7 Actionable Steps to Raise In-Kind Donations for your Indiefilm.

Filmmaking is HARD.  Making your first movie is even harder.  You have to gather all of the stuff you need to make your movie, often working with funds that you’ve saved up yourself.  Sometimes you’ll have some additional funds from your friends and family, an inheritance, crowdfunding or some other windfall, but even with any or all of those funding is likely to be tight.  

So as part of my ongoing efforts to make filmmaking easier, here’s an entry-level guide to getting in-kind donations for your film.  

Try to get fiscal sponsorship

Fiscal sponsorship is essentially an arrangement where a non-profit organization lets you borrow their tax deductible status for the purposes of taking in donations.  If you can get fiscal sponsorship from a reputable 501C-3 non-profit organization, any donations you take in will be considered tax deductible.

Generally, the non-profit will take a fee as part of letting you use their 501C-3 status.  Most of the time, this fee is somewhere around 9-10%.  How this will apply to in kind donations is something you’ll have to work out with the organization from which you seek fiscal sponsorship.

Being able to solicit donations as tax deductions from local businesses makes it much easier to convert them as it gives them an additional incentive to help you.  

Consider what products could appear on screen.

In order to figure out what you might be able to get donated, you first must discern what you need.  Go to your Day out of Days report (DOOD) and check out what might be the most likely elements you could get a donation for.  You can work from these lists for the next steps.

Figure out where you can get what you need.

Once you have a list of what you’ll need, it’s time to figure out where you can get it. First, cross off the stuff you already have. Make a list of 3 potential places you could procure any of the items on your list then move on to the next step.

You’ll have to spend some money on your production, this extension can help you save.  

Before we go into how to get free stuff for your movie, it’s important to remember that sometimes the wise move is to spend a little bit of money to save a lot of time.  For those situations, This Chrome extension can help you find the best deals on a lot.of things you’ll buy anyway.  Check, it out here.    

Approach local businesses about donations.

You can approach the 3 businesses to see if they’ll discount, donate, or loan you the items you need. 

They’ll be a lot more likely to donate to you if you have the fiscal sponsorship.  If you’re a student, you should definitely say so, as it makes them even more likely to donate what you need to make your film.  

While mom-and-pop stores are easier to approach, many large chains have some level of budget for these sorts of donations.  Grocery stores normally have something they can give away to non-profits, and this can be a great way to cut your craft services budget.

Don’t be afraid to call major brands, but don’t expect too much 

If you’re bold, you could approach a major brand about getting some in-kind donations for your movie.  This could be getting Starbucks to donate a bunch of beans for craft services, or Mercedes letting you use a car from a dealership for a day.  If you do this, you should be aware that the chances for success are not as high as approaching a mom and pop shop, but the potential rewards can be huge.

Just keep in mind, if you are trying to get something from a local store in a massive conglomerate, it can be easier to go into that store first.  A lot of brands are looking for ways to increase visibility, sometimes directly, and sometimes through third-party brokers.

In fact, according to a study from hubspot 60% businesses small and large have stated that they rely heavily on micro and nano influencers to build trust in those brands. For the uninitiated, nano influencers have 5,000 subscribers or fewer and micro influencers have 50,000 subscribers. It’s not exactly the same space, but it’s a similar one.

Keep Track of everything you’ve raised.

Getting Donations will increase the Production Value of your film, and you should keep track of the value you’re adding. Not all budgeting platforms can track this in line, but you should keep a separate tally somewhere.  Eventually, a distributor will ask you what your budget was and you should include your in-kind efforts.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you found this article useful.  It you want more film business content, check out my free film business resource pack!  

Why there’s more to vetting investors than Net Worth

I live something of a public life, and as such I try to keep tabs on what comes up when people google my name.  I generally do a thorough search on myself about once a month.  A few months back I found a link from a site that specializes in estimating the Net Worth of celebrities and other people in the public eye.  They estimated my net worth to be about 12 million dollars. As much as I’d like to tell you that’s true, it’s not.  At least not yet.  So here’s why you should be careful in trusting Net worth estimates.

Edit: This site has taken down that page, and while I thought I had screencaps, I don’t.  

If you want me to invest in your movie, read this

I have a feeling posting something on my film services site that says I’m worth 12 million dollars is going to get some investment inquiries, so let’s get this out of the way before we continue.  

I don’t personally invest in projects beyond recoupable distribution expenses.  If I do early-stage fundraising for clients, it’s only AFTER I’ve worked with them and developed a working relationship with them.  That being said, I get the distinct impression a lot of people just skim my articles.  So I’m including a big button below that links to my official policy on investing in people’s projects who contact me cold via social media.  Those who skim my articles probably won’t like it, but I have to find some way of dealing with the near-constant bombardment of investment inquiries.  Click it, you might get a laugh.

In the rare cases I do act as a conduit for investment, equity investment is never the first money in.  It’s often not the last money in, but it’s definitely not the first.  If you’re looking for me to invest in your film, it’s probably not going to happen.  I’m more likely to help you set up your investment documents.  

Related: The 9 ways to finance an independent film.

Net Worth isn’t as important as you may think.  

So getting back to the meat and potatoes of the article.  Net Worth probably doesn’t mean as much as you may think.  The way Net Worth is calculated is pretty simple, you list your assets and calculate a value (Home Equity, Stocks, Bonds, Other investments) , then you list your liabilities (Debt of all kinds) then you subtract the value of your debts from the value of your assets and you’ve got a net worth.  

The important to realize about this is that the majority of the assets I listed above aren’t what investors would call liquid capital.  That means that in most cases, only a small portion of your net worth is spendable.  There are ways to liquidate such assets without selling them, but that generally requires some level of loan and implies interest.  For a bit more on that, check out the blog below.

Related: One Simple Tool to Reopen Conversations with Investors

So let’s look at my net worth as an example.  First off, I have no idea where they got the 12 million dollar number.  Even by the most generous valuations of my assets, it’s off by at least 3-4X.  But even going with that generous valuation of my assets, most of that would be tied up in equity between Guerrilla Rep Media and ProductionNext.  There’s not a whole lot I can do with those assets to liquidate them.  Even if I could, it’s unlikely I would as I don’t think the asset is completely mature, and selling off shares would be unlikely to help me.  This is actually a pretty common problem for investors and High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) and it’s something you should be on the lookout for when you’re vetting your investors.

Related: 5 Steps to Vetting your investor

It’s Not Money until you can buy beer with it

I’m quoting someone, but I’m not sure who.  But in essence, just because someone has a high net worth doesn’t mean that they’re going to be willing or even able to invest in your project.  If someone derives their net worth from owning a couple of multi-family homes and drawing income as a landlord, then even if their net worth is several millions, their assets are tied up in real estate and harder to access than you might think.  

The only metric that really matters when courting an investor is how much investable capital they have at their disposal, and that’s a very different metric than their net worth that’s harder to pin down. 

Thanks for reading, if you enjoyed this blog, I’d recommend you check out my mailing list for monthly blog digests., a free investment deck template, a free e-book, white paper, and a whole lot more.  Click the button below for more information.  

3 Things Every New Film Investor NEEDS to know

I write a lot about the film business with filmmakers as a target audience.  However, in my non-educational content job, I have to interface with film investors on a fairly regular basis.  This blog is adapted from one such situation where a first-time film investor had a lot of impulses that might actually hurt their film.  The response got rather lengthy, so I asked my client if he minded if I adapt it into a blog.  The client didn’t mind at all, so now I can share the insights with him with significantly more people.

With that in mind, here are 3 things that every new film investor should know. 

1. Films are not evergreen.

Once a film is more than a year past its initial release, it loses a significant portion of its perceived market value.   Buyers just won’t touch it.  You released the film this year, so you have a bit of time, but that time is not infinite.  This means that negotiations around a minimum amount of money over time is not always productive, as it will likely be out of the highest actual period no matter what happens.  Often, even if you get the rights back, the film will have been so heavily shopped no one will take a look at it anyway.

This is a mistake that a lot of filmmakers make.  Unfortunately, you do not have all the time in the world to shop for your film.  Eventually, you’ll want to make sure you get it out there, even if it’s at something of a loss.  If you want longer, it’s unlikely that your prospects will get better.  

Of course, I want to be clear that you shouldn’t take any old deal as soon as it’s offered.  It’s just important to remember that barring some incredibly specific extenuating circumstances,  your film won’t be worth as much next year as it is now.  Your Also, if the distributor or sales agent is in clear breach, you should still try to get your rights back. 

2. Generally, films take a few markets to make a cash upfront sale, and the pay chain is absurd.  

It often takes a few in-person touchpoints before the sale is finalized.  While I’m going to be pushing for a quick sale, sometimes it takes a while for the money to come through.   

Further, you should remember that a lot of time it will take a while for those payments to trickle through to the producer.  I’ve outlined the issue in detail in the blog below, but to give you an idea, an MG-oriented sale will likely have something like 10% due on signing, 40% due within 30-90 days from notice of delivery, and the remaining 50% due prior to release or within 30 days of release.  Also, most SVOD sales in the US pay out a set amount of time after the beginning of the license period.  

Related:The problems with the indie film distribution payment system.

3.  No one likes dealing with inexperienced people with huge egos.

If you’re an accredited investor, you’ve probably dealt with this issue on the other end.  You likely have money due to your own entrepreneurial endeavors, a high-paying position that likely required you to employ other people, an expansive portfolio of investments that may have required you to interface directly with other entrepreneurs, or some combination of the above.  

While the primary goal of any film production should be to get all of your money back, the industry is incredibly specialized.  Nobody likes being told how to run their business by someone without much experience in the driver’s seat of this highly specialized industry.

It’s important to remember that once you get to dealing with more powerful members of the industry, trying to throw your weight around to get a better deal isn’t likely to break in your favor.  Unfortunately, most good sales agents or distributors will just decline to take out your film, and the less-than-good ones who remain will find legal ways to avoid paying out as long as possible if they pay out at all.   

This industry may be in a period of upheaval, but currently, sales agents and distributors still hold a lot of power.   So if you want to make a profitable film, or a widely distributed one, you’re going to have to take some time to understand the common industry practices.

It’s incredibly difficult to negotiate with someone when you’re at a massive informational disadvantage, and more than likely you will be at an informational disadvantage purely by the nature of the specialization of the film sales and distribution industry. 

If you want to lessen your informational disadvantage, you should sign up for my mailing list to get monthly blog digests segmented by topic, you’ll also get a free film business resource pack that includes an ebook, whitepaper on the macroeconomics of the film industry, an investment deck template, and a whole lot more!  Click the button below to grab it.  

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The Basics of Financing your Independent Film with Tax Incentives

Most filmmakers simply chase equity in order to finance their films.  However, most investors don’t want to shoulder the financial risk involved in a film alone.  That’s where tax incentives for independent film can come in and help to close the gap.  But proper use of tax incentives for independent film financing is somewhat complicated.  Here’s a primer to get you started.  

Cities, States, Regions, and countries can have tax incentives

First of all, it’s important to understand that most forms of government can issue a tax incentive.  In the US, the biggest and best incentives generally (but not always) come from states, however many cities, counties, and regions may supplement those incentives with smaller Internationally, many countries also provide some level of subsidy.  

Europe Tends to provide better tax incentives than the US.

From the standpoint of the federal government, most European countries are much better about independent film subsidies than the US.  Most of the time, these incentives take the form of co-production funding, but it’s relatively common for film commissions to provide grants to help promote the arts among their citizens.  

This is particularly notable given that citizens of EU Member States can strategically stack incentives in a way that the majority of your film is financed via government subsidies.  If, like me, you are based out of the United States, that’s just not possible due to the structure of most tax incentives.

There’s normally a minimum spend. 

Especially in the US, there’s generally a fairly hefty minimum spend to qualify for a tax incentive.  In some states that spending can start around 1 million dollars for out-of-state productions.  Some states offer a lower cap for productions helmed by residents of the state.  

There’s generally a minimum percentage of the total film budget needing to be shot there.

Most of the time you’ll only be eligible for a tax incentive if you shoot a certain percentage of your film or spend a certain percentage of your budget in a given territory.  These can vary widely from territory to territory so look at the first place. 

It’s normally not cash upfront

Unless you’re getting a grant from whatever film commission you’re shooting in, you’re probably just going to get a piece of paper that will state that you will be audited after the production and paid out according to the results of the audit.  There are generally a few different ways that a tax incentive can be structured, but we’ll touch on those next week.

You need to plan for monetizing it.

In general, you’ll either end up selling the tax incentive for a percentage of its total value to a company with a high tax liability in your state, or you’ll have to take out a loan against your tax incentive in order to get the money you need to make the film.  Both of these incur some level of cost which is different depending on which state you’re shooting in.  

For example, Georgia and Nevada both have transferrable tax credits.  Due to the large amount of productions going on in Georgia on a pretty much constant basis, the transferrable tax credit often monetizes at around 60% of face value.  Nevada on the other hand has relatively few productions and many casinos that have very high tax burdens.  As a result, the tax incentive in Nevada tends to monetize at around 90%.  That said, there is presumably a more tested, experienced crew in Georgia than in certain parts of Nevada, of course, the film commission will tell you differently. 

Not everything is covered

Not every expense for your film is covered.  Exactly what is covered can vary widely from state to state, but in general only expenses that directly benefit the economy of the state are covered.  There are often exceptions.  One common exception is some mechanism to allow recognizable name talent to either be included in a covered expenditure or at least exempted from minimum thresholds of state expenditures.  

Most of the time, high pay for above-the-line positions such as out-of-state recognizable name talent or directors are not covered covered by tax incentives.  However, there are a few states that allow it.  I talk a lot about it in this Movie Moolah Podcast with Jesus Sifuentes, linked below. 

Related Podcast: MMP:003 Non-Traditional Investors & Maximizing Tax Incentives W/ Jesus Sifuentes

Not every program is adequately funded

Many film programs have a “cap” If that cap is too low, the money can be gone before the demand for the money is.  Some states have the opposite problem.

Communicating with the film commission pays dividends long term

In general, the film commissions I’ve talked to are extremely friendly and easy to talk to. However, many times these commissions lose touch with the filmmakers they’re supporting shortly after they shoot.  This isn’t necessarily a good thing, as most film commissions have significant reach into the greater film community and other aspects of local government.  If you make sure they stay up to date as to what’s going on with your project you may find yourself getting help from unexpected places.

Also, if this is all a bit complicated, you should check out this new mentorship program I’ve started to help self-motivated filmmakers get additional resources as well as get their questions answered by someone working in the field.  It’s more affordable than you may think.  Check out my services page for more information.

If you’re not there yet, grab my free film Business Resource package.  It’s got a lot of goodies ranging from a free e-book, free white paper, an investment deck template, and more.  Grab it at the button below.

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How to Finance your Documentary

It’s hard to find reliable information on film financing.  I’ve written a fair amount about independent film financing for narrative projects.  Since writing those blogs and doing numerous presentations on the topic, I’ve gotten a lot of questions on how to finance documentaries.  Since I haven’t seen a good guide, I thought I’d write one.  Here’s a step by step guide on financing documentaries.

1. Establish a deep connection with the audience that cares DEEPLY about your message.

Authenticity has been become incredibly important in all aspects of making your living as a filmmaker, journalist, or content creator of any kind.  As documentaries are primarily message films, authenticity and accuracy are even more important than they would be in your standard genre picture.  A deep understanding of the subject matter you’re tackling is absolutely vital for documentaries, as documentaries tend to rely much more heavily on word of mouth and community involvement than traditional narrative films.  

The primary goal you should have when establishing yourself within this community is to speak authentically about the community in your film. By doing this, you will most likely also establish credibility with the audience that is most likely to shout about your film when it comes out.  As a bonus, through the process of establishing a deep connection with the subject matter, you are likely to find good subjects to interview for your documentary.   

2. Get a fiscal sponsor

A fiscal sponsor is a non-profit organization that can extend its non-profit status to your simple for-profit entity allowing you to take tax-deductible donations, which can greatly help you raise donations from friends, family, and even certain crowdfunding platforms.  They’ll normally take a fee of between 4% and 9%, but they’ll increase your close rate dramatically.  Additionally, unless you are a non-profit, you’ll most likely need a fiscal sponsor in order to apply for grants.  

3. Apply for relevant grants

Next, you should start applying for grants.  You don’t need to limit yourself to filmmaking grants, you can also apply to grantors that tackle the subject matter you’re planning on documenting.  So long as those foundations and grantors back projects to build awareness there’s a good chance you’ll be eligible for those grants.  I wrote another blog with the help of one of the fundraisers for Slamdance a while back, you’ll find it below.

You should start applying for grants once a month as soon as you can.

Related: 5 Rules for Grantwriting.

4.  Confirm one high-profile expert in your field to give yourself legitimacy

Now it’s time to start shooting your film.  Confirm an interview with an expert, possibly using the connections you’ve developed back in step one.  Otherwise, reaching out to universities that have programs related to your subject matter is a generally good bet.  Most of the time, you shouldn’t need to pay the academics or many of the other experts who might be interviewed for the documentary. For them, it’s good press to build their legitimacy and public profile.

5.  Prepare a crowdfunding campaign

This is another reason Step 1 is to ingratiate yourself in a community.  If you’re a known entity in that community, your chances of success are much better and the amount you’ll be able to raise is much higher.  While this is harder than it once was, it’s nearly impossible if you’re not an established part of the community.

Here’s a blog on a crowdfunding timeline.  

Related: Crowdfunding Timeline for Filmmakers

6. Get a few more experts in your network to give interviews

Ramp up your production and get a decent portion of the film shot and start to find the narrative throughline for the finished piece.  You will want to start charting this path as you shoot, as it can help guide you through future interviews or even re-interviews if you can.  

7. Launch your crowdfunding campaign. 

You do that after the first expert as if you’re doing it properly, you should be able to use a portion of the interview as an immediate delivery once the campaign closes.  If you have multiple experts at this point, you’ll have some degree of legitimacy that you could turn into a short as one of the major funding levels.

Even after you raise the money you need for your main round, you should continue to apply for grants on a monthly basis.  The reason n why will become clear later. 

Here’s a blog on the dos and don’ts for pushing your movie on social media.  I wrote it after a few too many people sent me auto DMs.

Related: 5 Dos and Don’ts for Selling Your Film Online.

8. Get a few higher profile influencers in the documentary.

If you get a few subjects in the documentary with some degree of a following, it will likely help boost the visibility of the documentary once it’s getting ready to come out.

9. Release regular updates on social media

If you make sure to release updates and engage with your following on the goings on of the documentary you’ll be much better able to keep in the consciousness of your community which will make a rather large difference when it comes time to distribute your project.

10. Make sure you keep your backers informed.

Take what you’re doing on social media, and give more depth and detail as to the goings on of the project, as well s content to the people who have supported you financially. There are a couple of ways you can do this, the simplest is to continually communicate through whatever platform you originally crowdfunded through.

11. Keep applying for Grants, but now focus on finishing funds.

Applying for grants isn’t something you should have stopped doing, but at this point in the cycle, you should be applying for grants to finish your movie rather than develop or shoot it.  If you’ve consistently been applying all this time, you’re more likely to succeed at this point as you may well be starting to re-apply for the same grants you didn’t get last time.  

12. Launch a secondary crowdfunding campaign for finishing funds

This is part of why you’ve continued to stay in touch with the people who backed your first campaign, as it’s much more likely they’ll come back for your next round if they’re happy with your communication skills as well as the progress you’ve made.  

13. Ramp up the content you’re releasing

Before you may have released photos from interviews on social media, and teasers to your backers.  Now you may want to release teasers on social media and short interview clips to your backers.  You don’t want to release anything that will give too much away, but you want to build buzz and have a deep engagement with your backers.  You want them to feel like they made your movie possible.  In a very real way, they did, and they may have gotten you to the finishing line. 

14. Apply for impact grants

Impact grants focus on getting the film out and into the world.  They cover things like festival submission, travel, and other costs related to marketing and distribution.  You should start applying for these grants when you hit picture lock.  

NOW THAT YOU’VE FINISHED MAKING THE FILM…

15.  Hire a publicist (If you can)

Publicity isn’t cheap, but it is one of the best ways to build both the profile of your film and of you as a filmmaker.  Getting press early on will help you in the next parts of your process.

16. Apply to festivals

Now that the film is done, you should start applying to relevant festivals.  If you’ve already gotten some press coverage, you’re more likely to get in, however, the time your publicist will be of the most use is during your festival rune.

17. Get a Lawyer, and get them to do an E&O Coverage letter.

If you didn’t already have a lawyer, get one now.  A lot of lawyers will do some pro-bono work for documentary filmmakers as a public service, so don’t hesitate to ask.  Along with being a steadfast advisor, they’ll also have the ability to write a fair use clearance letter which will enable you to buy E&O Coverage if and when you need it.  Also, you should really have a lawyer on call when you move on to step 18. 

18. Get a producers rep, or sales agent and distributor

Finally, you should make sure to start reaching out to producers reps sales agents, and distributors as soon as you can after submitting to festivals.  Some of us can help make sure you get into bigger and better festivals, but any reputable person with these titles has a much better chance of getting you a profitable distribution deal on platforms 

After the success I’ve seen from one film I both repped and distributed film Queen of the Capital, I’ve recently started putting a greater emphasis on documentaries, since my direct contacts in that area have grown significantly.  You can learn more about Guerrilla Rep Media Services film below.

Thanks so much for reading, if you liked this content, please share it.  Also, join my mailing list for some great resources including a festival brochure template, ebook, and a whole lot more.

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Filmmakers Glossary of Film Investment Terminology

Last week I laid out a glossary of general-use film business terms, but the blog ended up a bit too long and dense to be a single post.  So, I broke it into two.  Last week was the basics of business terms, this week is the next level, and focuses entirely on investment terms.  Some of these may seem tangential and unnecessary, however if your goal is to close an investor, you’ll need to thoroughly speak their language.  If there’s something you don’t see here, check out last week’s blog here. I’m not a lawyer, this isn’t legal advice, and you should have a solid attorney on your team before trying to close an investment round. With that out of the way, let’s get started.

Capital

While many types exist, The term most commonly refers to money. 

Liquid Capital

Money that can be spent immediately, or near immediately.  Non-liquid capital would be considered something like real estate holdings which would first need to be liquidated in order to sell. 

Principle

In finance: it’s general the initial capital investment or the remaining balance on a debt. 

Interest

A percentage fee is added on to the principle of a loan or line of credit.

Compound interest

Interest on the principle of the loan and interest.

Simply: interest on interest.

High-Risk Investment

An investment where an investor may lose most or all of the money they put in. Independent Films are always high-risk investments

Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC)

The main financial regulatory agency in the United States.  It oversees most forms of investment.

Accredited Investor

A person of means who is generally considered to have enough business know-how to appraise an investment, pay someone to appraise it for them, or who wouldn’t be completely destitute from taking a high risk-gamble.  As of the date of this publishing, according to the SEC the investor must meet either (NOT both of) the income or net worth requirement in order to be considered an accredited investor.
​
Income Requirements
1.If filing individually, a person must have made 200,000 USD a year for the past 2 years, and be likely to do the same this year. 
2.If filing Jointly, a household must have made 300,000 USD a year for the past 2 years, and be likely to do the same this year. 

Net Worth.

The investor or household must have 1 million dollars in net worth OUTSIDE of their primary residence. ​

High Net Worth Individual (HNWI)

Outside the obvious, this term is generally a financial industry term for accredited investor

Edgar Database

A database of high-risk investments maintained by the SEC that is only accessible to Accredited investors and licensed brokerage or investment firms.

Financing Round

A round of financing or funding that is large enough to take an organization or project to the next major milestone.  For how this works in film, check out the youtube video I’ve linked below, and the blog linked below that.

Related Video: The 4 Stages of Indiefilm Financing

Related Blog: The 4 Stages of Indiefilm Financing

Business Plan

A document written by an entrepreneur or filmmaker outlining their investment.  In the film industry, this document will also often educate the investor on how the industry functions as a whole.  This document is also known as a prospectus, but that term is not as commonly used as it once was. 

Private Placement Memorandum (PPM)

A document that’s filed with the SEC for investors to consider investing in your project.  Frequently an attorney will base this document off of the filmmaker or entrepreneur’s business plan.  In most cases, a PPM will be registered with the aforementioned Edgar database for a modest filing fee. 

Pro-Forma Financial Statements

Financial documents consisting of an expected income breakdown, cash-flow statement, and top sheet budget to be invaded in the business plan and function as the basis for many of the financial sections of other documents

The Three points above are heavily outlined in my business planning blog series.

Related: How to write an independent Film Business Plan (1/7)

Backed Debt

A secured loan backed by something like a tax incentive or pre-sale agreement.

Unbacked Debt

An unsecured loan, or debt without backing.  Generally very high interest.

Financial Gap

The space between what you are able to raise and the amount you need to finish your project.

Financial Markets

A market where stocks, bonds, derivatives, or other securities are bought and sold. Common examples in the US would be the DOW and the NASDAQ.

Film Market

A convention where films are bought and sold primarily by sales agents and distributors.  For more, check out the link below.

Related: What is a film market and how does it work?

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The total value of all newly finished goods in a given country during a set timespan.  Most commonly calculated on an annual basis.

Recession

A macroeconomic term signifying a period of a significant decline in economic activity.  It’s generally only recognized after two consecutive quarters of down financial markets. 

Depression

A severe recession that lasts longer than 3 years and corresponds with a drop in GDP of at least 10%

Bull Market

A market that’s strong and growing. It’s called a bull market as the upward trending graph looks like a bull nodding its head according to some people on Wall Street.

Bear Market

Yes, I spelled that right.  It’s a financial market that’s going down, or staying stagnant.  The name comes from a bear swiping its claws down.  Probably the same wall street guy came up with it. 

Thanks so much for reading! If you liked this, please make sure to check out last week’s general financing glossary, as well as my glossary of distribution terms. Also, please share. It helps A LOT.

Filmmakers Glossary of Business Terms

Additionally, make sure you grab my free Film Business Resource Package to get a print ready PDF version of all 3 glossaries.

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Filmmakers Glossary of Film Business Terminology.

A colleague of mine asked me if I had a glossary on film financing terms in the same way I wrote one for film distribution (which you can check out here.)  Since I didn’t have one, I thought I’d write one.  After I wrote it, it was too long for a single post, so now it’s two.  This one is on general terms, next week we’ll talk about film investment terms. As part of the website port, I’m re-titling the first part to a general film business glossary of terms, to lower confusion on sharing it. It’s got the same terms and the same URL, just a different title.

Capital

While many types exist, it most commonly refers to money.  

Financing

Financing is the act of providing funds to grow or create a business or particular part of a business.  Financing is more commonly used when referring to for-profit enterprises, although it can be used in both for profit and non-profit enterprises. 

Funding

Funding is money provided to a business or non-profit for a particular purpose.  While both for-profit and non-profit organizations can use the term, it’s more commonly used in non-profit media that the term financing is. 

Revenue

Money that comes into an organization from providing shrives or selling/licensing goods.  Money from Distribution is revenue, whereas money from investors is financing, and donors tend to provide funding more than financing, although both terms could apply.

Equity

A percentage ownership in a company, project, or asset.  While it’s generally best to make sure all equity investors are paid back, so long as you’ve acted truthfully and fulfilled all your obligations it’s generally not something that you will forfeit your house over.  Stocks are the most common form of equity, although films tend not to be able to issue stocks for complicated regulatory reasons and the fact that films are generally considered a high-risk investment.

Donation

Money that is given in support of an organization, project, or cause without the expectation of repayment or an ownership stake in the organization.  Perks or gifts may be an obligation of the arrangement. 

Debt

A loan that must be paid back. Generally with interest.

Deferral

A payment put off to the future.  Deferrals generally have a trigger as to when the payment will be due.

“Soft Money"

In General, this refers to money you don’t have to pay back, or sometimes money paid back by design.  In the world of independent film, it’s most commonly used for donations and deferrals, tax incentives, and occasionally product placement. It can have other meanings depending on the context though.

Investor

Someone who has provided funding to your company, generally in the form of liquid capital (or money.)

Stakeholder

Someone with a significant stake in the outcome of an organization or project.  These can be investors, distributors, recognizable name talent, or high-level crew. 

Donor

Someone who has donated to your cause, project, or organization. 

Patron

Similar to donors, and can refer to high-level donors or financial backers on the website Patreon.  For examples of patrons, see below. you can be a patron for me and support the creation of content just like this by clicking below.

Non-Profit Organizations (NPO)

An organization dedicated to providing a good or service to a particular cause without the intent to profit from their actions, in the same way, a small business or corporation would. This designation often comes with significant tax benefits in the United States.

501c3

The most common type of non-profit entity file is to take advantage of non-profit tax exempt status in the US.

Non-Government Organization (NGO)

Similar to a non-profit, generally larger in scope.  Also, something of an antiquated term. 

Foundation

An organization providing funding to causes, organizations and projects without a promise of repayment or ownership.  Generally, these organizations will only provide funding to non profit organizations. Exceptions exist. 

Grantor

An organization that funds other organizations and projects in the form of grants.  Generally, these organizations are also foundations, but not necessarily.

Fiscal Sponsorship

A process through which a for-profit organization can fundraise with the same tax-exempt status as a 501c3.  In broad strokes, an accredited 501c3 takes in money on behalf of a for-profit company and then pays that money out less a fee.  Not all 501c3 organizations can act as a fiscal sponsor. 

Investment

Capital that has been or will be contributed to an organization in exchange for an equity stake, although it can also be structured as debt or promissory note.

Investment Deck (Often simply “Deck”)

A document providing a snapshot of the business of your project.  I recommend a 12-slide version, which can be found outlined in this blog or made from a template in the resources section of my site, linked below.

Related: Free Film Business Resource Package

Look Book

A creative snapshot of your project with a bit of business in it as well. NOT THE SAME AS A DECK.  There isn’t as much structure to this.  Check out the blog on that one below. 

Related: How to make a look book

Audience Analysis

One of 3 generally expected ways to project revenue for a film.  This one is based around understanding the spending power of your audience and creating a market share analysis based on that. I don’t yet have a blog on this one, but I will be dropping two videos about it later this month on my youtube channel.  Subscribe so you don’t miss them.

Competitive Analysis

One of 3 ways to project revenue for an independent film.  This method involves taking 20 films of a similar genre, attachments, and Intellectual property status and doing a lot of math to get the estimates you need. 

Sales Agency Estimates

One of 3 ways to project revenue for an independent film.  These are high and low estimates given to you by a sales agent.  They are often inflated.

Related: How to project Revenue for your Independent Film

Calendar Year

12 months beginning January 1 and ending December 31.  What we generally think of as, you know, a year. 

Fiscal year

The year observed by businesses. While each organization can specify its fiscal year, the term generally means October 1 to September 30 as that’s what many government organizations and large banks use.  Many educational institutions tie their fiscal year to the school year, and most small businesses have their fiscal year match the calendar year as it’s easier to keep up with on limited staff.

Film Distribution

The act of making a film available to the end user in a given territory or platform. 

International Sales

The act of selling a film to distributors around the world. 

Related: What's the difference between a sales agent and distributor?

Bonus! Some common general use Acronyms

YOY

Year over Year.  Commonly used in metrics for tracking marketing engagement or financial performance on a year-to-year basis.

YTD

Year to Date.  Commonly used in conjunction with Year over year metrics or to measure other things like revenue or profit/loss metrics.

MTD

Month to Date. Commonly used when comparing monthly revenue to measure sales performance. Due to the standard reporting cycles for distributors, you probably won’t see this much unless you self-distribute.

OOO

Out of Office.  It generally means the person can’t currently be reached. 

EOD

End of Day. Refers to the close of business that day, and generally means 5 PM on that particular day for whatever the time zone of the person using the term is working in.  

Thanks for reading this!  ​Please share it with your friends. If you want more content on film financing, packaging, marketing, distribution, entrepreneurialism, and all facets of the film industry, sign up for my mailing list! Not only will you get monthly content digests segmented by topic, but you’ll get a package of other resources to take you film from script to screen. Those resources include a free ebook, whitepaper, investment deck template, and more!

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How to Raise Development Funds for your Feature Film.

Pretty much every filmmaker wants to find money to make their movie.  Unfortunately, many don’t quite realize that in order to raise the kind of money you need to make anything above a micro-budget movie, you’ll generally need a lot already in place.  It’s something of a catch-22.  Investors need name talent to market the film, and distribution to make it available.  Distributors need name talent and a tested team to give any meaningful commitments, and name taken need to know they’ll be paid.  There are ways around all of this, but generally, they require money upfront.  This blog is about how you raise it.

​Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic bullet on any level of film funding.  The best I can do is offer you tools and tactics to use to increase your chances of success.  You will probably need more than one of these tools to get the job done.
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Don't want to read? Check out the video on this topic below

​Crowdfunding

Let’s get this one out of the way fast.  Crowdfunding CAN be great for filmmakers not only as a way to raise partial funding, but also to engage yourself with your audience and provide market validation for both investors and distributors/sales agents.  That said, it’s not without its drawbacks.  Using crowdfunding as an early-stage race tool can cause your donors to question whether or not you’ll be able to get the whole film done.  If you can’t, it can lead to problems.  (Extra special shoutout to my patrons here, since we’re talking about crowdfunding.)

Friends and Family

I know, I know.  This is the oldest piece of advice in the book.  But, there’s a reason it’s still around.  Your friends and family are (hopefully) among the people who are most likely to back and support you in this endeavor.  If they’re like mine were when I was starting out, while they may be willing to help and actively want you to succeed, they’ll still need some proof it’s possible.  However, the proof they’re like to need will probably be something easier to get than an investor would need. These 

Equity

But Ben, didn’t you just say that you need more in place to get an investor?  Yes and no.  In order to raise a large round, you’ll need a lot in place, but if you’re only focusing on a smaller round you can get by with less.  It is important to properly structure this investment though.  You’ll either need to offer a more substantial stake in the company for the bigger risk taken for investing earlier, or you’ll need to do some other investment vehicle like Convertible debt.

Even at this stage, if you want to raise money from investors you’re going to need to create an independent film investment deck. You can learn more about it in this blog, or you can grab a template for free in my film business resource package in the button below.

Grants

Grants are great in that they don’t require you to pay back the money so long as you only use it for its intended purpose.  They’re not so great in that they generally take a long time to be approved for the money, and you’re generally facing significant competition particularly for development stage grants. 

Soft Costs and Deferrals

This essentially means calling in every favor you have to make sure that you have the best chance possible to succeed in developing a package for your film.  This isn’t going to carry you the whole way though.  Most people who do this for a living don’t work purely on a deferral or commission basis.  I’m including myself in this, although I do defer a large portion of my fees and take on as much as I can on commission. 

That said, while the higher-level connectors, Producers, Executive Producers, and the like are generally unwilling to work on a purely deferral or commission basis, the friends you need to make a great crowdfunding video, concept trailer, or something similar might not be.  Getting their buy-in might help you make it to the next level.
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Skin in the Game

Finally, we come down to the ever-present fallback of funding the development round yourself.  This is generally the fasted way to complete the round, but it has the obvious drawback of needing deep enough pockets to just shell out and pay the money you need to get it done. 

I know all of this is really hard to grasp, and quite frankly it’s a lot.  While I do consult on this sort of stuff, I’m not cheap. (with good reason.) I try to make a lot of information available through my site, but there are times that you just kind of need someone to answer your questions and re-orient you.  As such, I’ve decided to start a special mentorship group. 

This special training group gets you access to additional content, an exclusive discussion group, and most importantly weekly group video calls where I’ll answer your questions personally, and occasionally bring on people who would also be of benefit to the group’s needs.  Click the button below to go to a form and express interest in this group.  Spots are limited.

Also, don’t forget about the Free indiefilm business resource package to get your free Investment deck template, e-book, white-paper, and more. .

Thanks so much for reading.  Please share it! Also click the buttons below for more free content.

What Every Investor Needs to Know about Your Independent Film

They say that most people know whether or not they would get into bed with someone in the first conversation.  Admit it, you didn’t realize I was talking about investors giving you money right there, did you?  Jokes aside, there are a few key things your investor is going to need to know about your project in order to give you any serious consideration.

But before we get started, let me clarify that this is not the entire conversation.  This Is the conversation that will get you to the point you can send over documents for much deeper consideration.  Also, any one of these key points can disqualify an investor or a distributor.  That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, it just means it’s not for them

Related blogs: How to Write a Look Book, Deck, & Business Plan (series)

Stage of development

There’s more than one time you’ll need to raise money.  As such, it’s good to clarify where you are with it upfront.

Related: The 4 Stages of indiefilm Financing (and where to find the money)

Genre

Your film is hugely important.  Generally, you’ll want to only list one genre as it denotes the style and feel of your film, and maybe 2-3 sub genres as those will inform both your setting, your audience, and general themes.  An example would be Goodland is a Slow-Burn Crime Thriller. 

Related: Why Genre is VITAL to Indiefilm Marketing & Distribution

Related: How Distributors Think of Genre & Sub Genre

Attachments

Investors will want to know who you have on board.  This can be distributors, recognizable name talent, tested directors, or anything else that may be marketable.  A couple of examples  would be Black Gold: America is Still the place stars Mike Colter (AKA Marvel’s Luke Cage.) It could also be The Cutlass has Wild Eye Releasing attached for Domestic distribution, and Leomark Studios handling international Sales. 

Related: Why your film still needs recognizable name talent. 

Budget

If you’re talking to an investor, you should say your total budget.  If you’re talking publicly to a distributor, you should give a range.  An example would be Goodland is a SAG Ultra-Low Budget Small town Crime thriller if you’re talking to anyone other than an investor.  If you’re talking to an investor, you’d say Made Up Movie Name is budgeted at 17 million dollars and we already have Governator McActionFace attached to star in it.  That’s why we need the extra 10 million beyond the 7 we already raised.

Logline

Your logline isn’t a 20 page treatment.  It’s a punchy sentence describing your project.  Everything up to this point is something you should be able to get out in about 10-15 seconds.

An example would be Goodland is a Completed SAG-AFTRA Ultra Low Budget Crime Thriller set in rural Kansas.  When a mysterious photographer shows up in town the same day the body of a drifter turns up dead in a cornfield, the local sheriff (played by Cinnamon Schultz of Winter’s Bone) must piece together the conspiracy before it’s too late. 

Financial Mix

The big reason your investor needs to know this is to make a better risk assessment.  It will also inform how much you’re asking them for.  You should never expect investors to cover your whole budget. 

An example of this would be something like Of our 4 million dollar budget, we’re raising 2.5mm in equity.  The rest is being covered by an MG-backed Presale from our sales agent, tax incentives from that place we’re shooting are being monetized by huge state businesses. ​

(Author's) note: Since it came up in the comments, I thought I'd clarify that the 4 million dollar example above is taken from a different film as the one I mentioned in the logline example.

Read more: The 9 ways to finance an independent film

Related: What’s the difference between an LOI & a Presale?

Target Demographic/Expected Audience

​Your Investor is going to want to understand how they get you’re going to get their money back to them, which means that you need to know who will buy your movie.  Think of this as placing a target, so you know where to shoot the arrow in the next step.  An example would be: After a few test screenings, we’ve realized that the target audience for The Cutlass is women aged 30-49.  Or, Based on ratings data gathered from similar films on IMDb Pro, we expect that that Made-up-action-movie starring Governator McActionFace will appeal primarily to Non-college educated White Men aged 30-55.  Especially those in Texas. 

Related: How do I figure out who to sell my movie to?

Marketing Plan.

Finally, they’ll need to know how you plan to reach that audience.  If figuring out your audience is placing the target, Marketing is shooting the arrow.  

As an Example: The Cutlass will be available across all standard TVOD platforms, Amazon Prime, and SVOD platforms.  We’ll utilize an aggressive PR and Awareness campaign to reach our core demographic, and get seeded in Amazon Prime’s Algorithm, and we will consider additional artwork to appeal to our new demographic.

Another example, Made-Up-Action Movie will utilize Governator McActionFace’s star power to raise awareness on the standard talk-show circuit prior to the US Release, while seeding early adopters with press and advance screenings in Texas, Montana, parts of Colorado, and Arizona.  Our theatrical run will focus primarily on screens in smaller secondary and rural markets. 

Thanks so much for reading!  If you liked this blog, and want more like it, share it on your social media. ​

Blogging might look like my full-time job, but it’s not, I also distribute and consult on movies. Some of which I listed above. If you’d like yours to be next, click the relevant button below. If you want to stay up to date about classes, events, and other filmmaker focus content, as well as get a resource packet with lots of valuable templates and other exclusive resources, join my mailing list with the button below.

When and Where to use Each Indiefilm Investment Document

There are 3 different documents you would need to approach an investor about your independent film. I’ve written guides on this blog to show you how to write each and every one of them. Those three documents are a Look Book (Guide linked here.) a Deck (Guide Linked Here) and a business plan. (Part 1/7 here) But while I’ve Written about HOW to create all of these documents, I’ve held back WHY you write them, WHO needs them, and WHEN to use them. So this blog will tell you WHO needs WHAT document WHEN and HOW they’re going to use it.

As with some other blogs, I’ll be using the term stakeholder to refer to anyone you may share documents with, be they an investor, studio head, sales agent, Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD) or Distributor.

What are these documents and WHY do you share them?

So first, let’s start with what each document is, just in case you haven’t read the other blogs (which you still should)

A Look book for an independent film is an introductory document, that’s very pretty and engaging and gives an idea of the creative vision of the film.  The purpose is to get potential stakeholders interested enough in the project to request either a meeting or a deck.  The goal in showing them this document is to get them to start to see the film in their head and get them to become interested in the project on an emotional level.

Related: Check out this blog for what goes into a lookbook

A Deck is a snapshot of the business side of your film.  The goal is to send them something that they can review quickly to get an idea of how this project will go to market and how it will make money so that they get an idea of how they’ll get their money back.

Related: The 12 Slides you need in your indie film investment Deck

A business plan is a detailed 18-24 page document broken into 7 sections that will give potential investors not only an idea of your investment but of the industry as a whole.  In a sense, it’s equal parts education and persuasion, especially for investors new to the film industry.  The goal is to give the prospective stakeholder a deeper understanding of the film and media industry, and a very thorough understanding of your project and the potential for investing in it. 

Related: How to Write an Indiefilm Business Plan (1/7 - Executive Summary)

WHO needs these documents and HOW they’ll use it

Different stakeholders need these documents at different times.

Look Books should be sent to any potential stakeholder, including investors, studio heads, sales agents, distributors, producer’s reps, Executive Producers, and more.  It’s a creative document that gives a good idea of the product at the early stage.  It helps people gauge interest in your project

Decks are primarily used by Investors, Executive Producers, PMDs, and potentially Sales Agents.  Distributors and Studio Heads are less likely to need a deck since they know the business better than you do. At least most of the time.

Business plans are primarily needed by angel investors new to the film industry and Angel Investment Syndicates to use as the backbone for the Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) The First and last sections of the business plan (The Executive Summary and Pro-Forma Financial Statements) may be more widely used, often at the same general place as the deck, or only shortly after.

WHEN do they need these documents?

Look books come early on.  It’s generally the first thing they’ll ask for when considering your project.

Decks come shortly after the lookbook.  Sometimes in an initial meeting, or sometimes directly after that first meeting. 

Looking at a business plan is generally very deep in the process of talking to a potential stakeholder, it’s almost always after at least 2-3 meetings and a thorough review of the deck.

If this was useful, you should definitely grab my free film business resource packet. It’s got templates for some of these documents, a free e-book, a whitepaper that will help you write these documents, as well as monthly blog digests segmented by topics about the film business so you can sound informed when you talk to investors. Click the button below to grab it right now.

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How to Make LookBook for an Independent Film

I’ve written previously about what goes into an indie film deck, but as I get more and more submissions from filmmakers, I’m realizing that most of them don’t fully understand the difference between a lookbook and a deck.  So, I thought I would outline what goes into a lookbook, and then I’ll come back in a future post to outline when you need a lookbook when you need a deck, and when you need a business plan.

What goes in a lookbook is less rigid than what goes in a deck.  It’s also designed to be a more creatively oriented document than a deck.  But in general, these are the pieces of information you’ll need in your lookbook.  I’ve grouped them into 4 general sections to give you a bit more of a guideline.

You’ll often see the term stakeholder.  I use this to mean anyone who might hold a stake in the outcome of your project, be they investors, distributors, or even other high-level crew. ​

Basic Project Information

This section is to give a general outline of the project and includes the following pieces of information.

• Title

• Logline

• Synopsis

• Character Descriptions

• Filmmaker/Team bios

The title should be self-explanatory, but if you have a fancy font treatment or temp poster, this would be a good place to use it.

The logline should be 1 or 2 sentences at most.  It should tell what your story is about in an engaging way to make people want to see the movie.  You probably want to include the genre here as well,

The synopsis in the lookbook should be 5-8 sentences, and cover the majority of the film’s story.  This isn’t script coverage or a treatment. It’s a taste to get your potential investors or other stakeholders to want more. 

Character descriptions should be short, but more interesting than basic demographics. Give them an heir of mystery, but enough of an idea that the reader can picture them in their head.  Try something like this.  Matt (white, male, early 20s) is a bit of a rebel and a pizza delivery boy.  He’s a bit messy, but nowhere near as bad as his apartment.  He’s more handsome than his unkempt appearance lets on,  If he cleaned up he’d never have to sleep alone.  But one day he delivers pizza to the wrong house and gets thrust into time-traveling international intrigue.

Even that’s a little long, but I wasn’t actually basing it on a movie, so tying it into the film itself was trickier than I thought it would be.  That would be alright for a protagonist, but too long for anyone else. 

Filmmaker and Team bios should be short, bullet points are good, list achievements and awards to put a practical emphasis on what they bring to the table DO NOT pad your bio out to 5000 words of not a lot of information.  Schooling doesn’t matter a lot unless you went to UCLA, USC, NYU or an Ivy League school. ​

Creative Swatches

These are general creative things to give a give the prospective stakeholder an idea of the creative feel of the film.  They can include the following, although not all are necessary.

• Inspiration

• Creatively Similar Films

• Images Denoting the General Feel of the Film

• Color Palette

The inspiration would be a little bit of information on what gave you the vision for this film.  It shouldn’t be long, but it definitely shouldn’t be something along the lines of “I’ m the most vissionnarry film in the WORLD.  U WILL C MAI NAME IN LAIGHTS!” (Misspellings intentional) Check your ego here, but talk about the creative vision you had that inspired you to make the film.  Try to keep it to 3-4 sentences.

Creatively similar films are films that have the same feel as your film.  You’re less restricted by budget level and year created here than you would be in a comp analysis, that said, don’t put the Avengers or other effects-heavy films here if you’re making an ultra-low budget piece.  I’d say pick 5, and use the posters. 

Images denoting the general feel of the film are just a collection of images that will give potential stakeholders an idea of the feel of the film.  These can be reference images from other films, pieces of art, or anything that conveys the artistic vision in your head.  This is not a widely distributed document, so the copyright situation gets a bit fuzzy regarding what you an use.  That said, the stricter legal definition is probably that you can’t use without permission.  #NotALawyer

The color palette would be what general color palette of the project.  This is one you could leave out, but if there’s a very well-defined color feel of the film like say, Minority Report, then showing the colors you’ll be using isn’t a terrible call,  Also,, it's generally best to just let this pallet exist on the background of the document on your look book.  ​

Technical/ Practical swatches

This section is a good indicator of what you already have, as well as some more technical information about the film in general.  It should include the following.

• Locations You’d like to shoot at

• Cities You’d Like to shoot in

• Equipment you plan on using

Photos are great here, if you use cities or states include the tax incentives for them,  The equipment should only be used if it’s the higher end like an Arri or Red.  If you’re getting it at a fantastic cost, you should mention that here as well. People tend not to care about the equipment you’re using, but if you’re going to put it in any pitch document, this is the one.

Light Business Information

The lookbook is primarily a creative document, but since most of the potential stakeholders you’re going to be showing it to are business people, you should include the basics. When they want more, send them a deck.

Here’s what you should include

• Ideal Cast list & Photos

• Ideal Director List

• Ideal Distributors

These are important to assess the viability of the project from a distribution standpoint. It can also affect different ways to finance your film. If your director is attached, don’t include that. If you have an LOI from a distributor, don’t mention potential distributors. Unless your film is under 50k, don’t say you won’t seek name talent for a supporting role. You should consider it if it’s even remotely viable.

If this was useful to you but you need more, you should snag my FREE indiefilm resource package.  I’ve got lots of great templates you get when you join, and you also get a monthly blog digest segmented by topic to make sure you’re informed when you start talking to investors.  Click below to get it.

The 12 Slides You Need in Your IndieFilm Investment Deck - WITH TEMPLATE!

Pitching to independent investors is a much different formula than we’re generally taught in Film Schools. The formula we’re taught in Film School is generally built around a studio pitch. A studio does a lot more than give money to a project. They have huge marketing, PR, legal, and distribution teams that they use to monetize any films they finance. As such it’s not the filmmaker’s job to pitch their projects on anything except story when working within that system.

Would you rather Watch a video than read a blog?  I've got you covered in the video from my Youtube Channel. 

​Filmmakers must take a different approach when talking to independent film investors. Generally, angel investors are only looking to finance projects, they don’t have resources to help market and distribute the film. While Film is a highly speculative and inherently risky investment, and most film investors don’t invest in film solely for the ROI, they need to know you have a path to get their money back to them.
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There’s a certain formula for creating a successful slideshow for investors. These presentations (Generally referred to as “Decks” in Silicon Valley) have been honed to tell the story of your company. Investors are used to seeing this format when deciding whether or not to invest in your project. It’s pretty easy to find samples of this formula for regular companies on SlideShare, but since the film industry is so specialized there must be some modifications made to the formula in order to make a good Deck to pitch your film to an investor. Below is a breakdown of what should go into a Filmmaking deck, or you can just grab the template in the resource pack.

SLIDE 0 – Project Name/Artwork.

In a standard company pitch, the first thing that appears is the name of the company and the logo. For a film or media project, instead use the name of the project, the name of your production company, and the one sheet for your project.

SLIDE 1 – Project Overview

Generally, this would be where an entrepreneur would put an overview of his or her company, what it does, and what its mission is. For a film or media project, put the logline of your project, as well as the genre and a basic overview of the story.

SLIDE 2 – Why Does this Project Need to be Made?

In a standard company pitch, slide 2 and 3 would be the problem that the company seeks to solve, and the solution it offers. Since Films are generally made more as entertainment, they don’t always have a problem that they’re fixing. So instead, focus on why this project should be made.
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Some approaches you could take on this would be that there’s not enough family-friendly media being made, Women and minorities are vastly underrepresented in media, young LGBT kids need a role model, or that whatever niche you’re targeting doesn’t have enough entertainment. Figure out WHY your story needs to be told, and it can’t just be that you’re an artist and it’s in your soul.

SLIDE 3 – Why Your Project is the One to tell That Story

In the standard company deck, this would generally be the solution that your company offers. For film, focus on why you and your team are the ones to tell the story you established in slides 1 and 2. Don’t go too deep into the team, you’ll cover that later.

SLIDE 4 – Opportunity

This slide is where an entrepreneur or filmmaker focusus on the size of the market and how they plan to access it. Focus on any niche communities you can target, and the genre your film is in generally performs internationally.

SLIDE 5 – Unique Competitive Advantage

Your Unique competitive advantage will remain mostly the same as it would in a pitch for any sort of company. You need to emphasize why your film should be the one they invest in. Do you have a large following in the niche audiences you’re targeting? Do you have some unique insight into the subject matter that no one has heard before? Is there something unique about your background that makes you the ideal person to tell this story.
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Focus on why your film or media project will stand apart from the competitors and has the best chance to make a profit. In short, How will you stand out from the pack when others don’t?

SLIDE 6 – Marketing Strategy

Long time silicon valley strategist Sheridan Tatsuno likens market research to setting up a target, and marketing to shooting the arrow at it. You’ve set up the target in slides 4 and 5, now it’s time to show how you’re going to shoot the arrow and make a bullseye. How will you utilize social media? Which platforms will you use? Are you already a part of the communities of your target market?

SLIDE 7 – Distribution Strategy

Generally, this would be your Go-To-Market strategy. In the film industry, this essentially means your distribution strategy. What rights will you be handling yourself, and what rights will you be handing to a distributor? What platforms will you use? How will you handle US Sales? Are you planning on attaching an international sales agent? How will you go about doing that if you haven’t already?

SLIDE 8 – Competitive Analysis

Show other films in a similar genre that have done well. Remember, this isn’t your business plan, so only show about 3 if you’re showing individual projects, not the 20 you should research. If you’ve already done your full competitive analysis, show one or two profitable representative samples and then the aggregate on all of the 10-20 films you researched. The charts and tables are good here.
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You only want to use content from the last 3-5 years. Content older than that doesn’t realistically represent the current marketplace. This is something that even professionals who estimate ROIs don’t always follow. It’s always a red flag for investors when your examples are too old,

SLIDE 9 – Financials

Generally, you’ll need a few of the major line items from your top sheet budget. A good bet would be your above-the-line, pre-production, principal photography, post-production, and marketing and distribution (or P&A) costs. Due to union caps, it can often be beneficial to raise your marketing and distribution budget at a later date. Projected ROI will also go on this slide.

SLIDE 10 – Current Status

This should be fairly self-explanatory, but here are a few questions to ask yourself. What have you accomplished so far? Do you have any talent attached? Are you talking with Sales Agents? Where is the script in development? Are there any notable crew on board?

SLIDE 11 – Team

Focus on why you and your team are uniquely qualified to not only bring this film to completion but deliver a quality product that can give an excellent ROI to all involved. Has your leadership team won awards at festivals? Have projects they’ve been on done impressive things?

SLIDE 12 – Summary/Thank You

For the final slide, put the three most important and/or marketable things about your project into a single slide. Investors get approached with a lot of opportunities and their brains can get cluttered. If an investor walks away knowing only these three things about your project, what do you want them to be?

Most importantly, thank them for their time and consideration, and make sure there’s an easy-to-find way to contact you ON YOUR DECK. Ideally on the first and last page. We’ll often send out decks when we send out the executive summary, so make yourself easy to contact if they’re interested.

Also, I alluded to this at the top of the article in the image caption, but this post did indeed originally appear on ProducerFoundry.com.  But, this isn't just a port.  I also set up a FREE template in both Keynote and Powerpoint in my resources packet.  Grab that with the buttons below. 

The 4 REALISTIC Ways to Sell a TV Series

Given that I work heavily in marketing and distribution, I get a lot of people submitting pilots to me.  While I’m looking to move my business in more of an episodic direction, unfortunately a pilot doesn’t do me much good.  Generally, when I tell this to filmmakers, they get surprised.  So, like any question I get a lot I thought I’d write a blog about it.  Here are the 4 ways to make a TV show.

1. Make a Pilot. (Or actually, don't)

I’m listing this one first because I think it’s one of the worst ways you can Go about making a TV Series.  Most filmmakers assume that if they make their own pilot, they’ll be able to pitch it to networks and then get it picked up.  Unfortunately, that’s not generally the way pilots work.  Most pilots that compete for TV shows are commissioned directly by networks and already have people on the inside rooting for them.

Apart from that, only about 1 in 10 (at the absolute most) pilots get made into a first season, and I think the last statistic I saw was something like 1 in 7 TV series make it past the first season.  That means for every series that makes it to season 2, at least 69 pilots are created.  Also: THOSE NUMBERS ARE ONLY NETWORK COMMISSIONED PILOTS.  It doesn’t factor for idle filmmakers who try to make their first episode on their own.  Those really aren’t good odds.   

In fact, I’d be willing to say that this option is probably the least likely of the 4 paths I’m laying out to get your series made.  Assuming that you’re not being requested to make the pilot by a major network. 

2. Make a Sizzle Reel

If you want to do more of the institutional route, then you’re much better off making a popping sizzle reel and approaching an agent who can take it to get you to the commissioned pilot stage.   I know that sounds like an additional step to the long road I outlined above, but it’s actually going to give you a greater chance at success since you’ll be working with people on the inside instead or shouting at the outside of the gate pleading to be let in.

If you don’t have access to an agent, I wouldn’t recommend going this route either.  I’d recommend you go with one of the two listed below. 

This option is probably the 2nd most risky in terms of getting your full season financed and made. 

3. Build an Audience with a webseries.

If you want to go a less institutional way to get your TV series made, you should consider making a webseries that’s very much in the vein of your planned TV Series, but perhaps on a smaller scale and definitely with shorter episodes.  Once you’ve made the webseries, your goal is to market the absolute crap out of your series and get at least a million views on the content.  Ideally on at least most of the episodes.  If you can pull that off, you’ll often have people coming to talk to you instead of the other way around. 

I’ll admit I first heard about this concept from another distribution company that I had on an old podcast.  However, I’ve talked to several of their former clients since and I no longer feel like linking to them is appropriate. 

I think this is the second safest way to get your TV Series made.  Plus, if you go this route you have a piece of content you can use to build your production company’s brand and even get some level of monetization. 

4. Shoot the entire series, then get someone to sell it.

Yeah, I know what I just said. I’m saying get to work and make anywhere between 8 and 13 full-length episodes for a first season. If you’re doing 44 minute episodes that’s 9 and a half hours of completed content. (or a bit over 4 hours if you’re doing 22-minute content.) That’s a lot to shoot, and it’s a big upfront investment for a filmmaker to make.

That being said, once this is done you’ll be able to sell your content quite easily, and you’ll have no trouble finding a sales agent who can take your content to television markets like NATPE, MIPTV, or MIPCOM. If fact, I’m looking to branch more into that market in a couple of ways. (Link Below)

This is generally the safest way to get your series made (If you can pull together the money to make it happen.) In fact, I’d say you’re more likely to have a positive return on investment taking this path than you are in a standard feature film.

Thanks so much for reading! Since I alluded to it a few times, I’ve included a link for you to submit your content below. Next to that, you’ll find a link to book an introductory call with me.

Finally, If you like this content, you should really grab my film business Resource Package.  You’ll get an ebook, a white paper, templates for an investment deck, promotional materials, distributor contact tracking, plus monthly content digests to help you grow your knowledge base on a manageable schedule.

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How to Finance your Indie Film/Media Project in 2019

The year is starting to wrap up, so now’s a good time to plan for how to make your career skyrocket in 2019.  If you’re not developing a film, you should be.  But if you read last week’s blog outlining why we’re likely going to be looking at a recession in 2019, and what that means for the film industry then you might be understandably nervous as to how you’re going to get your work done.  So here’s my advice to you.

By the way, this blog is going to heavily build on last week’s blog.  If you haven’t yet, read it by clicking below.  I’m going to reference it a lot in this week’s blog.

Related: Where the Film Industry is Headed in 2019

Angel Investment Money will be Harder to Find but can be Easier to Close.

If I’m right about the impending recession, then it’s likely that investors are going to get skittish.    However, investors will likely need to put their money somewhere.  In an uncertain economy, the film industry becomes comparably less risky, so you might want to talk to your investors about how the risk profile of the investment has become slightly less risky than it was.  However, you’ll need to make sure you have a way to capture attention and get eyeballs on your film. 

It may well be that your investors kind of took a bath when the stock market takes a pretty massive hit.  If that’s the case, and it looks like their portfolio will bounce back then you should have them ask their broker about a portfolio loan.  The blog below will provide much more insight. 

Related: One Simple Trick to Reopen Conversations with Investors

Pre-Sale Money might become more Viable

Given that we discussed last week how SVOD and AVOD platforms are likely to come out of the recession with an increased market share, it’s more likely that they’re going to need to put up their own money to finance content to keep their pipelines full. 

That said, you’re going to need to develop a good package, and you’re going to need more than just a presale to finance your film.

Consider a Pivot to Episodic Content

As discussed in last week’s blog, if a recession hits, the film markets are likely going to be in more trouble than they already are.  Given that the way we generally consume content has shifted from the theater to binge-watching shows on platforms like Hulu and Netflix.  If you have the ability to get enough money together to get an entire season of TV content together you should consider it as an alternative to financing a feature.  That being said, I wouldn’t bother with a pilot.

If you can’t get 10-13 episodes of TV content together, then you should consider a web series.  It’s easier to guarantee distribution, and if you do the web series fest circuit, you can build enough buzz to get a strong series deal out of it.  Something similar happened with Diary of an Awkward Black Girl which turned into HBO’s Insecure.

I’m currently working on a blog post that dives into this in much more detail based on a segment from one of my workshops.  When it’s released, I’ll post it here. 

Tax Incentives may well go Down.

As the economy shrinks, states may feel the need to cut back on spending.  Often, the arts are one of the first places where deep cuts are felt, especially in red states.  So if you’re planning on using a tax incentive to finance your film once the recession hits, you may want to reconsider.  I’ll admit, this one involves a lot more speculation than most of the others. 

Grants may be Tricky.

If you were counting on a grant for your film to get funded, you may be in a rough spot since when people have to tighten their belts, charitable giving tends to go way down.  This isn’t certain though.  Some larger foundations are likely going to be able to weather a few years in a bad economy before taking some big cuts. 

Now Could be a Good Time to make your First Feature

If you can make your first feature for a very small amount of money, now might be a good time. You’re likely going to have the time to kill, and some of your contacts who tend to work on corporate videos may be less busy than they were due to the recession.

If you decide to go this way, I would make sure you make a film that can be profitable on SVOD and AVOD alone, and that you spend time developing and engaging with your following across all platforms. When money is tight, it’s much easier to convince someone to watch your movie on Amazon than it is to convince them to buy it.

If you’ve made a low-budget film, and gotten it reasonably widely known and distributed, then you’ll be in a much better position to get investment when the economy bounces back.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday. Come back next week for my final part in this 3 part series, the Hot and Not Genres of 2019!​

In the meantime, check out my mailing list!  You’ll get lots of great goodies, including blog digests organized by topic, an AFM Resources Packet, and money saving resources for film markets and festivals.

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Top 4 Reasons to Crowdfund your Independent Film

Most filmmakers hate the idea of crowdfunding.  While nobody likes constantly having their hands out and asking their friends for money for a whole month straight, it’s something that most filmmakers are going to have to do early in their careers.  It’s very possible that most filmmakers will have to do it more than once.  But the reason you crowdfund isn’t just about the money.  There are lots of other reasons crowdfunding can be a boon for a filmmaker’s career.  Here are 4 of them.

1. It’s one of the Most Viable Ways to get First Money in.

The first money in is always the hardest.  In the past, the most common way to get the money was from friends and family.  More recently, this has been replaced with crowdfunding, although in practice it’s still primarily a friends and family round, it’s just a scaled-up version of it that handles taking in the payments for you. It’s also something you can do even if you don’t have a rich uncle. 

​But keep in mind, nothing worth having is free.  While this is one of the most viable ways to get first money in, it’s far from easy.

Related: Top 5 indiefilm Crowdfunding Techniques

2. It’s one of the Quickest Ways to get Money you don’t have to Pay Back.

But wait, Ben, haven’t you said in the past that a crowdfunding campaign’s preparation starts a whole year in advance?  Like in this blog linked right below this sentence?

Related: Indiefilm Crowdfunding timeline

Well incredulous voice in my head that sometimes comes out in the form of content on my website, I did indeed say that.  Not only did I say that, but I stand by it.  I stand by it due to the fact that the real, hardcore prep only starts about 3 months prior to the campaign, and the work before that is primarily engaging your community (which you should be doing anyway.) 

Generally, grant money isn’t very fast, tax incentives both tend to be rather slow and come with a lot of strings, and product placement tends to not pay out until the film is completed, and often isn’t even money that’s directly given to you.  Pretty much every other form of financing are things you have to pay back. 

Although it should be noted that you do have some pretty big responsibilities to your backers.  You need to fulfill the rewards you promised them, and you need to keep them up to date on your progress as you move through the various stages of development. ​

3. It’s a way to Engage with your Community at an Early Stage

One of the biggest things that set successful filmmakers apart from hobbyists in the current landscape is the ability to cultivate community around themselves and their work.  Crowdfunding can be a really powerful means to support this end.  Crowdfunding is a great way to identify and engage your early adopters and the core of your community.  It’s a great way to stay involved with them and make them feel like they’re an important part of your project.  In actuality, they are important parts of your project. 
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But engaging with your community is about far more than getting crowdfunding backers. Your core community of backers can become your most vocal advocates from the earliest stage.  If your work comes out well, they’re likely to share it with their friends and start your word-of-mouth marketing when it comes time to distribute your project.  They’re a lot more likely to do this than the average person since they’ll have been around since the beginning.  Their friends might even join your community the next time you crowdfund. ​

4. It’s Validation for your Project

One of the biggest things investors look for in a project is also one of the things that’s the hardest for filmmakers to provide.  Especially in the early stages of their career.  Having a successful crowdfunding campaign proves to investors that not only is there a market for this project, but that you know how to reach them.  This is a huge hurdle to overcome when approaching angel investors.

That being said, it’s important to keep in mind that the reverse is also true.  If a project fails its crowdfunding campaign, it’s incredibly difficult to convince an investor that there is an addressable target market.  Or, at least that you have the ability to address said target market.  So with that in mind, you should only try to raise what you know you can get via crowdfunding, and then plan to get the remaining sources via other financing methods. 

Thanks so much for reading!  If you liked this content, you grab my film business resource package. You’ll get an ever-growing list of templates, money-saving resources, and even an e-book or two.  You’ll also get monthly digests of blogs segmented by topic.

5 Takeaways from AFM 2018

I’ve been going to the American Film Market® for 9 years now, and I’ve been chronicling what’s going on with the market in many ways from podcasts to blogs and even a book or two.  So given that AFM® 2018 wrapped up yesterday, I thought I would do something of a post-mortem.  While I’ll outline my feelings on the whole thing in this blog, the long and short of it is that the state of the American Film Market is mixed

But before I dive into it too deeply, I’d like to say this.  My vantage point on this is purely my own, and subject to the flaws that one would expect from experiences of someone only attending the market for a few days this year.  I went on an industry badge because I simply needed to take a few meetings to check in on things I’ve already placed with Sales Agents, as well as shop a couple of my newer projects to the people I prefer to do business with.

I considered exhibiting this year but decided against it after hearing how slow Cannes was in May, as well as the massive drop in buyers AFM Experienced last year.  We’ll see how that changes next year.   One last note, I wrote this blog in traffic in LA, while my wife drove.  I normally don't publish first drafts, but it's time-sensitive, so apologies for any typos. 

So without Further Adieu, let’s get into the post-game.

1.  Buyer numbers appear to be up, and they’re buying

Word in the corridors last year was that AFM went from around 1800 buyers in 2017 to around 1200 buyers in 2017.  After talking to a few sales agents who shall remain nameless, it appears that the total buyer count at this year’s AFM is somewhere in the vicinity of 1325.  While walking the corridors I definitely saw a lot more green badges than last year. 
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Not only were there more buyers there.  It appears that they’re actually buying films.  I heard several sales agents remarking that they had closed multiple sales at the market, and the buyers were sticking around much longer than they have in years previous.  Overall, this is good for the market, especially given that for many years almost all of the business was done in follow-up not actually during the market, especially for smaller-budget films. ​​

2.  Exhibitor numbers appeared to be down

In previous years, both the second and third floors of AFM were packed with smaller sales agencies,  This year, only the third floor was booked and even then it seemed as though fewer offices were booked.  Also, it appeared that many of the offices on the 8th floor seemed to be vacant. 
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After talking with a few exhibitors, it appears likely that this trend is going to continue next year.  Several I talked to were unsure of whether or not they would continue to exhibit at AFM.  Although we’ll see if new names come up to take their places.

3. The Entirety of the Loews required a badge to access

This made a lot of headlines prior to the market.  I was hesitant to believe that this would be a good thing for the market, particularly for the high priced film commission exhibitors on the 5th floor.  I only showed up to the market on Saturday, but apparently it was extremely quiet for the days preceding it.  The market seemed somewhat slow to me, but mildly busier than I expected it to be on Saturday, and, but began steadily dropping off on Sunday and Monday, and Tuesday was VERY slow, even by the generally slow standards of what is functionally the last day of the market.  

Word on the street is that many of the regular exhibitors on the 5th floor were not too happy with it, especially for the first few days.  Although I’ll keep my sources on that anonymous.  One notably missing 5th-floor exhibitor was Cinando.  It’s possible they moved, but the spot that they normally occupied was vacant.  This could be due in part to the growing prominence of MyAFM. 

In some ways, it was nice, though.  It was never too hard to find a seat, and once you got into the building there were no additional security checks.  Not sure if that makes up for the drawbacks though. 

4. The Location Expo on the 5th floor was fantastically useful, but under-attended

AFM opened one of the Loews Hotel Ballrooms for use by film commissions and specialty service providers starting on Saturday.  It was really useful to be able to talk to various commissions and compare incentives.  However, there very few times I saw more than a handful of people there, and I dropped by at least 8 or 9 times because of various sorts of business I had to do with some of the vendors in the rooms.  (More soon)
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Overall I hope to see it again, but I can’t help but think it would be more useful to all involved if it were in an area that did not require a badge to check out. 

5. Early Stage Money exists there (For the Right Projects

I was surprised to see how much traction my team got for an early stage project, despite the fact it has a first time feature director.  Admittedly, we came in with a good amount of money already in place, and it’s a good genre for this sort of thing but the fact that there might be a decent amount to come out and report in blogs early next year.
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Thanks so much for reading!  If you haven’t already, check out the first book on film markets, written by yours truly.  Also, join my mailing list for free film market resources so you’re ready for future film markets.

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All opinions my own. AFM and the American Film Market are registered trademarks of the Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA) This article has not in any way beed endorsed by the IFTA, AFM, or any of its affiliates.

How to Write an Independent Film Business Plan - 7/7 Pro-Forma Financial Statements

In the final part of my 7-part series on writing a business plan for independent film and media, I’ll be going over all of the financial statements you’ll need in your business plan.  This is a section that you’ll want to write before you write the financial text section of your plan, as it will have a great impact on that section and potentially other sections of the plan.  Each document should take up only a single page.

Topsheet Budget

If you’re reading this, hopefully, you already know what a topsheet budget is.  In case you don’t, It’s the summary budget of your entire film that should take up no more than a page.  Unlike the rest of these documents which should be made by an executive producer, the top sheet budget is best made by a line producer or UPM.  It’s important to note, that you can’t just make a topsheet budget, it comes as a byproduct of making a detail budget for your film.  It’s not something that should be effectively created for it’s own sake. 
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Revenue Topsheet

This page is a summary of all the money that will come into your project, and how it will go out and come back to the production company and the investor, loosely organized by what comes in domestically vs internationally, and what media right types bring in what money.

This is not something that all people writing business plans for films include, however, I feel that it’s an important document that gives an angel investor a simplified snapshot of the entire revenue picture before diving into some of the more gory details. 

Waterfall to Company (Expected Income Breakdown)

Louise Levison says you only need an expected income breakdown.  When I create proformas, I tend to include how the overall revenue table that outlines where the money will be divided among the major stakeholders. This includes the distribution platforms, distributors, sales agents, producer’s reps, banks, and investors.  It’s likely that if this is your first film, you won’t have all of those stakeholders, but it’s important to include the stakeholders you do have.
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Additionally, I use this outline what cuts are standard for each of those stakeholders, and what remains from each right type to go to the production company and the investor. 

Internal Company Waterfall/Capitalization Table

This is another document that not everyone includes, but due to my time in the tech industry, I find something like it is essential.  The term capitalization table (or Cap Table for short) is taken from the tech industry and outlines who owns what part of a company.

This document goes further than a standard cap table, in that not only does it outline the major owners of the company, it also shows where the money goes once it comes back to the production company, and how it’s divided between debt, investors, producers, actors, and other people within your production company who made the film. 

This document should calculate the investor’s expected Return on Investment (ROI) as well as how much is likely to go to producers and anyone else who has received profit participation.  If you have more than one set of people on the crew receiving profit participation, then you may want to lump it into a cast/crew equity pool. 

CashFlow Statement/Breakeven Analysis

This is a yearly/quarterly estimate of how the money will go out and come back in.  Generally, your entire budget will go out before any money comes back in.  If you’re using staged investments, you’ll want to outline when additional rounds of funding are likely to come into the company. Part of this is keeping track of the cash flow as you spend the money and as it goes back to investors. 

I’ll generally make an assumption that it will take a year from investment to complete the film.  After that, money will start coming back in about 3-4 quarters, and trickle in from each source according to however you think the film will be windowed.  That’s actually the optimistic version timeline. By the end of 5-7 years after the initial investment, you’ll likely just want to end the cash flow statement since it’s unlikely your film will be producing that much revenue. Films are not evergreen.

Research/Sources

This is as it sounds.  it’s all the resources for your comparative analysis that you used to make revenue projections, as well as any other sources you may have referenced in your plan.  If you did a comparative analysis, you’ll want to include the details on the films you chose as well as where you got the data, as reporting is inconsistent across major platforms like IMDb pro, The-Numbers, Box Office Mojo, and Rentrack.  I also have a useful whitepaper and some useful links in the resource pack.
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Thanks so much for reading this blog.  Thanks even more if you read all 7 parts!  If you’re a film school teacher and would like to use this in a course, feel free to email me using the link below to get a free print-ready version of this series, or anything else you may want to reverence.

Making your pro-forma financial statements requires a lot of research. My resource package has a whitepaper and collection of links that will help speed that process up a bit, as well as other templates and related content. Grab it for free with the button below.

If you need a guiding hand through the process, I’ve written. few dozen plans. Check out my services page if this is just. a bit too daunting to do on your own.

Lastly, if you want to review any of the other sections of this 7 part series, here’s a guild for you below. 

Executive Summary
The Company
The Projects
Marketing
Risk Statement/SWOT Analysis
Financials Section (Text)
Pro-Foma Financial Statements. (This Section)

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How to Write an Independent Film Business Plan - 6/7 Financial Methodolgy

In part 6 of my 7-part series on independent film business planning, we’re going to go over the text portion of the financial section of the business plan.  This is where you explain the methodology you used in your financial projections, the general plan for taking in the money, and then an overview of what you’re going to present in the final section, the pro-forma financial statements.  

It’s pretty common to send this section out as a standalone document, or perhaps paired with the deck or executive summary. That said, the reason it’s at the back of the business plan is to force your potential investor to flip around through the plan and better acquaint themselves with your prospectus and project. That, and this is relatively standard practice across multiple industries.

​Investment Plan

This subsection is devoted to how you intend to raise your funding.  As a hint, the answer SHOULD NOT be that you intend on raising your funding entirely from equity investors.   You’ll want to outline where you intend to raise each part of your money from, as well as how that money will be raised. 
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Some questions to ask yourself here are as follows, how much are you planning on raising in tax incentives?  How much are you planning on raising in product placement?  Do you have any pre-sales from a distributor or sales agency?  Are you planning on any other forms of backed debt?  Did you have a successful crowdfunding campaign?  How much are you looking for in equity investment?  And how much do you intend to raise in unbacked debt?

For more detail on this, you should check out one of my most popular articles.

Related: The 9 ways to finance an independent film.

You’ll also want to figure out if you’re staging the investment.  By this, I mean are you planning on raising money for development first?  Do you plan a separate raise for completion or marketing funds?  There can be some pretty big advantages to raising funding for your film across multiple rounds. 

For more information on this, I encourage you to check out my blog on the 4 stages of independent film investment.​

Related: The 4 stages of independent film investment.

You absolutely must to make sure they understand your offer.  Some questions you’ll need to answer are: What’s the amount you’re raising in equity and what percentage ownership in your project are you offering for that funding?  What’s your minimum buy-in?  Who are the other stakeholders? 
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Additionally, you’ll want to highlight the potential revenue for your film and give them their estimated Return on Investment (ROI).  This will have to be done after your pro-forma financial statements.  You’ll also want to outline when you expect them to break even.

Financial Assumptions

This section is primarily about outlining the assumptions you used while making your pro-forma financial statements.  You’ll want to outline the criteria you used when creating a comparative analysis, as well as what assumptions you made while creating your cash flow sheet, and waterfall to your company/expected income breakdown.

For more detail on financial projections, please check out this blog below.

Related: The two main types of financial projections

Pro Forma Financial Statements

Finally, you’ll want to outline your Pro-Forma financial statements.  For reference, these are the following documents. 

Topsheet Budget: A snapshot of how the money will be spent on your film. You can only get this by doing a full detail budget. If you try to make a top sheet from scratch, you’ll end up creating more problems than you solve.

Revenue Topsheet: An overview of money to the company and to the investor.

Waterfall to Company/Expected Income breakdown: An outline of how much money your film will make based on your comparative analysis, and from what sources.  Generally, when I make a waterfall like this, I’ll also deduct the fees from various other stakeholders including platforms, distributors, sales agents, and producer’s reps (if applicable.)

Internal company waterfall (capitalization table). This sheet is something that not everyone does, but it essentially outlines where the money will go once it gets to your company.  I feel this is necessary if you’re using a more complicated financial mix that incorporates debt and tax incentives. 

Cashflow Sheet/ Breakeven analysis: This document is an overview of how money will flow through the company and subsequently come back in.  you’ll want to highlight when they can expect to recoup their investment.

Research/Sources: This is self-explanatory, it’s the research you used in the other sections of the plan, particularly the films you used in the comparative analysis.

Thanks so much for reading! I’ll be back next week with the final installment going into much more detail on the pro forma financial statements. 

The reason I was able to write this blog series is that I’ve written a few dozen independent film business plans. If you need help with yours, you should check out my services page.

If you need more help researching for your business plan, check out the indiefilm Business Resource Pack. As mentioned above, it’s got a whitepaper to help you with your research, as well as lots of other helpful links and resources to aid in the creation of all the documentation you’ll need to talk to your investors. Plus, you’ll get a monthly blog digest full of helpful content so that you can be as knowledgeable as possible when you speak to your investor contacts.

Finally, if you want to check out the other sections of this 7 part blog series, I’ve included a table of contents below.
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Executive Summary
The Company
The Projects
Marketing
Risk Statement/SWOT Analysis
Financial Section (Text/Methodology) - This Post
Pro-Foma Financial Statements.

Check the tags below for related conent!

How to Write an Independent Film Business Plan - 5/7 SWOT/ Risk Analysis

In part 5 of my 7-part series on business planning, we talk about the risk management/SWOT Analysis of your project.  It begins with a risk statement that goes into exactly why film is a highly speculative and inherently risky investment, and then goes into a SWOT Analysis that illustrates how you plan on managing those risks.  For those of you who don’t know SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Risk Statement

This is a boilerplate legal copy that you should not write yourself.  You’ll need a lawyer to write it, or some editions of Filmmakers and Financing by Louise Levinson have a statement you can use.  You’ll see it in the related books section below.  The purpose of this statement is to ensure that any potential knows that film investment carries a fairly significant risk of losing everything you put into it. 
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This is something you MUST include in order to not paint too blue a sky, or make false promises.  If it scares off any investors, it’s probably better you didn’t work with them anyway.

SWOT Analysis

The way I do my SWOT analysis is on the bottom third of the page that contains the risk statement, I do a 2*2 grid of strengths weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that outlines everything that will come for the following pages.  If it fits, this is succinct and a great way to manage space while informing your people.   

The other four sections of this plan are things I generally dress in a format similar to an outline, starting with a restatement of the Strength, Weakness, opportunity, or threat itself, and then stating how I intend to mitigate the negative and capitalize on the positive.  Here’s an outline of what each of these parts of the acronym stands for.

Strengths

Strengths are good things that are inherent to your project.  This could be something like holiday movies tend to have longer lifespans because they have regular movies to trigger people feeling the need to watch them, or there’s already an existing fan base for the intellectual property you’ve optioned.  Another good thing to focus on would be the track record of your team, and the general stength of any marketable attachments you’ve gotten. If you don’t have any of those, there’s an article on it in the free ebook in the resouce pack.
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Weaknesses

Conversely, weaknesses are things inherent to your project that may represent a problem. These could be things like the Fourth of July is a uniquely American Holiday, so the film may be difficult to sell internationally.  It could also be something like, the film is completely original and has no existing fanbase.   As previously stated, you’ll want to add exactly how you plan on addressing any weaknesses below each one. 

Opportunity

While Strengths are inherent to your project, opportunities are more related to the current state of the overall market.  This could be a marketable attachment you’ve got that just had a big win, such as one of your cast being cast in a major show or movie that was just announced.

Another example of this might be that there aren’t enough Fourth of July movies currently being made to sate demand and you’ve budgeted your film such that you can make your money back domestically.

Another example would be that a book from the same author as the book we’ve based our script on just got picked up for a television series by *insert name of the studio or PayTV Channel.*. Similarly, if your story is inspired by current conditions going on in the world or targeting a growing audience this is a good place to hammer that point home.

Threats

Just like opportunities, threats are reflective of current market conditions.  An example of a threat would be that due to the current geopolitical state of the world, many foreign countries are less likely to buy American than they used to be.  A potential trade war would also be considered a threat, although as of right now that’s not incredibly likely to effect to film and media.   Without being too political, many threats you’ll need to understand are a result of macroeconomic conditions that you can only really track by being politically aware.

Thank you SO much for reading!  I do a lot of this sort of work with my clients, so if you have a direct question that you need help answering for your business, then check out the Guerrilla Rep Services page.

If you like the content, you should grab my free film business resource package You’ll get great research aides and a whitepaper on the state of the industry, you’ll also get a free e-book, money and time-saving resources, templates, monthly digests of content like this segmented by topic, plus a whole lot more. Link in the button below.

Finally, this is part 5 of a 7 part series. Next week we’ll be tackling the financial text section, and then we’ll round it out with proforma financial statements the following week. In the meantime, check out the other parts of the series with the links below.

Executive Summary
The Company
The Projects
Marketing
Risk Statement/SWOT Analysis (This Section)
Financials Section (Text)
Pro-Foma Financial Statements.

How to Write an Independent Film Business Plan - 4/7 Marketing Section

In this installment of my 7 part blog series on business planning, we’re going to take a look at the marketing section of the plan.  This section is likely to be the longest section, as it encompasses an overview of the industry, as well as both marketing and distribution planning.  Generally, this section will encompass 3-5 pages of the plan, all single-spaced.  This is among the most important sections of the plan, as it is a real breakdown of how the money will come back to the film

Industry

In this subsection, you’ll want to define some key metrics of the film industry.  You’ll want to include its size, how much revenue it brings in, and ideally an estimate of how many films are made in a year, as well s the size of the independent part of the film industry vs the overall film industry.  If you want help with some of those figures, you should look at the white paper I did with ProductionNext, IndieWire, Stage32, and Fandor a few years back.  To the best of my knowledge, it’s still among the most reliable data on the film industry.

The fact that the film industry is considered a mature industry that is not growing by significant margins is also something you’ll also want to mention.  You’ll also want to talk about the sectors of growth within the film industry, as well as where the money tends to come from for independent producers, and a whole lot of other data you’re going to have to find and reference.  As mentioned above, the State of the Film Industry book linked in the banner below has much of this information for you.
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Overall, this section should be about a page long.  The best sources for Metrics are the MPA THEME report and the State of The Film Industry Report. You can find links or downloads of both of those in my free resource pack.

Marketing

The marketing subsection of the plan goes into detail about both the target demographics and target market of your film, as well as how you plan on accessing them.  To quote an old friend and long-time silicon valley strategist Sheridan Tatsuno, Finding your target market is like placing the target, and marketing is like shooting an arrow.  For more detail on how to go about finding your target market, I encourage you to check out the blog below, as my word count restrictions will not let me go too deeply into it here

Related: How do I figure out who to sell my movie to?

Figuring out how you’re going to market the film can be a challenge for many filmmakers.  Generally, I’d advise putting something more detailed than “smart social media strategy.”  I tell most of my clients to focus on getting press, appearing on podcasts, and getting reviews.  Marketing stunts can be great, but timing them is difficult to pull off. 
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All of this being said, you’ll need more to your marketing strategy than simply going to festivals to build buzz. The marketing category at the top of this blog, as well as the audience, community, and marketing, tags at the bottom of the page, are a good place to start.

Distribution

This section talks about how you intend to get your film to the end user.  This section should be an actionable plan on how you intend to attract a distributor.  This section should not be “We’ll get into sundance and then have distributors chasing us!” I hate to break it to you, but you’re probably not going to get into Sundance.  Fewer than 1% of submissions do. 
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The biggest thing you need to answer is whether you plan on attaching a distributor/sales agent or whether you intend to self-distribute.  if you’re not sure, this blog might help you decide. There’s lots more to it, I’d recommend checking the distribution category or the international sales tag on this site to learn more of what you need to write this section.

Related: 6 questions to ask yourself BEFORE self distributing your indiefilm

Somewhere between a quarter and a third of all the blogs on this site are devoted to distribution, so there’s lots of stuff here for you to use when developing this plan.  If you want to develop more of a plan than distributing it yourself, it’s also something I’d be happy to talk to you about it.  Check out my services page for more.

If that’s a bit too much for you but you still want more information about the film business, check out my film business resource package. You’ll get a free e-book, monthly digests segmented by topic, and a packet of film market resources including templates and money-saving resources.

This is part of a 7 part series.  I’ll be updating the various sections as they drop.  So check back and if you see a ling below, it will take you to whatever section you most want to read. 
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Executive Summary
The Company
The Projects
Marketing (This post)
Risk Statement/SWOT Analysis
Financials Section (Text)
Pro-forma Financial Statements.

Check the tags for more content!