#1. The Script

It all starts with the story. Any investors will want to know that your script has gone through rewrites, readings, and has been given the professional blessings of several experienced directors, line producers and actors, effectively telling them that the final script is thoroughly tested and viable for production.

#2. The Shooting Schedule

Remember the line producer we just mentioned? When you find a line producer who sees the potential and marketability in your script, keep her number and start negotiating her fee. A good (read: experienced and with several credits) line producer will be able to take your script from words to numbers. Your line producer will break down the script, create a shooting schedule and subsequently a defacto production budget.

#3 The Production Budget

This is a puzzle you don’t want to put together on your own – and investors will want to know that the budget you present them with has been done by someone who knows exactly what they’re doing. Your line producer should completely describe all costs of production, including editing, writing, post-production, directing, producing and marketing. Check out this leaked budget for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village – not that your first business plan should be in the $70 mio. range, but it should be detailed and professional.

#4 The Marketing Plan

Describe who the film is targeted and why they are gonna love it. Describe how you are gonna reach that target and which similar films has done the same thing successfully. Describe the cost and the timeline. Creativity is great, case studies and proven methods are better. Together they are unstoppable.

#5 The Distribution Plan

This is one of the most important parts of the business plan, but also one of the most tricky. After all, how is your film ever going to make any money if no one is going to see it? You need distribution and you need to describe exactly how you are going to get it. Describe how you can guarantee a theatrical release, PPV sales, cable rights, overseas rights, DVD rights, subsidiary sales and any other avenues of distribution you have planned for your film. Don’t sign a distribution deal before securing financing – it might turn out to work against you in the long run – but know exactly how, why, when and with whom you are going to secure one.

#6 The Cast and Crew

Now comes the fun stuff. Numbers alone are not going to make your film a success, you need a team that investors (and the general public) can believe in and rally behind, and this is your opportunity to showcase them. Though there may not be any actual contracts signed at this point, you would do well to get letters of interest from key crew members (director, cinematographer, production designer, composer) and include biographies, as well as samples of their previous work. Same thing goes for the key cast. Though not signed onto the project, you might be able to get letters of interest from the actors and actresses you believe would make this film everything it can be. In some (read: most) cases this will not be possible, but don’t fret. You can still include cast pictures, biographies, resumes and samples of previous work simply as examples of your vision. Don’t include A-list talent unless you have a letter of interest. Be realistic, be reasonable and be smart. Include cast fees and availability, if you can get it from their respective agents. Your investors are going to want to see that you can make your vision a reality without Jennifer Lawrence and Joaquin Phoenix, and that you can do it with a reasonable budget.

#7 The Visuals

Consider this the one-two punch of business plans. You start out presenting the facts and the plans and the market research, then you make those numbers come to life by attaching cast and crew. You have piqued your investor’s interest – now you start sweet-talking. Adding visual components to your business plan will make your project more tangible and give it a certain sex appeal – and we all know that sex sells, right? Include a couple of storyboarded scenes, pictures of locations, samples of your previous work and distinct visual style – even a professional film poster. You can add additional visuals and look-books as an addendum to the business plan so the numbers don’t get lost in flair, but make sure that what you are presenting – the complete business plan as it reads from start to finish – is a clear vision of your film.

#8 The Revenue Projections

Back to what most filmmakers might consider a bog of eternal stench, but which your potential investors will find just as sexy as the visuals described above: The revenue projections and rock-solid market analysis. Show how 15-20 recent films comparable to your own performed in theatrical release and on VOD/PPV. Be specific. Do lots and lots of research using resources like boxofficemojo.com, the-numbers.com and filmspecific.com. Go the extra mile and include revenue from product integration and state film production rebates. Companies like brand-inentertainment.com and Entertainment Partners will be useful resources.

#9 The Letter of Intent for a Completion Bond

If you have all of the above-mentioned sections sorted out and you have (tentatively) secured your locations, you can get a quote from a bonding agency. Your line producer will likely be the one to do this, as she will (hopefully) have done it before and have a working relationship with a good agency. Providing a letter of intent to get a completion bond will give your investors added piece of mind.

#10 The Letter of Intent for Insurance

Investors are not going to want to bet there money on anything but an (almost) sure thing. One way to eliminate risk is to have your film insured. Get a quote and a letter of intent to insure your film from a reputable insurance company. Again, this will be something your line producer can/should help you with.

#11 Wrap it up nicely and get it out the door

Rarely will you need to have a physical copy of your business plan handy, but make sure that your digital package looks and feels like the real thing. Check and double check spelling, grammar, formatting, graphics, alignment, colors – and then click “Save as PDF”. PDFs cost $0 to send, so make sure this gets into a lot of hands. If you attend film markets or social events where angel investors may be present, carry USB sticks with the complete package or an iPad with a presentation-ready package.

Please, please, please be aware that there are many hopeful filmmakers looking for easy money, so there are just as many scammers looking for the same. If you find yourself in negotiations with an interested investor, always require proof of funds and only ever go into business with investors that have a proven track record. If something is too good to be true, it’s because it is. Do your due diligence.

h/t Bright Hub and Nancy Fulton

No. 1 – There’s always an excuse to not do something. So stop tip-toeing in circles around your dreams and get to work. Even if your first few attempts aren’t gonna get you where you ultimately want to go, they will set you down the right path.

No. 2 – Build a body of work. Whaddayaknow, look how nicely this one ties into No. 1. Your body of work will be your calling card, your resume and your boost of confidence. You may have the best script in the world, but there’s a fat chance anyone will fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars (not to mention millions) to a newbie without a solid body of work. But how do you build a body of work, if no one wants to take a chance on you. Well, my friend, YOU take a chance on you. Short films are a great way of doing this. They can be shot for cheap, you can edit them yourselves, you can tailor the writing to whatever locations/props/cast/crew you have available to you, and even more importantly they give you a chance to explore and define your own visual style. With a handful of short films (or whatever other projects you can dream up – be creative) under your belt and a visual style to show for it, you now have a body of work that will help you move on to …

No. 3 – Create a visual business plan. Numbers are good and important when seeking investments, whether it’s privately, online or at the bank, but they are also unlikely to really impress anybody, so don’t rely solely on the digits. Write a detailed business plan, then make it visual. People will invest in a clear vision, not a spreadsheet, and a clear vision is much easier to convey, well, visually. Storyboarding, pictures of your desired locations, the style of your previous works – these will all help sell you and your vision.

No. 4 – Don’t get hung up on budgets. All of the above rings true whether you’re making a $500 film or an $85,000 film. Sure, a bigger budget can buy you nicer things, but in the end your visual style and your vision will come from something much more cerebral than that; a good story and a passion to bring it to life.

No. 5 – Repeat No. 1. There’s always an excuse to not do something.

h/t Film Courage

Image from On The Horizon short film by Pascal Payant

With a tight budget and a whole lot of creative tenacity, you may still be able to fund your first feature simply by charging your expenses on your personal credit card, but it’s hardly the way to go anymore. Crowdfunding, bank loans, angel investors – there are more options available to you and most of them are less risky than a possible 19% APR weighing you down the next few years. Still, credits cards are bound to be used during production, so think ahead and figure out what’ll serve you best in the long run.

Do you have a production company? Is it registered as an LLC? Do you need a company credit card or can you simply use a personal credit card? Next, think about whether you are better off charging all expenses on one card or spreading them out over several. Some cards offer cash back rewards, while others may help you accommodate your crew while on location, or make air travel a little easier.

And start thinking about these things at the very beginning of pre-production. If you start earning miles on a Chase Sapphire card six months before shooting, you will be able to fly in your lead actress on points. If you charge your daily expenses on a Hilton Honors card, you will have enough points to put up a small crew for a day or two on location. That is, if you qualify for the respective card’s sign-up bonus, which can take anywhere from 1-3 months.

Do your research on sites like thepointsguy.com and nerdwallet to figure out what’s best for you.

For larger productions, consider the CASHet Card – a cash rewards credit card specifically created for filmmakers, with advanced spending monitoring and restrictions, unlimited additional cards and much more.

And remember, credit card companies make a living encouraging you to spend money you don’t have, so always have a long-term plan for paying off debt and sustaining a good credit score.

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

But it’s not enough to know where the money is. You have to know – and show – how to recoup the investment.

Buz Wallick has produced several low-to-medium budget movies in Los Angeles and knows a thing or two about reading the current VOD sales stats and turning them into sales pitches. Find more videos with Buz here or on our YouTube channel.

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

And let’s be honest: As much fun as it is to make movies, it’s all the more gratifying if you recoup your expenses in the process. Here’s one thing you need to know before you get started…

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.

We’d like to introduce you – as part of our ‘Do You know?’ series – to The Bureau of Creative Works.

Created by Erica Hampton and Mike Ambs, The Bureau is a film collective with the valiant goal of bridging a gap between audience and filmmaker by getting the audience involved in the process at the earliest possible stage – assuming responsibility, but also taking credit. According to their mission statement, the idea materialized after realizing how ‘more and more digital media outlets are pushing to acquire short-films in exchange for only credit and recognition’ – a promise of legitimization through association, leaving filmmakers in an increasingly difficult and unsustainable situation.

The Bureau is set up to function is a year-long film grant supporting 12 filmmakers each year with funds for producing original short films, backed by the very audience the short films are made for. A kickstarter campaign is currently raising the funds for the first year of films – 10 of which has already been selected, leaving two spots open for you to apply for.

Please visit The Bureau of Creative Works for more info on this great project – and, if you can, please support the campaign on kickstarter.