Advice needed for Aussie filmmaker and new member

Hi everyone,
I'm currently making my third film as a guerilla filmmaker but facing many indie challenges. So, first to introduce myself -- I'm an Australian writer/director/producer/presenter/actress who doesn't make mainstream films. We were very inspired by Peter Broderick and other USA film people who said "just do it". So we have. Our first film was Finding Joy, a romantic comedy , ( launched Spiritual Cinema Circle and won an AFTI Best Actress Award) and second was Seven Days with Seven Dogs - a heart warming dogumentary about our family taking our seven rescued dogs on a well deserved and healing holiday. This has inspired dog lovers in Australian and USA to date. I guess our audience is in the alternative health, self help, mind/body/spirit category.

Right now we are making a doco series which requires travel and special effects and trying to figure out the sponsorship thing. So I'm looking for people with experience in raising money through sponsorship. First question seems to be "will it be on television" and the answer is "maybe". This answer probably isn't what a sponsor finds particularly comforting. So if you are savvy in this area, I would LOVE to hear from you as it seems to be the area I most need to learn about. I also probably need to learn how to sell my somewhat alternative ideas to mainstream. All thoughts welcome. Or find the places most likely to embrace my kind of films.

Finally, I'm looking for sources of knowledge for doing special effects with no budget at all!! I know lots can be done cleverly and I want to add spark to my doco. If you can help.. THANK YOU -- it's wonderful to be part of an indie community.
cheers
Billie (http://www.laughingowl.com.au)
 
Hi Paul,

I had a look at your film. Very impressive!! I'm researching all the things I can do without money and am actually getting pretty inspired. I want to do a fire scene and have an actor appear in the scene without being touched by the fire. So was thinking of green screening the actor . The fire is a problem (complete fire ban) but I'm researching all the things you can do by filming very close to the camera - so I thought I would experiment. I'm also looking to add fantasy to my film, so FX touches to make it magical.

Thanks for any thoughts you might have and if you can steer me in the right direction for further research.
cheers
Billie
 
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