Crowdfunding your film can be fraught with many potential dangers, but one of the most common issues overlooked by first-time crowdfunders is the cost of running a crowdfunding campaign. These costs are varied but can include: the production of promotional assets like campaign videos; the cost of your time for marketing the campaign and supporting your backers; the cost of fulfilling your campaign rewards; and finally the costs of using your crowdfunding platform of choice, Kickstarter, IndieGogo etc. The price of using crowdfunding platforms can be broken down into two key costs: credit card processing fees (normally something between 2-4% of […]

Scrolling through Twitter yesterday, I came across an interesting bit of data from the programmer-critic Miriam Bale that extended beyond the usual 140 characters. Linking to an external app, Bale drew up a breakdown of what she calls “the cost to have an indie film career.” Stipulating that most independent filmmakers finance at least a portion of their work, in addition to their basic living expenses, it would take about $119,112 to sustain four years of a “career.” Bale also postulates that working a full time gig at $12/hour, you could save around $3,072 a year, for the next 39 years, before […]

This guest post by Alexandre Rockwell is published as his Kickstarter campaign to support finishing costs of his latest feature, Little Feet, launches. You can learn more and donate here at the link. “An old dog learning new tricks.” That’s what a pal of mine said to me the other day, and I could not disagree more. I never have seen myself as an old dog and “new tricks” are what I have had to constantly seek out to keep making handmade films over the years. Continuously reinventing oneself and jumping into the fire over and over is either insanity […]

A film I’ve been looking forward to for some time is Leah Meyerhoff’s I Believe in Unicorns, which I saw in rough cut at the IFP Narrative Lab. I was tremendously impressed with what I saw then, particularly the emotional sensitivity of its direction and central performances. The film is now finished, and premiering at SXSW. And there’s a Kickstarter campaign. Check out the new teaser above, read information from the filmmakers about the film below, and consider donating: I Believe in Unicorns is Leah Meyerhoff’s debut feature film which tells the story of a teenage girl who gets in […]

Art and Craft follows prolific art forger Mark Landis just at the moment his elaborate 30-year con is exposed. What follows is a guest blog by filmmakers Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker about a central consideration in making this film. Art and Craft is in the final days of a Kickstarter campaign to raise finishing funds, including monies needed to mix the score they write about here. When we first read The New York Times story about Mark Landis in 2011, we were immediately intrigued — what kind of art forger donates his work to museums instead of […]

Zach Wigon has written a number of provocative, discursive and highly original film essays for Filmmaker over the last couple of years, and now he is making his first feature. In this guest essay, appearing alongside the SXSW-bound film’s Kickstarter campaign, he describes how the interests explored in these pieces dovetailed into a seductive thriller for the NSA age, The Heart Machine. After reading, check out some of Zach’s old pieces for us and consider contributing to his campaign. — SM It all started with Filmmaker Magazine.   In the Fall of 2010, I received an email from a producer […]

Any panel, roundtable or seminar that concerns technological advancements in film is bound to hit upon the issue of audience engagement. How we can best make use of the embarrassment of riches the internet affords us in finding the right people to watch our film. Filmmaker Robbie Bryan has managed to collect (at the time of this writing) 235,427 Facebook likes for his upcoming film Black Hat, that’s still only in the development stage. He’s leveraged his fan base into an ambitious Seed & Spark campaign, interacting with them along the way and soliciting their input in the shaping of his […]

Today, the True/False Film Fest‘s Paul Sturtz and David Wilson announced the launch of their organization’s innovative (and highly laudable) “Pay the Artists!” program. The heads of the 10-year-old Columbia, MO-based festival (which runs February 27 – March 2), initiated the patronage program as a way of helping to sustain the documentary film ecosystem, and this year will be offering $450 to the filmmaking teams who attend the festival. (T/F already covers travel, accommodation and food expenses.) It is Sturtz and Wilson’s hope that in the next few years, this amount will increase to $1,000. There has long been a […]

Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi attended the 2014 International Film Festival Rotterdam CineMart with a film seeking financing: The Sky is Blue Like an Orange, about the artist Joseph Cornell. For three days he and screenwriter Arnold Barkus met with assorted financiers. Zahedi’s diary is below. December 10, 2013 I receive an email informing us that our project about the artist Joseph Cornell’s relationship with a waitress in the early ’60s, has been accepted to Cinemart. January 21, 2014 We receive our list of meeting requests. We have 37 meetings scheduled over a three-day period. The last time I was at Cinemart […]

Kudos to my Twitter feed for brushing the dust off this nearly year old video of Cassian Elwes and other producers covering the basic economics of film financing. For every experiential tidbit acquired by aspiring filmmakers on sets, in the classroom, or at home, there is a disproportionate amount of information available on the first step towards making one’s film: securing the money, and making the most of it. Elwes touches upon pre-sales and credits, though the independent film industry standard for debut directors is proven to lie within private equity. In the informational short clip, the producers discuss why the […]