Indie Feature Films Seeking Finance

[mr-modern-life]

I am seeking finance for a series of ultra low budget UK genre films. With distribution (sales agent) attached as well as a marketable cast and crew Modern Life? are seeking finance for the following features:

Title: 'Vicious Circle'
Pitch: Saw meets Fight Club
Format: HDV
Investment Sought: $10,000k
Genre: Action/Thriller

Title: 'Fear' (Working Title)
Pitch: Blair Witch meets My Little Eye
Format: HDV
Investment Sought: $7,500k
Genre: Horror

Title: 'Ten Dead Men'
Pitch: Sin City meets Man On Fire & The Punisher
Format: HDV
Investment Sought: $10,000k
Genre: Action/Comic Book Thriller

For more information with any of these please email me direct or PM me (phil@mod-life.com).

 

[mr-modern-life]

Okay so I've been gone for over a month and still no interest! I'm supirsed the funded part of the site doesnt work better... Oh well!

 

[directorik]

I'm not. Investors get hundreds of requests all the time from filmmakers. They really don't need to peruse messageboards looking for projects to fund. I'm with you however. I would LOVE to think we could pitch on a messageboard where investors are lurking - hunting for just the right project - and get several contacts.

Anyone here know of a legit board or site like that? I've tried hollywoodfunding.com and got nothing. industrycentral.net didn't help. Cinemarquee required really big name stars to be attached - if I had that I wouldn't need THEM.

 

[clive]

Can't help with links to investors, but Phil have you put in funding applications to Screen South?

They can provide production funding of up to £40,000, providing 25% of it is matched from elsewhere

http://www.screensouth.org/

You could also apply for lottery funding for about the same amount.

If you're only looking for £5,000, a £4,000 production application to Screen South would probably stand a reasonable chance of sucess -- especially if you play up how it benefits people in the region. At that point you're only looking for £1000 to get your full production budget.

The other thing you could look at is corporate sponsorship -- approach large locally based businesses PR departments, show how and where you film is going to be distributed -- show them what kind of positive local press you can generate. £5,000 isn't much money to a large corporation and if in the process you can place their product in the film, everyone wins.

Seriously, I once raised £3,000 for a short via product placement and got all my wardrobe for the film for free at the same time!

 

[mr-modern-life]

I have spoken to them and to be fair they havent been that intersted. I thought it was only £10k MAX? They are very limited in the kind of films they are looking for and at and fail to believe a feature could be produced for such a pitiful ammount.

 

[clive]

I have spoken to them and to be fair they havent been that intersted. I thought it was only £10k MAX? They are very limited in the kind of films they are looking for and at and fail to believe a feature could be produced for such a pitiful ammount

Wow! I didn't realise that the different regional funders varied what they did so wildly? It's £40K here -- of course NFM haven't any money left for this year! LOL

You might want to revist them and take a diferent approach -- instead of looking for funding for what you want, instead look at what they will fund and tailor that to your project.

So, last year I got a £2000 grant for script development alone.

Do they offer a free script report service? Are you on their mailing list? Do you attend their events?

My experience is that the best way to get funded is for them to have had a favourible script report from their person. Our film board does this for free -- takes forever (six weeks) to get the report back, but at least you're on their radar.

If they like the script then you use their script report to lever production funding -- if they say it needs work, you apply for script development.

You then bank the script development money -- rewrite the script to their notes -- put it in for a second report.

When it comes back favouribly they have then supported its development and are MORE likely to fund production.

So end result is that six months later you have £12,000 in the bank.

They are very limited in the kind of films they are looking for

I know it seems like this -- my guess is they favour region art house movies -- but you can get round this -- before you apply you ask for a meeting to get advice on your application. -- At the start of the meeting you say "Actually I'm not really sure whether I should apply for funding, because I'm making a commercial genre film and I've been told that you guys only fund art house."

They will vigerously deny that this is the case -- that of course you can apply.

fail to believe a feature could be produced for such a pitiful ammount

If your budget is workable, then this shouldn't be an issue -- where you may run into problems is if you aren't paying your cast and crew Becctu and Equity rate for the work. Most funding bodies insist on this as a condition of funding. -- This is probably the reason that they're not taking your application seriously.