Notes from the WVFG Film Finance Panel

Once again the WV Filmmakers Guild held an informative and inspiring weekend in Sutton. It was great to meet Brad Kalinoski, along with so many other state filmmakers. After being on the film finance panel with Steve Gilliland, Joe Majestic, Jeff Tinnell and JT Arbogast, I wanted to follow-up with a few points and links mentioned:

- Know your audience/expectations at the beginning
In the words of Debbie Zimmerman of Women Make Movies, you make movies for one of three reasons - to get rich, get famous, or save the world. Don't make a horror comedy and think you're going to save the world, and don't make an expose of lesbian subculture in holocaust camps and think you're going to get rich. Know you what you're trying to accomplish and who would want to see it. From there...

- Find other people to validate what you're doing and then help bring it to fruition
Before you start, there are likely hundreds of people who will support what you're doing. Reach out to them right away. The people who agree with your goal will be the best people to help you find OTHER PEOPLE WHO WANT YOU TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL!! Let them help you. And you'll be surprised to find diverse groups without similar interests other than your project. Don't turn away supporters. They'll be the ones to guide you away from having telling Jean Paule Sartre jokes in your Horror Comedy or having a a walking, talking fish character in your follow-up to the greatest trilogy of all-time (I'm just saying, George. You should have talked to someone. No one thought Jar-Jar was a good idea).
Now that you know who want you want to do and who wants to see it...

- Create a plan for your project
If you're a filmmaker, you understand that you need to plan for certain lighting, gather certain shots for editing, and record the proper sound for mixing. Great - then you have to skills to plan your entire film. You can do your homework and find out about how much money can be made from a film like yours (a documentary on planets has a different box office outlook than a screwball comedy with Adam Sandler). If you can only make $XX then don't plan on spending more or even half that, but if the type of movie you want to make will require a big star, lots of special effects and collector cups from 7/11 - then you have to realize you need more than your cellphone and friends from your pick-up basketball league.
Don't stop there. Plan to get your movie seen AND get your money back. Work through the steps, just like you would shooting on location. You build your plan through information that you get from...

- Use websites like IMDBPro, Kickstarter and IndieGoGo to test the waters of interest and raise money for your project
The Internet has so much more than gossip and porn. Okay, maybe not as much as it should, but...
There are tools available to you - use them. If you want to be like Woody Allen, great - go to IMDBPro and find out how much his last film cost, how much did it make, who distributed it, etc. Get your information.
There are hundreds of people who have walked this line before, track their progress through the Internet - twitter, IndieWire, etc. No matter what you think of their films - Kevin Smith and Ed Burns are great examples of what can be done. Just make your film the kind of funny you like instead of dick jokes or neurotic New York cynicism. (BTW big fan of both of these guys - love me some dick jokes and neurotic New York cynicism)
Work your plan and see if there are enough other people to support your project. Set-up on Kickstarter for pre-production funds - and offer rewards to your supporters. Need to reach a more film centered crowd - set-up on IndieGoGo for finishing funds. Then spread the word. Link your projects through Facebook, run some Facebook ads.
So many filmmakers are becoming successful using this formula. Search it out and see how it can be adjusted for your specific project. Keep your initial expenses low until you see there is support and validation for your project. Then follow your plan.

- Have a clear end-game - what's success for your project?
If you know at the beginning what you're trying to do - get rich, get famous, save the world - then you should know what success looks like before you get there. Just in case the brass ring isn't there, make plans for alternative avenues to success.
The traditional pathway for a film tends to follow: make a movie, take it a film market/festival, sell it to a distributor, show up for press events, go make next movie.
That is becoming less and less viable. Now you need to do more of the work. So it looks more like: decide to make a movie, nurture an audience, make a movie, guide audience in ways to support movie, organize press coverage/stunts, find best way to get movie to audience, guide audience to share movie with bigger audience, ask audience to support you in making another movie.
If Paramount won't buy your movie, and Anchor Bay won't buy your DVD, and Brain Damage won't pay you for your movie, sell it yourself. You have now built an audience who knows you, use the tools to just get them the film. Go to DiscMakers and print up a bunch of DVDs, use Distribber and get on a Pay-Per-View TV channel or an online streaming site. Use Constant Contact to get your audience to rally over your issue at a local screening.

Success is only defined by you. The first trick is -- what are you doing and who are you doing it for? If this is just for you, stop. No one needs to help you and no one should. However, if you are doing this for a larger audience of any kind, there are plenty of ways you can benefit by benefiting your audience from the very first step.

Good luck. Be well.

JB