by relaxing various Securities and Exchange Commission requirements, including those related to crowdfunding, passed the Senate yesterday. It is now headed back to the House for reconciliation and could become law next week. While the House version of the bill passed swiftly with bipartisan backing, its passage through the Senate was rockier, with some Democrats and progressives warning that the bill would dilute necessary investor protections contained in the 2002, post-Enron Sarbanes Oxley Act. The bill exempts […]
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Crowdfunding Bill Stalls in the Senate
The JOBS (Jumpstart our Business Startups) Act, which passed the House last week, has stalled in the Senate over criticism by Democrats over some of its provisions, including those related to crowdfunding, the strategy being used today by many independent filmmakers. Currently, it is illegal to use crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to solicit actual investments. Monies pledged on these platforms are donations usually lacking any tax benefit or further income possiblity for the funder. (Or, increasingly, they are pre-buys for a specific goods or services.) The JOBS Act aims to change that, allowing businesses, including filmmakers, to solicit […]
