DIY films are made to be “back pocket” financed. That is, write a story, find some actors, grab a camera, and go.
It’s a GREAT model for a startup filmmaker. But at some point, the pockets get thin. Our hero Stacey Parks, distribution genius, came through today with an awesome blog post about “micro finance” for filmmakers.
She’s addressing those with budgets less than 500k(US), but her concepts apply to filmmakers with budgets WAY less than that. Such as:
Crowdsourced financing. Check out Kickstarter (linked in her post). Genius idea, especially for very tiny projects (be ready to give away some cool stuff!)
Private equity. In this economy, it may be surprising to learn that there’s a lot of money sitting “on the sidelines” looking for return. If you’ve got a bankable idea and a sound distribution strategy (join FilmSpecific!), it’s not unrealistic to leverage private money.
Sponsorships. This one is most interesting. With the advent of augmented reality and its impact on games, it’s only a matter of time until somebody figures out how to make films with a “portal” to sponsored reality. Work on this! It could make you very, very happy. And make your film a “rich” experience for sponsors.
Check out Stacey’s post. Terrific as always:
http://independentfilmblog.com/archives/financing-your-micro-budget-film/