How to Write an Independent Film Business Plan - 2/7 Company Section
Last time we went over the basics of writing an independent film executive summary. This time, we’re diving into the first section of a business plan. By this I mean the company section. If you want an angel investor to give you money, they’re going to need to understand your company. There are some legal reasons for this, but most of it is about understanding the people that they’re considering investing in.
The company section generally consists of the following sub-sections. This section only covers the company making the film, not the media projects themselves. Those will be explored in section III - The Projects.
FORM OF BUSINESS OWNERSHIP
This is the legal structure you’ve chosen to form your company as. If you have yet to form a company, you can tell an investor what the LLC will be formed as once their money comes in. I’ve written a much longer examination of this previously, which I’ve linked to below. Also, I’m Not a Lawyer, that’s not legal advice, don’t @ me.
Related: The Legal Structure of your Production Company
THE COMPANY
This subsection talks a bit about your production company. You can talk about how long you’ve been in business, what you’ve done in the past, and how you came together if it makes sense to do so. Avoid mentioning academia if at all possible, unless you went to somewhere like USC, UCLA, NYU, or an Ivy League School. Try to make sure this section only takes up 2-3 lines on the page.
BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY
This is what you stand for as a company. What’s your vision? What content do you want to make over the long term? Why should an investor back you instead of one of the other projects that someone else solicited?
Your film probably can’t compete with the potential return of a tech company. I’ve explored that in detail over the 7 part blog series linked below.
Additionally, you might want to check out Primal Branding by Patrick Hanlon it’s a great book to help you better understand how to write a compelling company ethos. I use it with clients as it frames it exceptionally well for creative people. That is an affiliate link.
Related: Why don’t rich Tech people invest in film?
Since you can’t compete on the merits of your potential revenue alone, you need to show them other reasons that it would behoove them to invest in your project. See the link below for more information.
Related: Diversification and Soft Incentives
PRODUCTION TEAM
These are the key team members that will make your film happen. List the lead producer first, the director second, the Executive Producer second, and the remaining producers after that. Directors of photography and composers tend to not add a lot of value in this section, but if you’ve got one with some impressive credits behind them, it might make sense to add the.
Generally, if you have someone on your team with some really impressive credits, it might make more sense to list them ahead of the order I listed above.
Essential Reference Books for Indiefilm Business Planning
PRODUCT
This should talk a little about the films you’re going to make, and the films you’ve made in the past.
OPERATIONS
This is a calendar of operations with key milestones that you intend to hit during the production of the film. These would be things like:
Financing Completed
Preproduction Begins
First Day of Principle Photography
Completion of principal Photography
Start of post-production
You’ll also want to include when you intend to finish post-production, as well as when you intend to start distribution, but that should be less specific than the items listed above. For the non-bullied items, I would say that you should just give a quarter of when you expect to have them happen, whereas the bullets should be a month or a date.
CURRENT EVENTS
The Current events are as they sound, a list of the exciting events going on with your film and with your company. This could be securing a letter of intent from an actor, director, or distributor, completing the script, or raising some portion of the financing.
Assisting filmmakers in writing business plans is a decent part of the consulting arm of my business. The free e-book, blog digests, and templates in my resource package can give you a big leg up. That said, If this all feels like a bit much to do on your own you might want to check out my services page. Links for both are in the buttons below.
Thanks so much for reading! You can find the other completed sections of this 7 part series below
Executive Summary
The Company (This One)
The Projects
Marketing
Risk Statement/SWOT Analysis
Financials Section (Text)
Pro-forma Financial Statements.
