Financing / Crowdfunding

If the script have good potential, then we can Partner.

Hi Jeffery, thank you for your suggestion. For some reason, I have only just got your message.

I am just editing Masterplayer’s writers lookbooks and the website. Then, I will be editing Masterplayer, based on two Hollywood screenplay reader's feedback. Once, I have finished these edits in about four weeks. I will be happy to send you; 01-10 pages and Masterplayer’s writers lookbooks.

Have a great working week, thanks again Ginny.

That’s okay. Keep in touch.

You need to find a sponsor, a person who doesn't look at the financial return you will make, but who does it for fun and the love for cinema. There are no other ways to fund shortfilms, unless you look into government funding. Or taking a loan - which I would absolutely advice to not do. There's also crowdfunding, but you need a large following for that. Most shortfilms are written with a no-budget or very low budget in mind.

Yeah, that’s so true Willem Lodewijk Elzenga. I’ll find a way. Thank you!

If you can get funding from your government, that's probably the best way to go. Most short films here in the States are shot for under $5000 and many for $1000 or less. Unless you have a track record demonstrating that you can get a return on investment for short films with a much higher budget, it's a waste of time seeking investors.

Sorry to disagree, but Dan Maxx has long experience in the trenches and is correct. The majority of shorts are self-financed through family, friends, credit cards, personal loans, getting a second job, tutoring, selling an old car, etc.

Erik A. Jacobson I Ireland, if one is lucky enough to win the Government funding, it ranges from €10,000 ($11,365) to €15,000. But just like you said, many shorts are produced for less especially if you can't get the government funding. I produced a short documentary for €1,000 from my own pocket. It's extremely tough to get the funding for a short film, it seems, everywhere!

Very true, Dave. Hopefully, you made a decent profit on your documentary. The important thing is to build a track record of responsibility with OPM (other people's money - Ha!) so that investors are eager to be involved in your projects.

Chiming in here as a bit of an expert on the topic of crowdfunding. First, yes, it does work. How much did you set your initial target? I tried Google searching the project on both Indiegogo and Kickstarter and nothing came up, so part of the issue might have been the title and use of keywords. But typically, folks make the same mistakes, which I recommend you watch me spout off about in this video: https://goo.gl/HkTSxe –– goal's set too high, they have less-than-creative rewards, and they haven't taken the time to build an audience prior to "asking them for money." Remedy these, and you'll do much better. And a word about PR for crowdfunding: it's a hard game in 2018, and will only get harder in 2019. You need a bigger story than "awesome film crowdfunding" –– otherwise, no one's picking it up. But more than that, you need this baby to be over 30% funded before any PR will have any impact.

I'm happy to help out with some advice, if you like, prior to the launch of another crowdfunding campaign, if you choose to go that route. Just let me know and I can send you my consulting rates and we can go from there. And I would recommend you give a read to my book, as well: https://goo.gl/xZmls4 Hope this helps a bit, Dave!

Thank you all. I am not interested in Loans at the moment, certainly not for a short as they are not going to make a profit if anything at all. Barry Sobel Thank you for the offer. John T. Trigonis Thank you - the campaign is long gone now, and I had a professional PR company working on it for me, but they proved incapable of handling it correctly. I am not in a position to pay fees at the moment, as I am trying to raise funds to make the award winning short (screenplay) above, before I move onto a Feature Film. I just shot one Short (written and directed by me) and now eager to make The Journey (above) asap for some major festivals approaching. I have almost all locations secured for the new short, just need some funds to pay the crew and cast. Thank you all for the feedback.

I get Shadow's thought. There's no point in spending money to legal work if you haven't got your partners and investors in place. There is a grey area offcourse, but film is a creative business, not a regular one.

I agree with the idea of having money opportunities lined up ahead of time, but having the LLC in place was what allowed me to get in the door with the few financiers I have managed to get. Without the LLC in place, I think it's too easy to be labeled as some bum asking for money. Great point too Julien, legally, the potential for shit to hit the fan increases exponentially when the money starts to exchange hands and having the LLC in place is critical. Believe it or not, I have gotten similar advice to Shadow's, from lots of filmmakers in my market. :-(

Dan MaxXx and Julien Klenn you missed the point entirely... it takes about 12 minutes to incorporate... You do that when you actually have a legit investor AND after you have discussed what position they want. You don't take the money before the incorporation. Cart before the horse otherwise, though attorneys get to charge incorporation fees... and then more fees to alter your corporate structure when your vanilla LLC isn't organized the way your investor wants... An empty LLC looking for money is still someone looking for money. One measure of the experience (or lack thereof) of your investors is if they are impressed by an empty LLC...

Shadow Dragu-Mihai First money in or not, no legitimate investor will talk to you if a PPM (Private Placement Memorandum) is not in front of them.

Most will be under Regulation D Rule 504 (movie budgets that are 1 million and under) and you cannot raise a penny or even solicit without a PPM is in place.

As for the LLC structure, 99% will have the same. You’ll be under either 504,505 or 506. There’s no some “special” way an investor may want it be structured. It all depends how much you want to raise and will always fall under one of the three, unless you’re setting up a Film Fund and want your investors to invest in a slate of movies which is a different discussion topic.

Also no legitimate investor in this industry will bring out their checkbook unless you have your bank account under the name of your movie LLC.

Nobody writes a check to a person, unless they are family members and/or the required amount is couple hundred dollars for an experimental teaser, short etc.

Let’s say you pitched to a potential investor and they liked the idea so much that they wanted to invest right away. To whom will they write the check to? Will you tell them “Wait. It takes 12 minutes to incorporate. Just give me a laptop.”????

The things you’re saying are so out of reality, unprofessional and amateurish that I’m having a really hard time believing that you’re an entertainment attorney.

No real attorney would tell you that it’s okay to break the law(soliciting for money without having no shares to sell) until the financial aspect is in place.

Apparently, you have never raised a single penny yet, but at least stop talking nonsense about things you don’t know and don’t misguide people with wrong information that could get them in legal trouble.

This is an issue that looms the best of us. I would have to say you must first get in the arena of the investors. This means you must work to get into their world first before ambushing them with this great investment opportunity. Get the business in order legally and make sure your business plan, designs, script and story are air tight. It has to be an easy yes and not a slow no for investors.

I've had good success in the past with Go Fund Me. Their platform is easy to use and they especially good for nonprofits. I am just launching a Patreon now and have been very impressed with them as both a contributor and now as a creative.

Thanks everyone, I'm planning ahead to launch a crowdfunding campaign to start up a production company, and possibly fund 1-2 films. I had heard go fund me was getting to be bad about closing accounts for no reason and refusing to pay funds. I appreciate all the feedback, thanks again!

If you are doing features and planning on raising several hundred thousand, you may want to look in to equity crowdfunding.

Indigogo. It's more international and it's not an all or nothing platform so you can still get some of the money and use it towards your project

Hey Heather! The only two sites worth anything for film crowdfunding are Kickstarter and Seed & Spark. GoFundMe is best for nonprofit or social cause campaigns, and Indiegogo has since shifted its focus from film and creative projects to technology and product ones. I've got tons of stories about successes, failures, and near misses (I'm author of the book CROWDFUNDING FOR FILMMAKERS, plus I was Indiegogo's Film and Creative Campaign Strategist from 2013 until this past June and I've worked on over 1,000 successful campaigns), so if you want to chat more about that, and specifically get advice about the film you're looking to fund, I'm happy to send along my consultation rates and chat further. Feel free to hit me up at jtrigonis@gmail.com.

Like any other crowd-funding project, it is a LOT of work and daily promotion and email list accumulation... You must be constantly active and the most successful spend some promo/adevertising dollars. Where the money is depends on the market for your film - you have to figure that one out. Don't feel you can sit back for a moment... money doesn't just roll in...

I couldn't agree more with Shadow Dragu-Mihai –– there is no silver bullet to crowdfunding. It's work! (Honestly, I'd even go as far to say it's easier to secure an actual investor in terms of the amount of work you'll do to attract one versus finding, engaging, and enticing backers to fund your project.)

I have tons of tips in my book, so feel free to pick up a copy at Amazon (https://goo.gl/xZmls4). I also have a lot of freebee articles on and off Stage 32, so just Google my name plus crowdfunding & you'll find some helpful pieces. But the one thing they all have in common is the same: You've gotta do the work to earn that funding.

All the best, Phillip Michael Urlevich!

Hey thanks guys!

If you haven’t sourced your crowd before kicking off your campaign it will be an uphill battle but it can be done it you follow their suggestions and are persistent. Good Luck

Hi Leanne I am in the same predicament in Australia, we should brain storm and try to break through the market. If you want to share ideas please let me know. Cheers

If the package of your film has commercial potential, investors from anywhere are interested in what your doing. But you have to create and sell such a project which is quite a pain in the ass. If your starting out you might want to look into film co-production markets, this is one in the Netherlands by the end of this month. https://iffr.com/en/iffr-pro

https://www.ausfilm.com.au/ is a great resource that works with the US & international markets that you might find useful.

We can fund & distribute worldwide features theatrically completed or just starting but they must be made correctly. filmtiq@gmail.com.

I use all avenues for fund raising, the more the better, including making the money yourself - don't get caught up in how every one else does it, that can be very discouraging - think outside the box and hit every angle possible. Make it fun and stay positive.

I wasn't involved on the creation of the crowdfunding site for my short film, but the producer decided to use GoFundMe rather than one of the sites more geared towards creative types. GoFundMe is more for charitable and individual support, while IndieGoGo or Kickstarter tend to favor artists and filmmakers, but the fees are higher. One of the ways that those two sites also help boost contributions and make the campaign successful is through offers based on the size of the contributions, such as signed scripts, a walk on role, links to the finished film before anyone else, etc. I would also suggest you make your goal smaller than you actually need (at least on Kickstarter, which is an all or nothing arrangement). Just do your research and see what campaigns are actually working on each of the sites and what they're offering to make them successful. They're are also a lot of reviews and comparisons out there on the web about these sites so make sure to check those out.

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Hey Trevor Prime! I've worked on two of my own campaigns, one for a short film and another for a comic book series, and I've consulted on over 1,000 campaigns (I worked from 2013 - 2018 as Indiegogo's Film Campaign Strategist). All of my learnings from my short film campaign and well over two dozen other film campaigns are detailed in my book CROWDFUNDING FOR FILMMAKERS, so feel free to pick up a copy either on Amazon (https://goo.gl/xZmls4) or you can buy one directly from me for $25, as I'm including a free 15-minute phone consultation (an $80 value) for anyone who purchases a book from me before February 21st.

If you're interested, hit me up here or via email at jtrigonis@gmail.com and we'll get you all set up.

We're looking to fund features; my partner can provide worldwide theatrical distribution through one of the six TOP Hollywood distributors with P and A PAID if your film was correctly made. Everything in life takes time or costs money.

Completed features or just started shooting? We can arrange for distribution right away but your project must be correct and salable. Write me with TITLE and a 1-2 page story synopsis beginning to end and what else you require. filmtiq@gmail.com

Ok, thank you, I will get my story synopsis to you ASAP

Loaning money to family members has taught me a lot - Don't do that again!

Thanks for the advice guys. I've entered a few contests to hopefully win some prize money. Do you have any suggestions on where to start to getting financing?

Its not a good idea, better stay out of trouble. If you have very wealthy family members than it might not be such a big issue. Its very common for families to support artistic family-members, the best example might be Vincent van Gogh. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6938828/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_10

Why not? I've done it before. If you're serious about what you do, have the professionalism to back you up, believe in your product and its potential, then family and friends are some of the first people that I would approach. The running blog about the film What Lies Ahead tells how the filmmakers of that story raised funding with the help of family members. You can find that blog here:

https://www.stage32.com/blog/Pre-Production-Tips-From-Budget-to-Location...

Best fortunes in your creative endeavors, Mike.

Y'know, my dad always used to say that if you borrow money from friends, you lose both friend and funds. That must've been doubly true to him with regard to asking family members for money. But if you can't borrow (I'll address the word "borrow" in a minute), then who can you get it from? If family and friends won't give you some of the money you need to make your film, then who will? (And yes, this is also extremely true of crowdufnding campaigns; at least 30% of all funds comes from family and friends. The only exception is if you have an actual audience for your film already, which really just means you have a wider pool of "friends" to skim the surface of for funding.) Now, if you're looking to borrow money, then I say heck yeah ask your family and friends. If you're asking them to invest in your film, then that's a different story, since most people know that film is not a sound investment since the chances of making money off that investment, especially today for indie filmmakers, is slimmer than it's ever been even though there are countless more outlets out there that try and help us make a few bucks off our films. So my advice is to be 100% transparent and upfront with family and friends about whether you want to borrow money from them or have them invest in the film. But if it's the latter, give them all the info they need to make a proper decision whether to put in or not. And if you get rejected by one person, that's fine, too. Brush it off, and ask the next family member or friend in line. Hope that helps!

Thanks for the updated list, Sean, and best fortunes in your creative endeavors!

Thanks Bill! To you as well!

Thx for the advice. Have you ever reached out to individuals for funding?

Good luck! Very good advice from Rachel.

I do budgets

Michelle Tonkin - there's a great "On Stage With RB" webcast with the head of film for Indiegogo here that you'll find helpful: https://www.stage32.com/media/1440598101885723778

Thx guys for your tips:)