The full list can be found here.

Unfortunately, the deadline for the prestigious IFP Labs just passed, but there are some interesting alternatives that you may not know of, such as the HBOAccess Directing Fellowship or the Liberty Lab for Film.

Spend some downtime between takes to go through the list and bookmark the ones that applies to you and your project. After all, it’s amazing what a little extra production funds can do to your creativity, right?

h/t No Film School / photo HBO Access/YouTube

One such resource is, as mentioned in the video above, Entertainment Partners. Go explore.

The Storyteller, written by 20 Questions creator Joe Crump and co-written by 20 Questions writer Rachel Noll, was written with the intention of self-financing the production of film. This option gives the filmmaker the most control over a production but it also means that you must have an idea of the budget before and during the writing process. It also (obviously) means that you must save the money yourself. This fact can sometimes take you down a different path all together. Such was the case for director Joe Crump.

Back in 1986, I was working a commercial job as a Grip. During a break, I was sitting on the dolly with the assistant cameraman and we were discussing how much he’d made on his house that year. We were doing pretty well for ourselves at the time making about $65k per year working 100 days, but he had just made an $80k increase in equity on his house that year – more than either of us had made by working in the business.

 

That made me decide to buy a house – and then sell it and buy another. Since everyone had been turning down my scripts (12 features over about 8 years), I began to think I could make enough money to make my own damn movie . So I got a little sidetracked and started doing real estate investing.

 

It was fun and I’ve been doing it for more than 25 years and don’t have any plans to stop – I even write a blog about real estate – but I’m back to film now and I’m ready to spend some money on a low budget movie. - Joe Crump, writer & director of The Storyteller

Whether you’re filming a big Star Wars-style fantasy blockbuster or the smallest, all-set-in-one-room indie, every filmmaker struggles with their film’s budget. But rather than looking at your budget with a glass half empty attitude, look at it as an opportunity.

Question: how can you think outside of the box when you don’t even know the size of the box?

Your budget it the box! The smaller the box, might limit the tangible qualities of a film: locations, costumes, the number of actors, but it does NOT limit the emotional possibilities. Characters start in one place and they end in another. That journey is your story.

I think of it less as creative restraints and more as creative opportunity – because sometimes when you have less to work with, your creativity has to kick in double time… and the results of that can sometimes be far more beautiful, interesting, and unique than what you would have created with unlimited money. It also forges a certain unity of passion among the team – when you have a low budget, people are coming on to work with you because they love what you are doing, not for the paycheck. And this creates a family and a unity among the creative team that can truly create magic, in my opinion. - Rachel Noll, writer and producer of The Storyteller

Speaking of restraints used as a catalyst for creativity, there was actually a whole filmmaking movement in 1990s Denmark that sought to strip away all the fringes of big budget filmmaking. It was called the Dogma95. Read about it here. Some of the work that came out of this movement is truly inspired. Here’s a trailer to my personal favorite from the Dogma95 films starring NBC Hannibal’s own Mads Mikkelsen.

Audience expectation may also be related to the budget. Think about it. How often have you been surprised with a HUGE movie that has bad CGI? If a movie cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce, the superhero better not look like something out of a Playstation game. Looking at you, Matrix Reloaded…   And let’s not forget: The higher the budget, the harder it is for a movie to make it’s money back. Here’s a great article discussing how much money the new James Bond film SPECTRE will have to make, just to break even.

Going back to the case of The Storyteller, remember that even if you are funding the film yourself, forming an LLC protects you and your investment while aiding in the filmmaking process.

Our production company – “Dancing Spirit Productions, LLC” – is owned by my S Corporation, which handles my larger business. Doing it this way gives me some asset protection and limits my liability if anything were to go wrong during the production of the film. If you don’t have any assets to protect, you could do it without a corporation of any kind and just post the expenses on a schedule C on your personal 1040 tax form.

 

If the gods smile on us and the film makes money, the corporation I set up will also save us money on taxes, though for an LLC to be beneficial tax-wise, the film would have to make the production company a minimum of $75,000.

 

Another benefit of creating an LLC  is that it gives you a bit of credibility with the other collaborators on the film and makes you look like a ‘going affair’ rather than a fly-by-night working out of your garage. On the other hand, if you have only $50 to spend on a movie – don’t worry about any of this stuff, just go out and shoot. If you don’t have much money, don’t waste the money you have setting up a corporate entity. It won’t benefit you at all. - Joe Crump, writer & director of The Storyteller

Often times filmmakers don’t (or can’t) limit themselves to one form of financing. A film can utilize pre-sales to bring down the amount that the filmmakers need to raise through the combination of self-finance, private equity and/or crowdfunding. It’s also important to note that different parts of the film can be financed using different methods. As an example, The Storyteller’s production will be self-financed, but the filmmakers are looking to utilize crowdfunding for their marketing. And there’s more to it than just dollars.

What’s great about crowdfunding is that along with potentially bringing some more money to the project, it also helps create and widen the audience for the film. You are directly engaging with people who will be involved and interested in the film’s progress. What we like about waiting until after the film is complete to do a campaign is that by then we can cut together a compelling trailer, do some interviews with our actors talking about the film and their experience on it – there is more for the potential backers to engage with. -Rachel Noll, writer and producer of The Storyteller

When it comes to filmmaking the story takes precedent. Budgets, and by proxy financing, give you access to tools to strengthen the aspects of your film that bring your story to life. But it all starts with the story. The Storyteller has taken this idea to heart and you should too. Join us next time when we delve into the world of casting – how to figure out who’s right for your film and how to find them.

Whether transporting us to Mars, sending us to school at Hogwarts or putting us in a dystopian future where we must fight for our lives, a story is only limited by how far the writer’s imagination can take them. However, in the filmmaking world, there is a limitation that exists for all films, studio blockbusters and indies alike: The Budget.

Now, a budget isn’t just saying, “I have this amount of money… let’s go make a film!” On its most basic level, a budget outlines every element that goes into the film and determines how the money is going to be divided amongst those different elements.

When creating a budget the Producer, Line Producer and/or Filmmaker will sit down with the script and literally go through every line (hence the name Line Producer) and calculate how much money each element of the script will cost. How many locations, what kind of costumes and art direction is needed? Are you going to spend more on a location that needs little dressing but is going to need more shooting days OR are you going to rent a studio and build the location in-house? These are creative questions that are dependent on your budget.

It’s important to remember that the size of the budget directly corresponds to the expectations for the film. Simply put – a higher budgeted movie needs to make more money.

Story before budget or budget before story? It’s the chicken or the egg, but for filmmakers who plan on producing the story they write, being aware of your budget, as you are writing the script is important. You have an idea of what your budget will be and what you are capable of producing with that budget. Also, when you begin looking for financing, your budget and script will act as a package that will help convince investors to invest. They can read your script and know exactly how much you need and why.

When drafting your film’s budget you need to go through every stage: pre-production, production and post-production, as well as marketing and distribution. Think of it this way: The budget allows you to see the lifecycle of your film before it’s even been made.

Do not let the thought of having a small budget make you think that you can’t come up with an interesting story. In fact, budget constraints can fuel the imagination.

Take a look at the trailer for this movie that was made for only $60,000 and was one of the biggest hits of 1999 (the same year The Matrix came out)

So now that we know what a budget is and why it’s important, let’s go into some of the ways that you, the Filmmaker, can finance your film.

#1. Self Finance, aka put it on plastic (the Kevin Smith approach) – Every filmmaker knows this story. You take the money you were going to spend going to film school and instead put it into making a film, or perhaps you put it on credit cards and hope the movie makes enough money to pay them back.

As an example, take Clerks. Kevin Smith’s first film was made this way with a total budget just over $27,000 dollars. When the film went to Sundance, Miramax bought it.

There are benefits to this option – if it’s your money that’s financing the project then the film is completely in your hands. The negative is that there’s a higher risk of not making your money back.

If personal investment is the option you choose to pursue, I would highly recommend creating a Limited Liability Company (LLC) for the production. An LLC protects its investor(s) from any loss incurred during the making of the film – you’re only responsible for the money put into the LLC. LLCs also have tax benefits and are free from governed rules in regards to shareholder and company decisions. Basically, you’ll be able to have more control over the decisions taken in the creation of the film and be more protected should there be problems during production.

#2. Equity – Similar to self-investment, this is when you have a number of investors (be it friends, rich cousins or private investors) that also invest hard cash into the film. When they invest the hard cash, they are buying equity in the film.

It’s important to note that this option requires an LLC structure and that investors must be paid back their original investment plus 20% before profit can be calculated.

Want to know more about LLCs? Check out this article on why LLCs are good for filmmakers.

#3. Crowdfunding – This option differs from the Equity option because people aren’t buying into or investing in your film, they are donating to it. Yes, filmmakers can offer a tier structure a la donate $5 you get a thank you, $10 you get this and so on, but they are not required to pay that money back, like it is the case with equity financing.

The trick with crowdfunding becomes creating a campaign that garners attention and raises enough money. Remember, crowdfunding sites likes Kickstarter take a cut of the raised funds. It’s their payment for giving you a platform to collect donations. In addition, campaigns that don’t raise their goal amount do not keep the money they raised. These are important facts to realize when you are not only creating your budget, but also when you’re deciding your target crowdfunding goal.  Can you risk time and money creating a crowdfunding campaign when there’s no guarantee your film will end up getting financed? What will you do if the crowdfunding campaign doesn’t meet its goal?

#4. Pre-Sales – Pre-sales are related to distribution and they can be your best asset in both financing your film and finding private investors. Basically you are making an agreement for where and how the film with be distributed before it has even been made. The amount your film is sold for is based on the package you, the filmmaker, has created: your script, the talent attached and the marketability of your story. After the agreement for the pre-sale of the film has been made, the filmmaker can either use that as collateral for taking out a loan from a bank to complete the budget or lower the cost to private investors. It’s important to note that, like with equity, the filmmaker would have to payback the bank for the loan before a profit can be calculated.

Depending on the budget, if a distributor buys the film in the pre-sale state, the film may have actually already made money before it was produced.

These are the four basic ways for filmmakers to begin financing their projects. Join us next time when we’ll dive deeper into film financing, using The Storyteller as a case study.

Until then, here’s a trailer to a film that the writer/director funded by submitting himself to clinical drug testing.

Does that mean you have to revisit your script? So be it. Unless you can find the elusive ‘white whale’ investor that really just wants to be involved in the glamorous world of movie-making.

Buz Wallick is an independent producer in Los Angeles, California. Born and raised in Northern California, he cultivated a love and fascination with cinema. Buz has the unique background of being self taught and working on the crew of over 100 projects, including Cinematographer of the award winning documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy . In 2012 Buz began to produce and with his extensive knowledge of film production Buz does what he loves to do; tell stories through the art of cinema.

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I’m a real estate investor and many years ago, I learned how to buy real estate and finance it without using my own money. In fact, I started my business when I was dead broke. I’m going to show you how to apply “Zero Down Real Estate” investment principles to financing your feature film project.

Just click here, fill out the form and hit “Submit” and I’ll email it to you immediately. It will be in the form of a downloadable pdf file that you can read on any computer or mobile device.

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