Everything you need in an Electronic Press Kit (EPK)

Last week I shared a few different types of printed materials to use at film festivals.  This week, I thought I’d follow up with a post on the essential components of the Indiefilm Electronic Press Kit.    I will say that this is one thing where reasonable people can disagree, so if you think there’s something I missed, comment below and I might change the post to include it.

How people should access your press kit

Your press kit is not the same as the press tab on your website.  The press tab on your website is primarily to promote your film to consumers and assemble the press that you’ve gotten for both your company and your film.  The EPK is a kit to give potential reporters and reviewers of your film so that they have most of everything they need to do an article on you, or a report on you.  Here’s what you’ll generally need to provide them.  (Often, this will be behind a password firewall, that you’ll include on your printed materials.)​

Synopsis

You’ll want to include a catchy summary of your film.  This will be in lots of places on your site, but you want to make it easy to reference for the press. 

A Running Festival Acceptance/Award List

This section will be on the press tab as well, but you should keep everything on a single page for your film.  It’s essentially just a list of any and all film festivals you’ve been accepted to, as well as any and all awards you’ve won. 

Trailer/Clips from the film

You should include your trailer and maybe a scene or two from your film to give those who are writing an article on your film the ability to do their job both easily and well.  I’d also include a direct link to wherever the videos are hosted. 

Full Bio of Cast/Crew/Production Company With Social Media/IMDb links.

Your regular site will have a lot of this information, but you’ll want to make sure you include the names, bios, previous credits, and links to public-facing social media profiles of all your key cast and crew.  These would be the producers, directors, leads, and strong supporting characters.

Photo Gallery/Downloadable Zip File

Articles tend to come with a few photos, so I’d include around 10-15 photos including stills from your movie and headshots of key personnel.  Make sure they’re high-res, but not Raw.

A Password Protected Screener

You should definitely include a password-protected screener for your film. In this instance, it’s acceptable to have something akin to an email for a password below it. Normally this isn’t something you’ll want to do to people reviewing your movie, but since you’ll probably hand the other password out as part of your printed materials that may end up in the wrong hands this one might be wise to include.

If you’ve got too much to do and wish you had templates for your printed materials, I’ve got your back. My resource pack is chock-full of templates including festival brochures, investment decks, contact tracking, form letters, and exclusive educational content to help you grow your filmmaking career. Click the link below to grab it.

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The Printed Materials you Need for Film Festivals and Markets

Most filmmakers only think about festivals when they’re getting ready to market their film.  There are lots of reasons that this line of thinking is flawed, however, it would take far more than a 600-800 word blog to even begin to touch on them.  However, if you’re going to have ANY level of success from your festival run, you’re going to need some really snazzy printed materials.  This blog outlines a couple of examples I’ve used personally and had success with.

Why you need Good Printed Materials

Just getting into a festival is no guarantee people will see your movie.  Generally, you have to spend a good amount of time and energy driving people to your screening.  One of the most effective ways to do that is by having them a tangible piece of paper that has all the information they’ll need on it. 

Generally, the cheapest thing you can hand them is a postcard, however, for festivals, I strongly prefer a Tri-Fold Brochure.  The Tri-Fold Brochure has more space for everything a reporter or reviewer may need to know about your project, all put into a piece of paper that can be easily turned and segmented to group relevant pieces of information. 

The point of getting into a film festival is less about getting people to see your movie, and more about validating your film and giving it a chance to get meaningful press coverage.  Both of these things are significantly more likely to happen if you can make a reporter’s job easier by giving them all the information they need in one compact piece of paper. 

Postcard Outline

Generally, you’ll want the promotional art for your project to take up the front of your postcard.  If you don’t want it to take up the entire front of your film, you could leave a space for screening times towards the bottom.  If you want to get more use out of these cards, you could also leave a space that can be covered with a return address mailing label on the bottom where you can put the time and locations of screenings at this festival.

On the back, I’d put a synopsis, information about the director, and maybe a little bit about how the film was shot.  You probably won’t have space for much else.

Brochure Outline

I’ve added a template for this in my resources section, but I’ll outline what I mean here.
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On the front panel, you’ll want to put the key art, where the film is screening (The mailing address label works well here too), and maybe your social media links or where they can purchase the film.

When they open the brochure, on one of the two panels you reveal you’ll want to put some stills from the film to add visual interest. On the other panel, they’ll see when they open your brochure, you’ll want to outline your production company, including your creed/mission statement and other projects you’ve made.

Then they open the other panel, you’ll want them to see photos and bios of your key cast and crew.

On the back panel, you’ll want a bit more art, a bit about what you’re working on next, the next steps for the film, and then a press contact and a link to download your EPK. If your film is available for sale anywhere, you’ll also want to include that there.

I actually a template of this format for MSWord and Apple Pages. You can find it in my FREE Resource package alongside other templates.

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13 Things you NEED on your Production Company Website

One of the things that most filmmakers tend to struggle with tends to be creating a website for their projects.  Given that it’s nearly 2019, your business needs a website, and it needs to be good.  However, many filmmakers’ websites tend to be hard to navigate, overly complicated, or focus more on the photos from the shoot than the subject of the project.  So, I thought I would create a post outlining some of the best practices in creating a website that I’ve come across.

Domains and Subdomains

So one of the first things you need to consider when creating a website is the domain.  Generally, I’ve found that creating a master domain for your production company and subdomains for your project is a very effective tactic.  As an example, this would look like www.myawesomeproductioncompany.com for the main domain and myawesomeproject.myawesomeproductioncompany.com for the subdomain.  Obviously, you wouldn’t want something as long as your subdomain, but that’s more to illustrate a point than a practical example. 

The exception to this would be to give a custom domain for the first year or two of release and then have that page redirect to a subdomain listed above.

There are a couple of reasons that I favor the subdomain layout.  One is that you don’t have to maintain as many domains.  Another is that it simply feels cleaner.  There are a few drawbacks to this approach though.  A lot of WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) design platforms like Weebly, Wix, and Squarespace don’t have great support for it.  As such, you may have to use a platform like WordPress or Drupal to build your site, and doing that requires at least a basic understanding of web design.  I used to use Weebly but I switched over to Squarespace.

Tabs and What they contain

The rest of the blog is an outline of what tabs your production company site as well as your project subdomains should include.  To start, I’ll list the tab on the page, then I’ll list major features on that tab, and then I’ll explain a little bit about why each of those features needs to be there.  But before we dive in…

Every Tab gives you the ability to join the mailing list

Developing your mailing list as a filmmaker is a really important piece that you absolutely NEED to do.  Your mailing list is a vital part of your community, and it’s one of the most effective ways to actually sell your products.  In general, you’ll give something of value away for free, I use my resource package.

The basics of your funnel should be that you move people from social media to your website, then from your website they join your list, then over time, you turn them from prospects into customers and from customers to repeat customers.  But in order to make that funnel work, you need to make it easy to join your email list.​

Homepage

Trailer
Sales/availability Links for the most recent project
Sales/availability links for your most popular project
Links to all your social media

For those of you who are very far from fluent in Webspeak, the homepage is where you land when you first visit a website.  As such, you want the most important information there.   Given this is the homepage for the company, you’ll want the trailer for your most recent and upcoming projects, and the sales/preorder link if it’s available.  If you’re running a crowdfunding campaign, this should be front and center on this page.  You’ll also want to make sure you include prominent links to your social media, just to make sure that you can get as much repeated contact with the people who visit your website as possible. 
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You may also want to include logos of all the places your company has been featured in the press. ​

About Tab

The About tab is where your key personnel get their bios and photos posted.  There are a lot of ways you can do this.  If you have a large staff, then you can do click-throughs for each of them.  If you’re like most startup production companies, you probably have 3-5 staffers at most. If that’s the case you can just do it all in one page.  

You may want to consider adding a mailto link, or you may not.  If you include a mailto link, you run the risk of being contacted by spammers.  But you also never know what may come of those links.  I’ve gotten hourly consulting clients just from the mailto links on this site.  If you want to split the difference, use something like Fname (at) Domain (Dot) com or use a captcha plugin.

Projects Tab

Includes links to all your project subdomains
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This is a listing of all your projects.  I’d recommend having poster images of each as well as loglines, synopsis, and the number one sales link that you want to emphasize. 

Press Tab

This is where you keep all the press coverage your company and your projects have gotten.  I think some of this should be a feed with links to all your press, but you should also have a graphical representation of logos where you or your company has been featured. 

Blog feed for what’s going on with your projects.

I’m (rather obviously) a big fan of using blogs and content marketing to support your business.  If you’re reading this, it’s clearly been somewhat effective.  I think blogging about your journey as a filmmaker is a good way to keep engaged with your community.  They don’t need to be as long or involved as the sorts of blogs I do, but they can be a really effective way to grow your fan base. 

Contact Tab

Make yourself available for contact through your site.  Even if all you’re doing is putting a mailto: contact form.  You’d be surprised what can come of this.  I know at least a few sales agents use them to get the films they really want. 

Project Specific Site(s)

As I stated at the top, you should have a base website for your production company and subdomains for your projects.  Here’s what goes on for your projects.

Homepage

Trailers
Social Media Information.
Sales Links
Festival laurels/Awards

Just as with the Production Company page, you’re going to want to list everywhere that you can find the film online.  You’ll also want to show where you can find the film online.  In general, it’s better to link to the company pages rather than give each individual film its own social media account.  After a while, that just becomes incredibly tedious and cumbersome to maintain.  For more information on that, check out the blog linked below.

Related: Facebook Page Management for Filmmakers. ​

About page for key cast and crew.

This page goes into a lot more detail about the top-level crew on the film.  You’ll basically want all your department heads listed, with pointers to their IMDb, their chosen social media outlet, and maybe a brief bio. 

Contact page for distribution inquiries

Most of the better sales agents I know go after really good films. Make it easy for them to reach out to you. In your contact dropdown, list distribution inquiry as an option. Make sure that one goes to the relevant person, distributors do look for content regularly.

I hope this was a good resource for you. If you want more resources, I’ve got a free package for exactly that. It’s got an e-book, monthly content digests, a whitepaper, templates for Decks, promotional festival brochures, Sales agent contact tracking templates and form letters, and a whole lot more. Oh, did I mention it’s free? Grab it with the button below.

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The HOT and NOT Film Genres of 2019

If you’re a filmmaker, you’ve probably heard that making genre pictures is generally the best way to get your start.  They can be a good way for you to start developing a community, and building a brand around yourself, your company, and your work.  But the popular genres change on something of a regular basis.  So to start the new year off right, I’m writing this blog to share the hot genres of 2019.

Oh, if you’re not convinced as to why Genre is so important, I encourage you to read the blog below.

Related: Why Genre is VITAL to Indiefilm Marketing Success

1. - Hot - Family

I know, you were probably expecting me to say horror or action.  Well, while some of those might be on the list, Family is at the top of it.  There’s a huge demand for family films right now, and it’s not being adequately filled.  That said, it’s kind of hard to make a family film well on the cheap due to child labor laws and safety concerns.  If you can, great, it will be easy to find distribution.  If not, then you might want to move on down to #3 on the hot list. 

Generally, family adventure content is also something you can pre-sell if you get the right package.  Animated sells the best, but live-action works as well.  Mixing it with animals or international holidays is also good for trying to attach a presale.  All of that being said, you’re going to need a really strong script and a strong package to get that presale. ​

2. - Hot - Action

Surprise surprise.  If you want to make a film that’s easy to sell, make an action movie.  As we all know the problem with that is that action movies tend to be expensive.  Even with that, you’ll probably need a name in it to really get the sales price up where you need it to be.

If you’ve already made a few projects, Action films can get some level of resale financing.  However, you’ll be much better off if you focus on a popular subgenre as well.  As of right now adventure or sci-fi looks like the best bet. 

3. - Hot - Thriller

Psychological thrillers tend to be one of the best options for first time filmmakers as the film is easy to sell, there’s a built in audience, and they can be shot on the cheap.  Just keep in mind to make sure that the film is suspenseful, otherwise, you’re just rebranding a genre.

Note from the future - This was and remains more warm than hot (as of mid 2023)

Now for the Not so Hot Genres.

1. - Not - Drama

But Ben!  I read that dramas have the most breakout potential!  All the Oscars winners are dramas!  Yeah, but from those articles written by Bruce Nash and Stephen Follows also go into great detail to say that most of these films were budgeted between 1 and 3.5 million dollars, generally went through something like Sundance Labs on the Nichols Fellowships, and had some REALLY strong cast involved.  If that sounds like your project, great.  Make a drama.  If it doesn’t, make a thriller.

The sad fact of the matter is that in order to make any real money, a drama has to be EXCEEDINGLY good.  As in, 9 or above on IMDb.  Also, dramas tend not to export well unless they have A-list talent in all the major roles.  I believe for most of my readers that’s not really in the cards.  However, if this does sound like you, an extra big thanks for reading, I’d like to remind you I have a submissions portal.

2. - Not - Comedy

Unfortunately, comedy is very difficult to sell internationally due to the cultural intricacies involved in making any situation funny.  As with drama, you’ll need to make something with strong, recognizable name talent at the helm to be able to make any significant amount of money from it. 

The Mixed: Horror

The future of horror is somewhat uncertain. It made a strong showing at AFM 2018, but in 2017 it was dead. If you can make a horror film better than you could make anything else, then you should consider it. If you can’t, I’d say focus on making a well-made horror film.

Note From the Future: Horror bounced back more than I expected, but the rest was right.

Also, you should join my email list for blog digests segmented by topic, and A FREE Film Market Resource package, plus everything on the button below.

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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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Where the Film Industry is Headed in 2019

Sun Tzu wrote the following in The Art of War:  “The natural formation of the country is the soldier’s best ally; but a power of estimating the adversary, of controlling the forces of victory, and of shrewdly calculating difficulties, dangers, and distances, constitutes the test of a great general.”  While no one can tell what the future holds, there are some trends that many of us have been following that are greatly impacting the way we run our businesses. This blog is one observer’s look at the position of the overall independent film industry, and some level of the economy as a whole.

​The US Economy is heading for a Recession

Now I’m just a guy who helps people make movies.  I’m in no way qualified to give you financial advice or recommend stocks or bonds.  I’m just a guy who follows these things and is paying enough attention to know that the indicators are there.  So you can choose whether or not to listen to me on this one, but it is something that I’m quite certain will happen by the end of 2019.

I originally thought that the stock market would start to dip significantly around March or April, and then we’d have a fairly widespread crash around the end of October 2019.   There were a lot of things to do with the fiscal year and annual payments made by corporations to make me think that timeline would end up being about right. 

However, the stock market is already more volatile than it should be at this time of year.  I thought the Trump tax cuts that mainly financed stock buybacks would inflate the stock market longer than they seem to be doing right now.  To me, this may indicate that we’re either in for more trouble than I initially thought, or we’re going to be in trouble much sooner than October.  As of scheduling this post to be published, I’m not entirely sure which that’s going to be. 

So you’re probably thinking “Great, thanks, Ben. I read your blog for insights into the film industry, not for rampant speculation on the state of the entire economy.  I JUST WANT TO MAKE MOVIES!” Well, as I said at the top, if you want to be successful, you must understand the terrain you’re playing in, and that’s why I wrote as much about this impending recession as I did.  Now there’s probably another thing you’re thinking.

It’s Unlikely the Film Industry is still Mildly Reversely Dependent on the Economy.

Most filmmakers know that the golden age of film was during the great depression.  Most producers believe that the film industry is still mildly reversely dependent on the economy.  I’m going to buck orthodoxy here and say that I don’t think it is anymore.  At least not in the way it used to be. 

The film industry USED to be mildly reversely dependent on the economy because it was a comparably cheap way of getting out.  But now ticket prices have risen to the point that a family of 4 going to the movies will cost around 150 bucks once you factor in popcorn, concessions, parking, gas, and more.  Compare this to buying a game like Super Smash Brothers, where all 4 family members could get dozens if not hundreds of hours of entertainment for only 60 bucks.  (Although, I have yet to see a family where that would totally work for Smash.) Due to other forms of entertainment entering the marketplace, movies are no longer the cheap option.

Further, when the last major recession hit in 2008 the independent film markets took a pretty big blow, and have yet to fully recover.  If we see a massive crash next year, it’s likely that the markets are in for another blow just as they were really starting to recover.

What about the home video/VOD market?

Most people know that the home video market is kind of in the toilet.  Pretty much nobody buys DVDs outside of the Midwest and rural areas with poor internet connectivity.  This problem is likely going to get worse when the economy gets rough, as those areas tend to be some of the worst hit by economic crunches.

Regarding Transactional Video on Demand (TVOD) I think we’re going to see those sales figures dropping as well, and they’re already on the way down.  After all, why pay to watch a movie when Netflix has so many of them?

Some platforms may do alright since they’re primarily used by older people who tend to have more money.  These platforms are ones similar to Comcast InDemand, DirectTV, and Dish Network.  If I had to guess, I’d say that Dish was the most likely to lose subscribers first, as they’re already kind of the budget option, and cord-cutting has become such a viable option that those looking to save money on cable bills may look there first.

Airlines and other ancillary revenue streams are likely to see a drop in passengers, and thus likely have a corresponding drop in their acquisitions budgets for media.  This will probably affect smaller-scale projects before bigger ones because to the average consumer having the Marvel Catalog is significantly more useful than having the Criterion Collection.

That pretty much just leaves Subscription VOD (SVOD) and Advertising Supported (AVOD). 

I think that larger SVOD platforms are going to be in a very good position to gobble up more market share.  Since so many forms of distribution such as theatrical, Transactional VOD (TVOD) are likely to see their revenues diminish, I believe it’s logical to assume that the bigger named SVOD platforms will grow to take up their place in the market.  These platforms would include offerings like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO NOW, and some of the new ones entering the fray like Disney and potentially Apple.  

To me, it’s only logical that as belts tighten, cord cutting will increase and these platforms are likely to largely take up the air left by the deflation of other sectors of the distribution chain.

That being said, I think that smaller services are in trouble. Fandor all but went out of business earlier in December, and FilmRise shut its doors recently. These were two services targeted at bringing eclectic artsy films to cinephiles across the country. Unfortunately, they just couldn’t make themselves profitable.

This leads to one other piece of this landscape that you should be paying attention to. You should be looking at VOD Service bundles like VRV. It’s not that dissimilar to a cable package, but much less expensive and all OTT. It looks like most of the content from FilmRise will end up in something akin to those sorts of packages, or largely absorbed into bigger platforms owned by their parent companies.

Finally, we’re on to Advertising Supported Video on demand. This one is where I think the biggest boom is going to come from. People with no money but lots of time will watch ads, and the number of people that’s true for is set to increase substantially in the event of a recession.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back next week with my final blog of the year, which will show you how to take the information you learned here and turn it into a functional strategy for building your career in 2019.

In the meantime, make sure you’re on my mailing list, it’s a great bargain at the recession-friendly price of FREE.  You also get lots of great stuff, all of it listed on the button below

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Why Every Filmmaker Needs a Strong Personal Brand

Most filmmakers want to make movies.  However, few think about establishing themselves a brand as a filmmaker.  In the immortal words of Alex Ferrari of Indie Film Hustle: “If you don’t think you need a brand as a filmmaker, you’re wrong.”  As wonderful as I personally find that quote, I think it needs a little elaboration. What follows are 5 reasons you NEED a brand as a filmmaker.

1. It helps to further relationships with your customer

A brand is essentially the cumulative interactions any potential business partner or customer has with an entity or organization.  So in a sense, saying a brand helps you further your relationships with your customer is a bit redundant.  However, the idea of you your brand, is essentially the personification of your company.  Having this personified image of your company makes it much easier for your clientele to establish a relationship with your company.

2. It helps people better identify with the creators behind the content.

At least when a brand is starting out in the film industry, the brand will be heavily associated with the filmmakers themselves.  As such, for the first couple of films your company makes, the brand you’re developing will also be furthering the personal brands of the key crew.  If your key crew tends to put out similar films time and time again under your production company’s brand, then eventually the brand itself will develop a following of its own.  After a time, it creates a feedback loop.

3. It gives your audience something to you and your work with beyond a single film.

​If you develop your brand correctly, then consumers will come to know what films you make that they like.  Giving your customers a brand to rally behind can really help them to develop a relationship with the creators.  Instead of being able to say I really Liked Paranormal Activity, customers can say I really like the movies Blumhouse puts out.

4. It helps you develop a community around yourself.

People can have a really deep association with brands.  Look at what happened when Coca-Cola Released New Coke.  Even though taste test after taste test proved that consumers strongly preferred New Coke to Coca-Cola, the brand eventually experienced a tsunami of customer complaints for getting rid of the old flavor of Coca-Cola.  Essentially, the brand had built such a large community that were so attached to their original product, when they took it away a small but extremely vocal part of their community couldn’t handle it. Even though many of those parts of the community were shown they liked New Coke Better in blind taste tests. 

Branding and Community building can be so powerful that even when a customer prefers an alternative product, they’ll keep coming back to yours for that warm fuzzy feeling they get when they use your product. Don’t forget, that can be a double-edged sword if you ever want to pivot to somehting new.

5. It turns you from a person to an icon.

Most of the people reading this already know that JJ Abrams is the head of Bad Robot Productions. However, there are a lot more people involved in Bad Robot than just JJ Abrams. The bumper of the robot running through the field gives sets the scene for an exciting time at the movies since you associate it with other times you saw great movies that were preceded by that bad robot bumper. You remember that bumper, it’s iconic. Such associations are how JJ has become an icon that will likely outlast him.

If you want help building your brand, you should check out my FREE indiefilm business resource package. It’s got an e-book, a whitepaper, lots of templates, and a monthly blog digest to help you grow your knowledge base so you can build a filmmaking career.

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5 Essential Elements of a Filmmaker’s Personal Brand.

Last week we outlined why your brand is so important to your career as a filmmaker. This week, we’re going to dive into how you begin to define your brand.  Your brand is the cumulative outcome of all the interactions anyone has with you or your company.  As such, this list is far from complete, however, these things are quite important when you’re getting down to defining your brand.​

1. What Genres you do primarily work in? 

If you start working primarily on thrillers, then it can be hard to effectively transition to something like family.  Generally, filmmakers and film companies will have certain genres that are heavily associated with their brand, even if that’s not all they work on.  An excellent example of this is Blumhouse, which primarily focuses on the thriller and horror genres.  After you’ve got more of an established brand, you can begin to expand into other genres, ideally with some level of stylistic relation to the ones you built your brand on.   

Your ideal audience is more important than any specific project or genre, but your audience will have a lot to do with your genre.

2. What elements of your style are similar or the same across your projects?

This is probably more important to keep consistent for your brand than genre is.  There are certain stylistic elements that remain largely the same across a director or even a high-level producer’s work. 

For Stephen Spielberg, there’s a certain wondrous quality that often feels very clean and expensive.  For Quinten Tarantino, his films generally have a pretty strong 70s vibe to them, even when they’re set far outside that time frame.  For Jerry Bruckheimer, most of his films are bombastic, with lots of special effects and explosions, and often feature a glorified music video in the film itself to boost soundtrack sales. 

3. What unifying themes or motifs do your movies have?

Generally, directors have recurring themes and/or motifs that occur throughout their work.  Hitchcock had a long-standing fascination with birds, eyeballs, and Freudian Psychology.  All of Kevin Smith’s movies seem to take place in the same extended universe and almost always feature Jay and Silent Bob.  Quentin Tarantino’s work almost always features lengthy banter that’s largely disconnected from the plot of the film but serves to flesh out the characters and is almost always incredibly entertaining and enlightening.

4.  What is your creed? (Mission statement)

Most business books call this a mission statement, but I personally prefer the tact that’s taken by Primal Branding in looking at your mission statement as a creed.  A creed is what you live by.  It’s why you exist.  It’s a deeply personal thing, and it informs every piece of content your company will ever make. 

Film companies don’t have these as much, so we’ll look for other examples to illustrate my point.  Apple’s mission statement is “Think Different” Google’s mission statement is to “Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  Google used to have a similar sort of tagline that was “Don’t Be Evil,” But they took that down recently.  For my other venture ProductionNext, the creed is “You do the Creative Part, we do the rest.” For Guerrilla Rep Media, the creed is to make that I don’t make movies, I help filmmakers MAKE MONEY with theirs.

5.  How do you engage with your audience?

As stated at the top of this article, a brand is the culmination of all interactions any potential customer or business partner has with a company or individual. In this day and age, it’s absolutely VITAL that any entrepreneur finds a way to effectively manage their interactions with their community and their customers. For most of us, that will rely heavily on our social media presence. You’ll need a strategy of what content you share when you share it, and how it both provides value to your potential customers and fits within your mission statement.

Thanks so much for reading!  If you like this sort of content, you should sign up for my resource package, it’s got an e-book, a whitepaper, and an evergrowing list of templates and resources. Plus, you’ll get a monthly digest of content just like this blog organized by topic, and a recommended reading list including an entire section on branding. Click the button below to sign up, and let me know what you think of this blog in the comments.  Also, if you liked it, share it!  It helps a lot.

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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.

When should you Contact a Sales Agent/Producer’s Rep about your Film?

Seeing as how a majority of my business still comes from representing filmmakers to sales agents and distributors, it’s unsurprising that a question I get at my events and in my inbox quite often is when is the best time to approach a producer’s rep, sales agent, or distributor.  Well, as with many things I tend to blog about, there’s a short, true, and mostly unhelpful answer to that question. There’s also a longer, more nuanced, and more correct answer.  This blog attempts to answer both in under 800 words.

The Short Answer: As soon as you realistically can

Marketing a film on a budget isn’t something you can do overnight.  It takes a while to build a social media presence, as well as to build up a base to market your film to.  It’s not something that can be done efficiently overnight, so you’ll want to get some marketing support on your project as soon as possible.  That’s why you hire either a producer’s rep or a Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD). 

The Long(er) Answer: When you can afford them, and they’re willing to come on your project.

Most people tend to approach Producer’s Reps and PMDs only when their film is completed, or even after the initial festival run of the film.  This can shut a surprising amount of doors for you. I had one client who submitted to Sundance and was rejected outright.  The next year, after I connected him to US Distribution, the distributor talked to a programmer at Sundance who said that they would have accepted the film and programmed had it been brought to his attention. Unfortunately, they’d given premier status to another, smaller festival so it was too late.

PMDs and Distributors often have connections to help get you past the initial round of screening at major festivals, which can be all you need to actually get into the festival.  99 films out of every 100 submitted to Sundance don’t get in.  90 out of 100 of those are declined by extremely low-paid (or unpaid) staffers who look for any possible reason to decline so that the submission queue is more manageable for the actual festival programmers.  If you have the right rep, PMD, or distributors they can help you bypass that first layer of screening, giving you a huge leg up. ​

How much will this cost you?

Producer’s reps tend to get a bad rap for charging up front.  If all they’re doing is brokering your film to sales agents, and they’re taking a commission, then they really shouldn’t need to.  I don’t.  However, if I’m writing a business plan, deck, pro formas, or developing a financing, festival, marketing, or distribution strategy, I do charge upfront. We all have bills to pay, and just as you should always pay all other members of your crew, you should pay your producers too. My services are packaged based on need, more information on my services page.
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Generally, it’s wise to allot some money for marketing as soon as you create the initial budget for your film.  You should do this even if you plan on raising it at a later date, say after completion of principal photography. It may be wise to keep this budget separate given a distributor will most often foot some of the bill and sometimes it can bump you into a higher guild tier.

Related: The 4 Stages of Film Financing

If you’re raising money for prints and advertising, then you should allocate some of that money to a Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD) or Producer’s Rep to help you execute your marketing plans efficiently. 

Essentially, if you’re looking for a rep to do anything other than broker a completed film, you had best expect them to charge you some money upfront.  Unless the Sales agent pays you a minimum guarantee, it’s unlikely that the film or the filmmaker will get paid anything for about a year after the initial signing.  You can’t expect a Service provider to wait even longer than that to make any money, especially when there’s a significant amount of work involved in the creation and execution of the work you’re asking them to do. 

If you want more resources to help you distribute your film, you should grab my free film business resource pack. It’s got an e-book, a whitepaper, a deck template, a film festival promotional brochure template, and a whole bunch of money and time-saving resources. Also, if you need a producer’s rep, check out my services page.

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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.

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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!

How To Write a Business Plan for an Independent Film - 3/7 Project(s)

Next up in my 7 part series on writing a business plan for independent film, we’ll be taking a deeper look at the project(s) section of the plan.  The projects section of the plan is the most creative section, as it talks about the creative work that you’re seeking to finance.  That being said, it breaks those creative elements into their basic business points.  This section should be no more than a page if you have one project, and no more than 2 pages if you’re looking at a slate.

GENRE

Genre is a huge part of marketing any film.  It essentially categorizes your film into what interest groups you’ll be marketing.  This subsection should focus on the genre of your film, as well as who you expect the film to appeal to. 
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For more information on the concept of Genre in Film as it pertains to distribution, check out this blog.

RELATED: WHY GENRE IS VITAL TO INDIEFILM MARKETING & DISTRIBUTION

PLOT SYNOPSIS

This is as it sounds.  It’s a one-paragraph synopsis of your film.  When you’re writing it, keep in mind that you’re not telling your story, so much as selling it.  Make it exciting.  Make it something that the person reading the plan simply will not be able to ignore. 

BUDGET ​

This one should also be self-explanatory, list the total budget of your film.  It would make sense to break it into the following categories.  Above the Line, Development, Pre-Production, Principle photography, post-production, and producer’s contribution to marketing and distribution.
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The last part is to acknowledge that while the distributor will be contributing a large amount to the marketing and distribution costs of the film, it will not be the sole contribution, and you as the filmmaker will likely have to contribute some amount of time and/or money to make sure your film is sold well.​

RATING

This section talks about your expected rating.  Say what you expect to get, what themes you think will cause the film to get that rating, and how that will help you sell the film to the primary demographic listed above.

MARKETABLE ATTACHMENTS

Did you get Tom Cruise for your movie?  What about Joseph Gordon Levitt?  Or maybe Brian De Palma came on to direct.  If you have anyone like this (or even someone with far less impressive credits) make sure you list that you’ve got them.  If you’re in talks with their people, list it here too.

Related: 5 Reasons you Still need Name Talent in your film

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY STATUS

Finally, you’ll need to list the intellectual property status of your film.  By this, I simply mean is the concept original? Is it based on anything? Did you acquire the rights to whatever it’s based on?  If you optioned rights, when does the option expire? If you optioned rights, who is the original owner of the rights?

Writing a business plan that can actually raise funding is a lot more than just using a template. If you want a leg up you should check out my free resource pack which includes a deck template, a free e-book, digests of relevant industry-related content, delivered to your inbox once a month, and notifications of special events and other announcements tailored to the needs of the filmmakers I work with.

You should know that I’ve written a few dozen business plans for filmmakers, some of which have raised significant funding.  If you want to talk about it check out our services page.

Thanks so much for reading!  You can find the other completed sections of this 7-part series below.
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Executive Summary
The Company
The Projects (This Post)
Marketing
Risk Statement/SWOT Analysis
Financials Section (Text)
Pro-Foma Financial Statements.

Check the tags below for related content

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.

Check the tags for more related content.

How to Write an Independent Film Business Plan - 1/7 Executive Summary

One of my more popular services for filmmakers is Independent Film Business Plan Writing.  So I decided to do a series outlining the basics of writing an independent film business plan to talk about what I do and give you an idea of how you can get started with it yourself.  

Before we really dive in it’s worth noting that what will really sell an investor on your project is you. You need to develop a relationship with them and build enough trust that they’ll be willing to take a risk with you. A business plan shows you’ve done your homework, but in the end, the close will be around you as a filmmaker, producer, and entrepreneur.

The first Section of the independent film business plan is always the Executive Summary, and it’s the most important that you get right.  So how do you get it right?  Read this blog for the basics.

Write this section LAST

This section may be the first section in your independent film business plan, but it’s the last section you should write.  Once you’ve written the other sections of this plan, the executive summary will be a breeze.  The only thing that might be a challenge is keeping the word count sparse enough that you keep it to a single page.   
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If you have an investor that only wants an executive summary, then you can write it first.  But you’ll also need to generate your pro forma financial statements for your film, and project revenue and generally have a good idea of what’s going to go into the film’s business plan in order to write it.  I would definitely write it after making the first version of your Deck, and rewrite it after you finish the rest of the business plan. ​

Keep it Concise

As the name would imply, the Executive Summary is the Summary of an entire business plan.  It takes the other 5 sections of the film’s business plan and summarizes them into a single page.  It’s possible that you could do a single double-sided page, but generally, for a film you shouldn’t need to.  

A general rule here is to leave your reader wanting more, as if they don’t have questions they’re less likely to reach out again, which gives you less of a chance to build a relationship with them.

Here’s a brief summary of what you’ll cover in your executive summary.

Project

As the title implies, this section goes over the basics of your project.  it goes over the major attachments, a synopsis, the budget, as well as the genre of the film.  You’ll have about a paragraph or two to get that all across, so you’ll have to be quite concise.

Company/Team

This section is a brief description of the values of your production company.  Generally, you’ll keep it to your mission statement, and maybe a bit about your key members in the summary.

Marketing/Distribution

In a standard prospectus, this would be the go-to-market strategy.  For a film, this means your marketing and distribution sections.  For the executive summary, list your target demographics, whether you have a distributor, plan to get one, or plan on self-distributing.  Also, include if you plan on raising additional money to assist in distribution.

SWOT Analysis/Risk Management

SWOT is an acronym standing for Strengths Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.  For the executive summary, this section should include a statement that outlines how investing in film is incredibly risky, due to a myriad of factors that practically render your projections null and void.  Advise potential investors to should always consult a lawyer before investing in your film.  Cover your ass.  I’ve done a 2*2 table with these for plans in the past, and it works reasonably well.  Speaking of covering one’s posterior, you should have a lawyer draft a risk statement for you.  Also, I am not one of those, just your friendly neighborhood entrepreneur. #NotALawyer #SideRant

Financials

Finally, we come to the part of the plan that the investors really want to see.  How much is this going to cost, and what’s a reasonable estimate on what it can return?  There are two ways of projecting this, outlined in the blog below.
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Related: The Two Ways to Project Revenue for an independent film.

In addition to your expected ROI, you’ll want to include when you expect to break even and mention that pro forma financial statements are at the end of this plan included behind the actual financial section.

Pro Forma Financial Statements.

If you’re sending out your executive summary as a document unto itself, you will strongly want to consider including the pro forma financial statements. For Reference, those documents are a top sheet budget, a revenue top sheet, a waterfall to the company/expected income breakdown, an internal company waterfall/capitalization table, a cashflow statement/breakeven analysis, and a document citing your research and sources used in the rest of the plan.

Writing an executive summary well requires a lot of highly specialized knowledge of the film business. It’s not easy to attain that knowledge, but my free film business resource package is a great place to start! You’ll get a deck template, contact tracking templates, a FREE ebook, and monthly digests of blogs categorized by topic to help you know what you’ll need to have the best possible chance to close investors.

Here’s a link to the other sections of this 7 part series. 
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Executive Summary (this article)
The Company
The Projects
Marketing
Risk Statement/SWOT Analysis
Financials Section (Text)
Pro-Foma Financial Statements.

5 Rules for Finding Film Investors

One of the most common questions I get is where to find investors for a feature film.  Inherent in that question is simply where to find investors.  While I may not have a specific answer for you regarding exactly where to find them, I do have a set of rules for figuring out where you might be able to find them in your local community.  This is meant to be applicable outside of the major hubs in the US, and as such it’s not going to have to be more of a framework than a simple answer.

Would you rather watch or listen than Read?  Here's the same topic on my YouTube Channel.

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1. ​Go where the money is.

Think about where people in your community who have money congregate.  In San Francisco, the money comes from tech.  In Colorado, the money came from oil, gas, and tourism, but has recently grown to include legal recreational marijuana.  In many communities, some of the most affluent are the doctors and medical professionals.  In most communities, the local lawyers tend to have money, but you’ll have to make sure you come prepared.  Figure out what industries drive your local economy and then extrapolate from that who might have enough spare income to invest in your project. 

If you know what these people do, then you can start to figure out where they go when it’s after working hours.  If you know where they go after hours, you can go get a drink and start to work your way to making a new friend in this investor. 

All that being said, Be careful not to solicit too early, as that can actually be illegal.  #NotALawyer.​

2. Figure out a place where you can find something in common

Any investment as inherently risky and a-typical as the film industry relies heavily on your relationship with your investor.  As such, finding something you have in common is a great way to start the relationship right. 

RELATED: 7 Reasons Courting an Investor is Like Dating

As an example of what I mean, I’ve met investors while singing karaoke at Gay bars in San Francisco.  I’ve met others at industry events, and I’ve even met a few by going to some famous silicon valley hot spots where investors and Venture Capitalists are known to congregate.  If you know where all the doctors go to drink after work, and if there’s a regular activity at one of the bars that can facilitate meeting them, it might not be a bad idea to go and try to establish some connections in that community.  This segues us nicely to…

3. ​Understand that moneyed people tend to have their own community

Generally, wealthy individuals know other wealthy individuals.  If you develop a relationship with someone within that community, it means that even if that investor you ended up establishing a relationship with won’t invest, they may talk to a friend about it who might. 

The reverse of this notion is also true.  If you get a bad reputation in the Wealthy community then you’re likely to find it very hard to raise funds for your next film.

4. Understand that most people with money will have other investment options.

As stated above, film investment is highly volatile and inherently risky.  If these investors took on every potential project that comes asking for their money, they would not be rich for very long.  As such, you’re going to have lots of competition when it comes to raising funds for your film.  This competition will not only come from other films, but also from stocks and bonds, other startups and small businesses, and even the notion that if they’re going to spend 100k they never get back, why not just buy a new Mercedes?

5. Find a not entirely monetary way to close the deal.

So to bring the last point home, you have to find other reasons that aren’t solely based on return on investment to get people to consider investing in your independent film. This can be the tax incentives, the moral argument to support culture, the fact that investing in a film is an inherently interesting thing to do, or a few other potential things. The blog below explores this in much more detail than I have the time or the word count to do here today.

Related: Why Don't Rich Tech People Invest in Film Part 5: Diversification and Soft Incentives

If you still need help financing your film, you should check out my free indiefilm business resource package. It’s got lots of tools and templates to to help you talk to distributors and investors, as well as a free-ebook so you can know what you need to know to wow them when you do. Additionally, you’ll get a monthly content digest to help you stay up to date on the ins and outs of the film industry, as well as be the first to know about new offerings and releases from Guerrilla Rep Media. Get it for free below.

The 4 Stages of Indiefilm Finance (And Where to Find the Money)

Most of the time filmmakers seek to raise their investment round in one go.  A lot of people think that’s just how it’s done. As such, they ask would they try anything else. If you have a route into old film industry money you can go right ahead and raise money the old way. If you don’t, you might want to consider other options.

Just as filmmakers shouldn’t only look for equity when raising money, Filmmakers should consider the possibility of raising money in stages.  Here are the 4 best stages I’ve seen, and some ideas on where you can get the money for each stage.

1. Development

If you want to raise any significant amount of money, you’re going to need a good package.  But even the act of getting that package together requires some money.  So one solution to getting your film made is to raise a small development round prior to raising a much larger Production round. 

If you want to do this with any degree of success, you’re going to have to incentivize development round investors in some way.  There are many ways you can do it, but they fall well beyond my word count restrictions for these sorts of blogs.  If you’d like, you can use the link at the end of the blog to set up a strategy session so we can talk about your production, and what may or may not be appropriate. 
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Related: 7 Essential Elements of an IndieFilm Package

Most often, your development round will be largely friends and family, skin in the game, equity, or crowdfunding.  Grants also work, but they’re HIGHLY competitive at this stage. 

Books on Indiefilm Business Plans

2. Pre-Production/Production

It generally doesn’t make sense to raise solely for pre-production, so you should raise money for both pre-production and principal photography.  This raise is generally far larger than the others, as it will be paying for about 70-80% of the total fundraising.  It can sometimes be combined with your post-production raise, but in the event there’s a small shortfall you can do a later completion funding raise. 

It’s very important to think about where you get the money for the film.  You shouldn’t be looking solely at Equity for your Raise.  For this round, you should be looking at Tax incentives, equity, Minor Grant funding if applicable, Soft Money, and PreSale Debt if you can get it. 

Related: The 9 Ways to Finance an Independent Film

Post Production/Completion

Some say that post-production is where the film goes to die.  If you don’t plan on an ancillary raise, then too often those people are right.  Generally you’ll need to make sure you have around 20-25% of your total budget for post.  It’s better if you can raise this round concurrently with your round for Pre-Production and Principle Photography

The best places to find completion money are grants, equity, backed debt, and gap debt

4. Distribution Funding/P&A

It’s very surprising to me how difficult it is to raise for this round, as it’s very much the least risky round for an investor, since the film is already done.

Theres a strong chance your distributor will cover most of this, but in the event that they don’t, you’ll need to allocate money for it. Generally, I say that if you’re raising the funds for distribution yourself, you should plan on at least 10% of the total budget of the film being used for distribution.

Generally you’ll find money for this in the following places. Grants, equity, backed debt, and gap debt.

If you like this article but still have questions, you should consider joining my email list.  You’ll get a free e-book, monthly digests of articles just like this, segmented by topic, as well as some great discounts, special offers, and a whole section of my site with FREE Filmmaking resources ONLY open to people on my email list.  Check it out!