financing

Started by metroshane, November 18, 2003, 10:25:14 AM

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metroshane

How do you fella's (and gals) approach financing?  It seems to me that a lot of people avoid it because it's scary.  You really have to take an internal look at yourself and see if you decide to "indie self-produce" because you want all the profits...or you're just scared of the financing mountain.  

I'm coming up on my first feature and had originally decided to self produce, ignoring the film school mantra "never use your own money".  After reflecting, I realized that I was only doing that because I was scared of the finance challenge.  So now I think I need to look for financing.  I mean, it's a no brainer that the more money you have the better your film can be (to a certain extent of course).  Besides, this is a business, that's why they call it show business-not show friends.  To ignore that part of the business would severly limit your success.  Having said that I still need to find my way to the mountain before I can even think about how to climb it.
We live in an age that reads too much to be intelligent and thinks too much to be beautiful.

TheVoiceOfNick

Quote from: metroshaneBesides, this is a business, that's why they call it show business-not show friends.  To ignore that part of the business would severly limit your success.

I reccomend you approach it like a business then... create a business plan, a marketing plan, a financial strategy... everything you would in a real business.  Without any of this, you'll never find financing in the real world... sure, you can show your scripts to your parents for some money, or show your old college-made short films to some festivals... but if you don't have an actual plan as to how you will make back the money invested, no one will give you and real money... i'm talking about thousands of dollars, not a couple hundred here and there.  

There are many financial institutions that invest heavily in film... look them up and contact them... but not before you form an S class corporation or LLC (LLCs are prefered), come up with a business plan, have a polished script, attach some names to your project, and get the word around... then maybe a giant lender will take an appointment with you... if you want to go the indie route, this is the only way to go... if you have "dreams" and "aspirations" of becoming a hollywood bigshot by selling a script to a hollywood studio, keep dreaming (individual agencies recieve over 1200 scripts per day... they only skim about 200, and only really read about 10... good luck)...

the hard facts... not meant to discourage, but to inform...