A new plan

photon

photon

Step 1: quit filmmaking
Step 2: start a business
step 3: ???
step 4: profit
step 5: use the profits to produce a proper indie film with a marketable star
step 6: If the movie is successful, move to step 7. If not return to step 3.
step 7: Hollywood baby!!!

What do you think? More realistic than the old plan?

The old plan:
Step 1: make movies with no money
Step 2: somehow get investors to make a proper movie
step 3: If the movie is successful, move to step 4. If not return to step 1.
step 4: Hollywood!!
 
What's the difference between the old plan and the new plan?

The business fundamentals between both plans are essentially the same. You're going to need to find an investor(s) to fund your business plan.

While you're likely to find that some business outside filmmaking to be less competitive, business is essentially the same.

Step 1: Find something that people want to pay money for that will make a profit.
Step 2: Make that thing.
Step 3: Sell it to those people.

Need to make more money? Sell those things to more people. It's really that simple. For filmmaking too. For you, the trick with filmmaking is knowing who your trying to sell to.


And yes, your new plan can work, though if you didn't have a head for business in filming, what makes you think you'll have a head for business outside filming? What do you think makes it so different?
 
photon said:
Step 1: quit filmmaking
Step 2: start a business
step 3: ???
step 4: profit
step 5: use the profits to produce a proper indie film with a marketable star
step 6: If the movie is successful, move to step 7. If not return to step 3.
step 7: Hollywood baby!!!

What do you think? More realistic than the old plan?

The old plan:
Step 1: make movies with no money
Step 2: somehow get investors to make a proper movie
step 3: If the movie is successful, move to step 4. If not return to step 1.
step 4: Hollywood!!
Click to expand...

You are seriously underestimating how easy it is to just start a business that can make money right away (even dealing drugs is not exactly easy money anymore).
 
photon said:
Step 1: quit filmmaking
Step 2: start a business
step 3: ???
step 4: profit
step 5: use the profits to produce a proper indie film with a marketable star
step 6: If the movie is successful, move to step 7. If not return to step 3.
step 7: Hollywood baby!!!

What do you think? More realistic than the old plan?

The old plan:
Step 1: make movies with no money
Step 2: somehow get investors to make a proper movie
step 3: If the movie is successful, move to step 4. If not return to step 1.
step 4: Hollywood!!
Click to expand...

why quit film making? I am about to try doing both at once! :D

uhaulforlovers said:
You are seriously underestimating how easy it is to just start a business that can make money right away (even dealing drugs is not exactly easy money anymore).
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No kidding. I quit my job once and tried to start a business for over a year. Can't imagine if I had just worked and saved all that money. ugh. Learned a lot from the experience thankfully
 
Sweetie said:
You're going to need to find an investor(s) to fund your business plan.
Click to expand...
I'm guessing there are more people willing to invest in a grad student's technology company than a first time director's feature. Also you don't need 5 million+ to start one while making a distributable feature with a marketable star would certainly need it unless you have mad connections.


Sweetie said:
And yes, your new plan can work, though if you didn't have a head for business in filming, what makes you think you'll have a head for business outside filming?
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I have never actually tried to make money by filmmaking. I have only used pocket money to fund my shorts and all my gear is cheap or given to me as a gift. That's why the step one of the old plan was to make films with no money. I could try my hand at film business by making a really low budget feature and trying to sell it but since the changes of distribution are low, it would probably end up losing money.


Sweetie said:
What do you think makes it so different?
Click to expand...
I have education in a field that I could try to leverage. Also I could possibly find other students in a relevant field at the university to partner up with while I can't seem to find anyone dedicated enough to shoot a feature with.
 
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uhaulforlovers said:
You are seriously underestimating how easy it is to just start a business that can make money right away (even dealing drugs is not exactly easy money anymore).
Click to expand...
Not planning on makeing money right away. If I'm going to be obsessed over films for the next 4 years, there is like 5% change of me getting to direct something bigger. If I'll obsess over business there is probably a change of 33% of getting a profitable business up and running. Also I'm in Finland where a large budget for a movie is 2 million which isn't enough to make a film with worldwide commercial appeal. The goal is to get something worthwhile done while I'm still a student and don't have to worry about paying the bills.
 
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photon said:
I'm guessing there are more people willing to invest in a grad student's technology company than a first time director's feature. Also you don't need 5 million+ to start one while making a distributable feature with a marketable star would certainly need it unless you have mad connections.
Click to expand...

Pitching a tech company is similar to pitching a feature film. It's all about the people. For the technology company, it's about the management team, the history and the quality of the business plan and backup plans. The people who are attached to the company (of the project in filmmaking) is often where the value is found in a startup.

photon said:
I have never actually tried to make money by filmmaking. I have only used pocket money to fund my shorts and all my gear is cheap or given to me as a gift. That's why the step one of the old plan was to make films with no money. I could try my hand at film business by making a really low budget feature and trying to sell it but since the changes of distribution are low, it would probably end up losing money.
Click to expand...

As I said, filmmaking and business have similar parallels. If you make a film that no one wants to distribute, you'll find that most of the time there is no real prior demand for that film. To me, that makes about as much sense as investing your life savings into a business without doing basic market research.

photon said:
I have education in a field that I could try to leverage. Also I could possibly find other students in a relevant field at the university to partner up with while I can't seem to find anyone dedicated enough to shoot a feature with.
Click to expand...

If you have a competitive edge you can leverage in business, that can be a smart starting point. Go for it. If it works, you might find yourself at the point where you can do filmmaking completely for your own pleasure.

Why are you limiting yourself to students at uni to partner up to film a feature?
 
I always wonder why so many indie types are averse to working their way up the system.


Work for free on the projects of other filmmakers. Get a reputation of being punctual, hard working and smart; build your network.

Start getting minimally paying gigs. Get a reputation of being punctual, hard working and smart; build your network.

Get better paying gigs. Get a reputation of being punctual, hard working and smart; build your network.

Now await your opportunity to get paid to direct small things - local commercials, corporates, etc.

Get a reputation of being highly organized, punctual, hard working, smart, turning out quality work and people want to work with you; build your network.

Now await your opportunity to....



You get the idea. It's all about knowledge, skill and experience coupled with a broad network of people who respect you as a person and a creative.


To be honest, I never wanted to start a small business. My plan was to do a ton of indie projects for free/cheap to gain experience, and to do freelance work for other audio post facilities until I got a full-time position and work my way up from there. The poor economy killed a frighteningly large percentage of the audio post facilities in my area, and those who were left severely cut staffs. So my plan was put on hold and I had to build my own business as best I can; I love my work, I absolutely HATE the running the business part of my business. But that's the price I have to pay to do what I love to do.
 
The thing for me is on psychological level ,you want to get money so you can make movies but frankly you can make movies without having money .

And if you are making movies just to get money you'll not go too far . And the thing is if you're actually able to live with 1 short a year . Me personally , I can't . I can't live without making short films or craft something , but if you can quit filmmaking just like that you have to ask yourself if you're actually passionate enough to pursue a career in film .

Good luck .
 
NickysFX said:
you can make movies without having money.
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Yes and no.

NickysFX said:
And if you are making movies just to get money you'll not go too far.
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I can think of a gazillion easier ways to make money. The point was to get money somewhere else and use that to make a film bypassing the whole getting investors for the film thing.

NickysFX said:
If you're actually able to live with 1 short a year
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It's not ideal, but what if it were a really good film? Quality over quantity. Picking good and cheap out of the cheap, good or fast triad.

NickysFX said:
if you're actually passionate enough to pursue a career in film.
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I don't want a CAREER in film. I just want to make films because I like that. No point in turning an enjoyable hobby into a stressful job.
 
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The failure rate for start ups is 66-75%. How many ultra low budget films end up with proper distribution (maybe 1/50)?

Edit: Fine, plan C:

Step 1: Quit school to show how passionate I'm about filmmaking.
Step 2: Move to LA as an illegal immigrant.
step 3: Compete furiously to work for free.
step 4: Max out credit cards to fund a film with a crew found on Craiglist.
step 5: Sell a kidney to pay off the credit card loans.
Step 6: Die off of infected surgical wound.
Step 7: Win Sundance posthumously.
 
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photon said:
I don't want a CAREER in film. I just want to make films because I like that. No point in turning an enjoyable hobby into a stressful job.
Click to expand...

I actually agree 100% with your plan for this very reason. I did just that - turned something I enjoyed doing (making films) into a stressful job, and it made me not want to do it for fun anymore. So I actually did stop making films, and shifted my career more into a tech direction. After a few years of that I started actually wanting to make films again so I figured out a way to do it with the time and resources I have available, and now I make 3-5 short films a year.

There are certainly a lot of other business opportunities that have more potential for making money than filmmaking does. Be clear though that starting your own business is a much more difficult money-making route than just getting a job. You have to be ready to fail repeatedly, and be ok without the security of steady or predictable income. Personally I'm fine with that, and haven't had a job in 20 years because of it - but I certainly could have made a lot more money over the years by just working for someone, and it's only now that my own business looks to be producing the kind of income that could potentially go towards a feature project in the near future.

So as long as you're fine with "Step 3" being something like "grow the business for a decade or so" then I think your plan sounds good. Of course that's assuming you can figure out how to keep making short films in the meantime - which shouldn't be too hard these days.
 
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