Friday, October 11, 2013

Film Funding

By Debra Washington


An issue-oriented smaller film is one that has a style of social significance at it's core. Drug abuse, poverty, the environment, homelessness ... these are all examples of a smaller movie with a socially appropriate theme. This is considerable as it is MUCH easier to obtain contributions of time, equipment and materials when there is a "cause" behind the movie.

In the mid 90's I was able to get a 12 minute 35mm movie produced for under a thousand dollars, an absolutely unheard of amount. Catering, locations, movie stock and processing, misc supplies, devices - practically everything was covered with generous donations since the film had 2 significant social concerns as the primary styles - kid abuse and it's resultant connection to substance abuse later in life.

The approach? Experience production directory sites and cold call till you can't speak any longer. A typical pitch went like this: "we're working on a movie that handles some lovely intense social issues and we're asking yourself if there's somebody we can talk with about making a contribution of ..." It takes a lot of calls, but it works.

Getting donations is in one sense rather simple as numerous manufacturing companies are willing to contribute. The problem that originates from this option to brief movie financing is in the additional sychronisation efforts needed, for you'll have to adapt your schedule to the donors. An example of this is that we needed to cancel a film shoot 2 weekends in a row because the 35mm camera that was being donated to us became not available as it was reserved out on a paid shoot (a truth that needs to be accepted taking this strategy). But as quickly as the rental company's schedule cleared, the camera was ours and we had the ability to shoot, conserving hundreds of dollars in rental charges.

An additional concern with taking this course is manufacturer sychronisation. It's better if you have an unique producer dealing with obtaining donations as it's a full time task in and of itself. It's finest to have one manufacturer to manage shooting logistics and another to handle donations. In the end, while our team had the ability to achieve a lot with hardly any funds, the movie suffered since the director/producer (myself) was exhausted with handling logistics and had less time to invest on imaginative shots, acting, and so on. Having an unique manufacturer to deal with donations will fix that problem!




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