Raising Money for Film Making

[Bahamas Film Maker]

Hi there I'm new to this forum. My name is Jennie and am a Producer and Director from the Bahamas. I recently did a short film (It's a comedy)...I only have two scenes to shoot and production will be completed...now on to post....I basically had to do everything myself because I could not afford to hire a crew, but I was happy with the outcome of everything...I was really a rebel without a crew. My question to everyone is:

What is the best way to raise money for a film????

I really want my film to reach a view audience and I know that money will be a major factor to kinda make everything fall into place.....your advice is appreciated. Thanks

 

[rayw]

What is the best way to raise money for a film????

Too vague. Too many variables.


An effective answer is going to be more complex than perhaps you suspect.

To make a film to reach an audience you'll need to CLEARLY identify the intended audience so that you can determine the venues they most frequently view films.

Ideally, you would make your intended audience aware that your film product even exists - especially before it's even made.

Marketing and promotion are the two greatest ways to raise money outside of funding all the expense yourself up front and during the process.

The following links may contain a fair bit of beneficial information for you relevant to your financing as well as understanding the overall process some better:
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=39122
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=38636
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=39742

Good luck.


Ray


PS:

Also:

 

[Beatlesfan1225]

I can't help you out here, if you need ways to SAVE money... hit me up. I've become a master at finding insanely cheap ways to do what I need to do

 

[danosongs]

I have being doing allot of research about this myself lately. I am going to take my sci fi alien short and develop a feature from it, so I will need to raise money too.

The very first things you need are the feature length script and a 4-5 page business plan with supporting materials - most importantly a budget. Check out this video about film budgeting, it is really awesome, I watched the entire 1 hour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g939Flu_9ZM and I took notes if you are interested http://bit.ly/NPubkL.

Once you have the script and business plan you need to have attached "name" talent if you want to raise over 100K. For over 1M+ you need outright stars. Talent includes actors and a producer or director (if that is not you).

From what I understand "attached" means the talent has reviewed the script and expressed interest with a "Letter of Interest" and you include the letter in the business plan. Then you need a plan for distribution, and for over 1M you probably need an actual distribution commitment in order to get that much funding.

Once you have a great script, business plan (with budget), attached talent and distribution plan - you are ready to go raise money. Who and where to go to? I am not there yet but from what I understand if you really put together this complete "package" - it becomes feasible to network your way in to presenting it to the right people.

For myself I see that getting this money piece right is a job in and of itself. So I'll be calling myself exec producer and just working on the money, business plan and assembling a name producer, director, etc. to actually make the film.