$#5 Film Financing: Determining Your Goals (And Theirs)

Like much in Indie Film, we've been wrong about how we teach raising funds for our films.

It is such a drag to learn you built it all wrong to catch the thing you really want, but..

$ (aka Film Financing) Post #5: Film festivals have a ton of panels on financing. Film support organizations also have a lot of love for seminars on film financing. Film financing is taught at many schools, too. Film financing, film financing, film financing! It’s what people think they want, so it doesn’t feel like an overload. It is just a shame that they generally are 100% wrong about how they teach us to think about financing. 

Not only do the methods that are encouraged lead to many movies not getting made, but they reinforce negative stereotypes, and often contribute to a worse outcome. And that sucks. So, let’s change that, shall we?!

Like most things, if you want to improve both the process and the outcome, you need a careful evaluation of the components and environment, and then a rigorous interrogation of both yours and your collaborators’ goals and First Principles. You need to take those two steps first – before even considering which tactic and approach to use.  That’s where the establishment gets things wrong.

These critical initial steps of recognizing First Principles are what most panels, seminars, and classes skip. There is something to be revealed in the real reasons why, as it is not a case of casually overlooking the obvious. We have built a system that makes us dependent on more services than are needed. We can be most efficient and more effective by improving our processes. I have an easy method to offer if you want both better results and a more pleasurable experience. We can all agree on that, can’t we?