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.
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