Financing
Filmmaking - Financing
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Venice Production Bridge Announces Gap Financing Market to Take Place During the Venice Film Festival
The Venice Production Bridge, a platform connecting European and international producers with potential sales agent, distributors and financiers able to provide final financing for their projects, announced today a new Gap Financing Market to take place during this year’s Venice Film Festival. Running September 2 – 4, the initiative will curate a selection of 25 European and international projects seeking the final 30% of their financing. Projects can be at any stage, from development to post-production, but must prove that the 70% of their existing financing is secure. Significantly, the initiative is open to both documentaries as well as fiction […]
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Fight Club Author Chuck Palahniuk Crowdfunding Lullaby
Though he wrote the novel on which David Fincher’s 1999 hit Fight Club was adapted, novelist Chuck Palahniuk has never written a screenplay. That will change with the upcoming film adaptation of the author’s 2002 novel Lullaby. Palahniuk will executive produce and co-write the screenplay with director Andy Mingo. Along with producer Josh Leake, the team has turned to Kickstarter to raise $250,000 to fund production of the film. Lullaby follows the life of Carl Streator, an over-the-hill reporter whose family mysteriously died years earlier. Palahniuk wrote the novel during the murder trial of the man eventually convicted of murdering his father. “Chuck doesn’t […]
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How Who the F*@% is Frank Zappa Broke Crowdfunding Records
Raising over $1.1 million on Kickstarter, Who the F*@% is Frank Zappa (working title) recently shattered the crowdfunding record for a documentary project, previously held by the Bill Nye film. Directed by Alex Winter (Deep Web), the film is an authorized exploration of the iconic musician’s life and work. Of course, the project benefited from Zappa’s name recognition and hardcore fan base. But that alone isn’t enough to carry a crowdfunding campaign. In order to drive engagement, the filmmakers extended the campaign far beyond Kickstarter itself with coordinated benefit screening events of Zappa’s concert film Roxy: The Movie around the world, additional “Add On Rewards” including […]
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Kodak and Kickstarter Launch Program for Indie Filmmakers to Shoot on Film
Despite outliers such as Alex Ross Perry and Todd Haynes, the general consensus among independent filmmakers is that shooting on film is too expensive to be feasible. Over the past year, Kodak has been working to get the word out that shooting on film is a possibility – even for low-budget indies. Along with Kickstarter, the Eastman Kodak Company today announced a new initiative to support independent filmmakers who want to shoot on film. The program is open to cinematographers launching a Kickstarter campaign in order to bring their vision to life using 35mm or 16mm film. Four directors with upcoming Kickstarter campaigns […]
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Director Peter Medak Plans to Resurrect The Ghost of Peter Sellers
It was 1973 and Peter Medak was a hot director on the rise. Following the success of The Ruling Class, which had earned Peter O’Toole an Academy Award nomination the previous year, United Artists offered him Death Wish. But when the studio insisted on casting Charles Bronson instead of Medak’s pick, Henry Fonda, Medak passed on the project. Back in London, Medak ran into his friend Peter Sellers, who asked him to direct his next film, Ghost in The Noonday Sun, which was set to be filmed on the island of Cyprus. Somehow the idea of filming a 17th-century pirate comedy aboard real ships on […]
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Kickstarting VIVA DIVA, a Short Film Starring Mya Taylor
Mya Taylor will follow up her Film Independent Spirit Award-winning performance in Tangerine with performances in several short films which tackle transgender issues. Her latest project, VIVA DIVA, which is billed as “the story of two trans women of color Rozene and Diva, on a road trip of a lifetime,” is aiming to raise $10,000 on Kickstarter. Written and directed by Sundance Institute Native Lab fellow, Daniel Flores, VIVA DIVA is a road trip movie featuring Rozene and Diva as they make their way down to Guadalajara for gender reassignment surgery. Rozene stops in on her father to try to get answers about […]
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MacArthur Foundation to Cease Supporting Individual Documentary Film Projects
The MacArthur Foundation, which has supported over 300 documentary films since the mid-1980s, is ceasing grant support for individual documentary film projects. In a change announced on its website, MacArthur writes that it will actually increase its overall support for the documentary field but will do so by supporting partner organizations, many of whom have individual granting programs. Indeed, the announcement redirects filmmakers to POV, Firelight Media, ITVS, Sundance Documentary Fund and Tribeca Film Institute. In the post, MacArthur cites the more expansive work done by these partner organizations, which includes mentorship, editorial advice and audience engagement. From the site: […]
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Section 181, Film Production Tax Incentive, Reinstated (and Retroactive!) in 2016 Spending Bill
Great news for independent film producers: the omnibus spending bill passed by Congress this week and signed by President Obama contains a reinstatement of Section 181, the tax provision that incentivizes film and television production by allowing for immediate deduction of production costs up to $15 million. What’s more, the provision, which expires December 31, 2016, was made retroactive to include costs spent during 2015. (In recent years, Section 181 was retroactively renewed for the prior year at the beginning of the next fiscal year; in 2015, it was allowed to expire completely, and many observers didn’t expect to see […]
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Nine Tips for Pitching Your TV Series
With the arrival of the Golden Age of Television, many indie-slanting stories are finding a home in episodic series. And if you’re one of these independent filmmakers with a hot series concept, you might find yourself in the least “indie” situation possible: pitching a network executive. But don’t be intimidated — as more and more non-traditional TV formats become runaway hits, networks’ doors are wide open to new ideas and innovative visions. If you can find a way onto the network exec’s couch, the following tips — culled from recent industry events, like the IFP’s Screen Forward, as well as […]
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Kickstarter Announces Sundance-Bound Projects
The countdown to Sundance 2016 has begun with a slew of recent announcements of film selections for the festival, which runs from January 21-31. Earlier this week, the crowdfunding platform unveiled the list of Kickstarter-funded works which made the cut for this year’s festival, including new documentary features from Dawn Porter (Trapped), Penny Lane (NUTS!) and Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker (Unlocking the Cage). Read the full blog post here and check out highlights below: This year at Sundance, we’ll be crossing our fingers for a great roster of docs and dramatic features in competition for major awards: NUTS!, Spa Night, Trapped, and When Two Worlds […]
