If you’re serious about raising film money from serious film investors (or at least film investors who don’t laugh you out of their office), you’re going to need to own up to at least one simple fact: Hoping your film gets into a film festival and gets sold is not, repeat, NOT, a viable film … Read more
Well, okay, the title of this post is pretty harsh. There’s technically nothing wrong with product placement in any film, unless it’s blatant and gross and, well, product-ish. But here’s three things to watch out for when accepting a company’s product placement offer. 1) Know that no company is going to give you cash to … Read more
In every film business plan, it’s always good to include a list of films similar to yours, which have already made it out into the world and become a success either financially or critically. The idea is that you want to show potential film investors a business plan that shows that a film like yours … Read more
When budgeting a film crew for a union picture, the rates and work hour limits and thresholds are set by the union and you pay them. End of story. But for non-union films, it’s a bit different.
Hands down, the most important element of a successful small film is your crew. Without the right people in the right crew positions, even a large film can hit the skids, get bogged down, swell with cost overruns, and sometimes even implode. When crewing for a film, especially a smaller independent film, you need to … Read more
A few years ago, my company and I produced two feature films, from script to screen. We had no money and no significant investors, despite garnering interest (and even a few Letters of Intent) from a handful of name actors. The road to production on both films was a long one, and a bumpy one. But … Read more
Budgeting a film is a pretty heavy chore, especially if you’ve never budgeted a film before. And especially if you’re planning on shooting a low-budget film or no-budget film. If you don’t know what you don’t know when putting together your budget, your film could be a spectacular explosion of fail. But don’t let that … Read more
Film Budgeteers recently sat down with Sundance producer Roger M. Mayer (IMDB) and asked him: “What is line producing?” Roger’s produced a litany of independent features, shorts, and music videos, from out-and-out art films to family and commercial features, and has seen his share of film budgets and breakdowns. He’s also served behind the scenes of … Read more
Film budgeting? But they didn’t teach me that in film school! Neither was it one of those skills I was able to pick up when I started in the film business, such as reading and covering scripts, getting coffee, loading cameras, holding a boom mic, picking up the studio head’s dry cleaning, etc. No, film budgeting … Read more
Your Film Details Section The next section is your Film Section, where you detail what your film is about. This includes a brief summary of your film, maybe the film’s logline, synopsis; whatever you think best conveys your film to potential investors. Keep it brief and don’t overwhelm them. You may want to use “mashups” … Read more