Film Funding: Beginner’s Guide

The road to getting your film financed is more varied and complex than ever…

Well, that’s what I just read – but is it really? Probably a good line to start your film funding blog post with, as it doesn’t require any back up facts.

Anyway, we have a tendency to want to believe it was easier to fund your film back in the good old days. You only had to accidentally trigger the shoot button on your grandad’s 8mm Paillard Bolex and Hollywood moguls would send you blank cheques through the post…

But seriously, I believe it’s always been difficult to get people with money to get on board a crazy idea of making a movie with it.

Movies are a high risk venture – it doesn’t matter how talented you are. Some of the most well-known, gifted filmmakers have struggled to get funding for their films.

Perhaps it helps us feel more comfortable if we believe that things are harder these days. We’d rather believe that than believe we don’t have what it takes. We’d rather believe there’s some kind of conspiracy preventing us from being one of the chosen ones.

I’m only saying this as someone who had a tendency to believe those things, too. But I find it better for my film projects (and my mental health) to have a less entitled view of funding. Trust me, everyone finds it hard.

People do raise funding for their films. People also win Olympic medals. But the paths to both of those goals are fraught with difficulty, big challenges and huge amounts of luck.

What does it take to be a successful producer?

Yesterday, I stumbled on this YouTube video where a famous singer watches a busker and mulls over why some people with talent make it and some don’t. When he approaches her and asks her about performing, she says she’s not too motivated by performing – she’s more into writing music.

Seal is a little surprised, but I think it reveals something: our own personality impacts our chance of success. Although this singer is very talented, she’s not so driven to stand on a stage and sing to thousands of adoring fans (whereas we might hazard a guess that Seal is).

What drives you?

In a highly competitive field, the person who is most driven has a much higher chance of achieving their goal.

So before you approach funding your movie, why not think about what drives you? What do you thrive on?

Some people absolutely thrive on meeting movie execs, pitching in a high pressure situation, packaging and marketing, pushing a deal, talking numbers, selling themselves and their product. If you don’t have an appetite for this, my humble opinion is you will struggle to get into the industry as a director, writer or producer.

This is not a rule, it’s simply something I feel based on the experience I have. So – in answer to Seal’s question – I believe the ability and drive to sell yourself wins over talent. And this is true in film and in any industry or position in which the competition is high.

Also, bear this in mind: if you ever raise any money at all from a funding source to shoot a film with, congratulate yourself because I can tell you it’s never easy.

This isn’t in any way to put you off looking for funding. But rather to suggest you prepare yourself well and think it through. Of course, we learn from experience – so simply having a go will be a great learning experience.

Try not to get downhearted by rejection and keep going if you have the drive to do so. In film funding (or any funding) persistence is almost always required.

Try, adjust, and then try again.

OK, so it’s difficult

Having said that, some people have a spectacular skill for persuading other people to invest large sums of money in their business idea, no matter how precarious the idea is.

Perhaps, if we are not like that ourselves, our number 1 goal should be to find someone like that and persuade them making a movie with you would be a brilliant idea. If nothing else, the documentary about the catastrophe that followed will catapult you to fame (I’m joking…).

But if you don’t have one of those beguiling, dangerous, narcissistic sociopaths on your team, you will need to do certain things before you start looking for money.

Often, I see good projects undermined by chronic lack of preparation. Emailing producers you have found on LinkedIn or IMDb Pro probably isn’t going to get you very far if you don’t at least have a solid package ready to send them (if by chance they want to hear from you).

Network network network

I’ve said it before but I think you can’t over stress this – filmmaking, including film financing, involves tens to hundreds of people working together. Now, there’s 2 ways to get people to work with you (notice I said “with” and not “for”):

Pay them Be nice and have a strong project and/or a back history of strong work

There’s also a number of ways to network:

festivals film markets filmmaker networking events make films invite people to get involved

Here’s my situation

I’m currently working with the head of sales of a major UK distributor to produce a script we developed together (I wrote it, she provided feedback). Since then, we have found producers in Switzerland. Latest news is that our first application for state funding has been rejected (on grounds of our proposed innovative shooting method – they love the script, however).

How did I get to this point with my project?

I self-financed a feature film without a crew (took me 3 years make) I spent 2 years trying to sell it, incl. crowdfunding campaigns and was contacted by an actor who came to the IMAX premiere That actor was in a feature film made for £100, selected for Raindance and he invited me to the premiere I wrote a sci-fi web series and contacted the producer of that film to see if she might be interested We produced the show together using crowdfunding I wrote a romantic drama/comedy feature script and developed it (over 3 years and many drafts) with the producer During this time, my producer went from intern to head of sales. I designed a sales pitch document (with text and visual references). Then re-worked it after feedback

That’s not to say every project will follow a similar path. But just to give you an idea of one path. Your path will undoubtedly be unique.

What you can see from this list is the extraordinary amount of work that goes in to getting rejected for funding. Most of the work I have done here, and I’m talking years of full time work, was unpaid. So I think this is the central question for most aspiring filmmakers: how do you create the time in your life to do the work required just to get to the point where you can apply for funding (and be taken seriously)?

If you are hard working, patient (but at the same time know when to push), and are well prepared (which means willing to put in years of work with no guarantee of a financial reward at the end) then read on…

Pathways to funding

Funding a film usually involves taking multiple routes with the hope of receiving finance from different sources. Different funding sources require different approaches, as they are looking for different things from your production. Here are some common ones:

Distributors

Distributors are getting into funding, eg: Netflix and Amazon. In the past, distributors usually only got involved in a film after it was made, now they are increasingly producing films as well. At the moment, it seems international (European) distributors are more open to buying territories early than US distributors.

Soft money – non recuperable.

Soft money means such sources as government grants. This type of finance is a donation to the project without asking for anything back if the film makes money. Applying for soft money often requires a box ticking process.

For example, in the UK, regional funding usually requires that your film be shot in that area, involving a high percentage of cast and crew resident in the area, and can even require post production takes place in the area.

In my example above, even though the real story my script was based on happened partly in Switzerland, I had decided I would have to shoot it in the UK, so I set it there. Once we had Swiss producers on board, I had to relocate the story back to Switzerland. Not only that, but the script and all the submission materials had to be translated into German.

Private investors, donors

Private investors are usually looking to buy equity in your film. This means they are investing with the hope of receiving a share of the profit, at some point. It makes sense then when approaching private investors to focus on the financial strength of your film. Put simply, show how much money you expect to make from your film with evidence to back up your projections.

Public broadcasting

Public broadcasters are funders of films, especially documentaries. Again, approaching TV companies can be complex and time consuming. They’re not generally looking to make profit, more audience figures. Again, your application will need to be tailored to what a particular company is looking for.

The past history of any company (not just TV companies) will give you a great insight into the kind of productions they generally get involved in. In the UK, the BBC are known for their historical dramas. So are commercial broadcasters ITV. Channel 4 on the other hand looks to be more “cutting edge”, youth oriented and progressive.

Ask yourself if your project fits a certain company before submitting.

Crowdfunding

If, like me, you don’t really have the drive for those high pressure meetings, then this might be an option for you. Crowdfunding has the advantage of being more immediate and accessible. I have run a number of successful funding campaigns on Kickstarter and IndieGoGo since my first campaign in 2013.

I can tell you from experience, crowdfunding depends almost entirely on your online community or fan base. Do you have fans and how connected are you to them? I’ve built up my social media presence in the last 6 years and made some great friends – and this comes from spending time building relationships.

On the downside, crowdfunding for film has slipped from it’s peak around 5 years ago. The novelty has worn off, and I believe this is partly down to filmmakers discovering how hard it actually is combined with film fans losing some enthusiasm

But I believe this is a natural process. We are past the novelty stage and onto a more settled stage where crowdfunding can be used to raise small amounts of financing.

Aside from the 2 main crowdfunding platforms, I think Seed & Spark are doing great things. They’ve combined film funding with film distribution, which I think is a really interesting idea.

If you produce regular “content”, you can also look at platforms like Patreon. This festival was founded using Kickstarter, but we have since moved to Patreon, which suits our annual event better, as we move into our 6th year.

Read more: Crowdfunding a Film Using Social Media

Credit cards and/or your savings

One thing to note is that many well known filmmakers got their break by funding their first feature film. Of course, this is a high risk investment of your own money so make sure you can afford to “lose” it all. I funded my debut feature, but only spent £4000.

If funding your own short, don’t expect to make any of the money back. There’s simply few sales opportunities for short films (although that might be changing). However, platforms like YouTube and Amazon allow you to stream your film and monetize it, so there are now opportunities to make back your investment.

How much money you make on such platforms depends almost entirely on how much traffic you generate for the film. If you catch a viral, algorithm-driven audience wave, there’s a chance to make a profit.

Development funding (for teaser materials)

One way that film funding has changed in recent years is the move towards development funding. A screenplay for a film usually needs re-writes, a package for the film needs to be created. Financers often need a proof of concept before they’ll seriously consider financing your film.

All those things take a lot of time and skill to create.

Is the screenwriter able to survive while he spends months doing re-writes? If not, you need funding to pay the writer.

the director needs to create notes and visual references for the pitch doc. Do you need a designer?

Do you need to shoot a short scene or story related to your feature to show investors? Needs money (or your time)

By applying for development funding, you are not only developing your project, but you’re building relationships with producers and film financers.

If you are an unknown filmmaker, you can’t expect to walk into someone’s office and walk out with them risking millions of dollars on you and your film. Investing money into anything involves trust. And there’s one basic human instinct which still comes into play with any business deal – we are far more likely to trust people we know and have done business with before.

With a development deal, you are asking financers to give you a fraction of the cost of the whole film. It’s a still a major financial risk (depending how much you ask for), but your odds for nailing the deal are increased a bit.

Once you have that development deal, you can not only prove how great your concept is, you can also prove what a great person you are to work with. You can build relationships with the people that need to trust you. If they like you and see that you’re reliable, it’s not going to hurt your full funding application.

Chasing the money

We can be tempted to develop projects for genres and formats which are currently hot. This does make some sense and it has happened since the beginning of film. However, be warned – making a feature film takes so long, from conception to distribution, that your hot trend can be out of date by the time you get there.

For example, documentaries have been making a lot of money in the last decade or so. Naturally, the longer this went on, the more people wanted to invest in docs. However, reports from last Sundance say doc makers suddenly found they couldn’t sell their films.

Of course, this is the natural order of markets. A product becomes popular, more and more investors jump in, the market gets saturated, people turn away from the product and producers find themselves with stuff they can’t sell.

I just think it’s something to be aware if you are going down this road. Far better to have a project you are truly passionate about than one which was just about jumping on a bandwagon. If it happens to be “of the moment” too, congrats!

The Pitch Deck

When seeking funding for a film, you will almost certainly need what is known as a “pitch deck”. This is usually in the form of a PDF and contains several pages of text and images describing (and pitching) your project and key team members.

I’ve written an article on how to create a pitch deck here: Film Funding: The Pitch Deck

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