{"id":1497,"date":"2009-12-28T22:05:14","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T04:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=1497"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:56:29","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:56:29","slug":"knife-3-money-to-make-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=1497","title":{"rendered":"“Knife” #3: Money to Make Art?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA Knife in a Gun Fight\u201d: Independent Film Money<\/strong>
\nFinance It, Fund It, or \u201cFam\u201d It?<\/p>\n

by Michelle Kaffko<\/em><\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

\u201cA Knife in a Gun Fight\u201d chronicles filmmaker Michelle Kaffko\u2019s journey as she probes the Chicago-area independent scene for indie movie news, releases, and other relevant dirt.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cProduction Assistants and other crew needed for 7-day shoot, 8-hour days, NO PAY, but credit and meals provided.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commonplace in the trades and on Craigslist<\/strong>, advertisements like the above have become a kind of hazing ritual for newbies wanting to break into \u201cthe biz,\u201d including the Chicago <\/strong>independent film scene. Should you pursue the opportunity and your dreams, how many sets do you work on for free until you realize you need to get a real <\/em>job that pays you in actual minted currency?<\/p>\n

Most independent film producers, directors, and other key players spend their days taking important phone calls to book locations and rent equipment in between pouring lattes at their prominent Starbucks <\/strong>day jobs. On-screen credit and food is what most participants receive as reimbursement in this town \u2013 the food usually being pizza and not <\/em>the good deep-dish Chicago pizza \u2013 so everyone wants to be \u201cabove the line\u201d in the imaginary budgets, clamoring for producer or director titles.<\/p>\n

I once had a guy call me while I was in post-production for a short film I directed to demand producer credit \u2026 just for loaning me a camera.<\/em><\/p>\n

But even with a small army of actors and crew willing to put their hard work and hours in for cold pizza, making a film still costs money. Filmmakers know that currency is no myth because they\u2019ve seen it sprout from the billfolds of friends and strangers, so the inevitable question becomes, \u201cWhere do I find that money to make my <\/em>film?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cFind\u201d is an appropriate word, because funding an independent film is kind of like an Easter egg hunt. You poke around the yard, crossing your fingers until you\u2019re lucky enough to nab yourself an egg \u2026 and hope to not step in some dog doo in the process.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard many a horror story involving money and movies. My favorite urban legend, told around the campfires of film school campuses, concerns the guy who shot a film in a steakhouse and unplugged the refrigerator in the kitchen so he could record cleaner sound. No one remembered to plug it back in, so the steakhouse owners returned the next day to find $10,000 worth of ruined prime rib and t-bones. The filmmaker had to pay for them. The moral of the story is to \u201cput all the crew members\u2019 car keys in the unplugged fridge so some <\/em>moron will remember to plug it back in before leaving,\u201d as a veteran AD might be heard saying to a freshman PA at the craft table.<\/p>\n

Between the tall tales of grandiose blunders, I\u2019ve also heard how several local films were successfully funded. And by successfully, I mean someone wanted to make a film, needed the money, actually found the money, and then made the film. That alone can be a superhuman feat. Let\u2019s now zero in on the three most prevailing methods of finding money that I know: financing, funding, and \u201cfam.\u201d That last one can also be called \u201crich Uncle Bill,\u201d but \u201cfam\u201d starts with an \u201cf\u201d like the others so I\u2019m going to use that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

By financing <\/em>a film, I\u2019m talking about approaching investors for the money to make the movie. An investor is someone who is usually outside the film industry but has enough of an expendable income to take a risk on an independent film. And monetarily it can be considered a bigger risk than the stock market, even in this volatile economy. Many investors are promised a percentage of the profits of the film to return their investment if the film lands a good distribution deal or makes money in any other way. Most receive credit in the film, usually as Executive Producer.<\/p>\n

The Easter egg hunt to find these investors and convince them to write you a check to make your next zombie movie can be a full-time job. (I mean, come on, would you <\/em>give someone $300,000 of your hard-earned cash to film people pretending to eat other peoples\u2019 brains? If you would, e-mail me. I have a killer <\/em>script for a zombie film\u2026) Filmmakers seeking investors need to prove as well as they can that their film is worthy of being made and can turn a profit. In the world of financing, your film isn\u2019t a film. It\u2019s a start-up small business. An investor needs to see a comprehensive business plan that lays out why the film will be successful, who will watch it, who will distribute it, and how much money it is projected to make based on the successes of similar films or films with similar stars, directors, and\/or producers.<\/p>\n

\"\"Independent filmmaker and actor Tom Malloy<\/strong> (LOVE N\u2019 DANCING<\/strong>) lays out the skeleton of the process of hunting, spearing, and skinning investors for their pelts in his book, Bankroll: a New Approach to Financing Feature Films<\/strong><\/span>, a current release from Michael Wiese Productions<\/strong>, the long-time oasis for movie producers seeking books and guides covering all the different processes behind making movies. (Downstate readers will be happy to know that Wiese himself is an Urbana <\/strong>native, University of Illinois<\/strong> alumnus, and former classmate of Roger Ebert<\/strong>!) In Bankroll<\/span>, Malloy tells his own steakhouse horror stories and other lessons he has learned while raising millions to fund indie feature films, detailing several different approaches for finding and securing investors vividly enough that you might find yourself looking over your shoulder while reading the book to make sure no one else is gleaning the secrets along with you. The author\u2019s methods are intended for productions in the $2-$5 million range, but his advice in dealing with industry people can be helpful even to unpaid PAs eating cold thin crust pizza.<\/p>\n

Kevin Brennan<\/strong> and his partners used financing to back their film, THE SCENESTERS<\/strong>, which is bouncing along the festival circuit, recently winning Best Comedy in the Hollywood Film Festival<\/strong> and scheduled to play Slamdance <\/strong>next month in Park City, Utah<\/strong>. A comedy about bumbling crime scene investigators and staff following a serial killer to make a film about him under police radar, THE SCENESTERS<\/strong> is the creation of Los Angeles<\/strong>-based comedy troupe The Vacationeers<\/strong> whose members include SCENESTERS <\/strong>writer\/director\/actor Todd Berger<\/strong> as well as three former Second City<\/strong>-Chicago classmates: producer Brennan, producer\/actor Jeff Grace<\/strong>, and actor Blaise Miller<\/strong>. The project\u2019s other producer, Brett D. Thompson<\/strong>, still lives in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Before filming, they sent a 15-page business plan to friends, family, friends of friends, and anyone they could find who\u2019d be interested in investing in the project. \u201cIt had everything from cast and crew bios to box office projections based on similar films,\u201d Brennan explains. \u201cPart of the idea came from my film school classes at the University of Texas at Austin<\/strong>. But most importantly, we wanted investors to know that we were serious about taking care of and using their money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Their business plan worked, helping them raise 100% of their budget through investors before going into production, and they had enough foresight to tack a 10% contingency onto their total budget (estimated at less than $1 million) to cover any unexpected expenses. \u201cThank God we did,\u201d says Brennan, since their film, like many, had plenty <\/em>of unexpected expenses. Even though their budget was handled business-like, actually making the film qualified as a labor of love for the filmmakers, cast, and crew with the \u201cabove the line\u201d members deferring their payment until the film sells and turns a profit. Brennan is currently in talks with distributors.<\/p>\n

Technically, the filmmaking team at Split Pillow<\/strong> has investors for their projects as well, but they\u2019re investing in Split Pillow itself and not the individual films. As a non-profit entity, they use funding <\/em>and not financing to make their films, averaging about one feature per year. \u201cThe mission statement [of Split Pillow] is to develop and promote the work of Chicago filmmakers,\u201d explains Executive Director Dennis Belogorsky<\/strong>, another UIUC grad and an early member of the school\u2019s Illini Film & Video<\/strong> club. \u201cThe secondary mission statement is to create a film culture in the city that can sustain itself and feeds itself and draws inspiration from within, not from without.\u201d<\/p>\n

Split Pillow\u2019s non-profit status also means they are eligible for grants and more likely to get money through those grants for sponsoring community outreach programs, such as their youth workshop Media START!<\/strong>, which promotes media literacy by teaching groups of children how to write, direct, shoot, and edit their own films and tell their own stories. By having such community components in their filmmaking group, Split Pillow is able to find about 95% of their operating budget through grants and donations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Said donors aren\u2019t necessarily considering themselves as investors in individual films, expecting a financial return on their investment. They give generously because they like the group they\u2019re giving to; for instance, the annual Split Pillow fundraiser last October earned about $20,000 for their operating expenses. Meaning, the part-time members of Split Pillow can actually get paid for their work in the group and they can make films, a double-whammy superhuman feat in this world. Their latest feature, EYE OF THE SANDMAN<\/strong>, follows a one-eyed bride-to-be who obsesses over a mysterious stranger which threatens the wedding and her newly inherited home.<\/p>\n

But what do you do if you have a film you really want to make but don\u2019t want to do the work of becoming a non-profit to attract funders and <\/em>don\u2019t really know where to begin to attract investors for financing? This is the Easter egg I call \u201cfam<\/em>\u201d because that\u2019s where most of these filmmakers will turn once their own wallets empty out into a film \u2013 their family.<\/p>\n

Filmmakers Todd Tue<\/strong>, J.D. Wilkes<\/strong>, and Blake Judd<\/strong> made their film, SEVEN SIGNS: MUSIC, MYTH, AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH<\/strong>, with very little pre-production or budget creation. SEVEN SIGNS<\/strong> is a documentary about a cultural niche in the music of the South, for which the team \u201cjust started taking road trips in J.D.\u2019s car, staying at friends\u2019 houses and borrowing equipment\u201d to get it made, as Chicagoan Tue describes. \u201cWe knew we were going to fund it personally up to a certain point, and then we planned to approach friends and family for investments and\/or donations, which is what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tue estimates that about 65% of the money to make SEVEN SIGNS<\/strong> came from the filmmakers themselves and 35% from others. In their \u201cfam\u201d model of film funding, they hit upon the best of both worlds with financing and funding by engaging investors who are also close friends and family happy to fund their quest to make the film itself. Of course, the trio did make agreements with them to share profits if the film turned one, but they also didn\u2019t have to prove themselves through lengthy budget estimates and a best-case-scenario business plan promising huge returns on investments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now that we\u2019ve compared the money-hunting methods of three projects that start with the letter \u201cs,\u201d here\u2019s another \u201cs,\u201d success<\/em>. How do you measure the success of any of these projects? Almost every independent filmmaker in the Midwest creates his or her project with the hopes that it will be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but the truly successful filmmakers are those who will make the film anyway \u2013 regardless of how much financial investment will come back later.<\/p>\n

The aforementioned Bankroll<\/span> demonstrates how author Tom Malloy successfully made his living financing his own film projects and supported his family quite comfortably. So, turning a financial profit on independent films is possible and not just a pipe dream. It\u2019s simply a long and tiring journey of Easter egg hunting to get there, avoiding all the dog doo on the proverbial lawn. Malloy cites a joke in his book that can make plenty of indie filmmakers laugh and cry at the same time:<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you make a small fortune in independent film? Invest a large fortune.\u201d<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

THE SCENESTERS<\/strong> is a production of Johnny Voodoo Productions<\/strong> in association with Vacationeers Productions<\/strong> and Midwinter Studios<\/strong>. It was written and directed by Todd Berger and produced by Kevin Brennan, Jeff Grace, and Brett D. Thompson, and stars Sherilyn Fenn<\/strong>, Blaise Miller, Suzanne May<\/strong>, Jeff Grace, Kevin Brennan, Todd Berger, Monika Jolly, James Jolly<\/strong>, and John Landis<\/strong>. 2009, DV, Color, 96 minutes.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

EYE OF THE SANDMAN<\/strong> is a production of Split Pillow. It was directed by Dennis Belogorsky, MT Cozzola<\/strong>, and Jeffrey McHale<\/strong>, written by MT Cozzola, and produced by David J. Evans V<\/strong> and Jamye Graham<\/strong>, and stars Jeanene Beauregard, Allan Aquino, Errol McLendon, Dave Belden, Megan Keach, Aemilia Scott<\/strong>, and Andrew Yearick<\/strong>. 2009, DV, Color, 74 minutes.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

SEVEN SIGNS: MUSIC, MYTH, AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH<\/strong> is a production of Colonel Films, Milk Products Media, JuddFilms<\/strong>, and TuckyWood Productions<\/strong>. It was directed by J.D. Wilkes and produced by J.D. Wilkes, Todd Tue, Blake Judd, and Jacob Ennis<\/strong>, and features Slim Cessna, Jay Munly, John Akin, Scott Biram<\/strong>, and Professor Peter Fosl<\/strong>. 2008, DV, Color, 52 minutes.<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

\n

Prior \u201cKnife\u201d<\/a> | Next \u201cKnife\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

Michelle Kaffko is a Chicago resident and life-long Midwesterner with a B.S. in Cinema Studies and film theory. She is an independent filmmaker and photographer. She can be reached at<\/em> michelle [at] findmichelle [dot] com.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cA Knife in a Gun Fight\u201d no. 3 \u00a9 2009 Michelle Kaffko.
\nSplit Pillow board members photo @ Jason Stephens\u2019 residence
\n\u00a9 2009 Michelle Kaffko.
\nUsed with permission.<\/p>\n

CUBlog edit \u00a9 2009 Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n

Bankroll<\/span><\/strong> graphic \u00a9 Michael Wiese Productions
\nClick to purchase!<\/a><\/p>\n

THE SCENESTERS<\/strong> graphics \u00a9 Vacationeer Productions
\nClick to visit the official site!<\/a><\/p>\n

EYE OF THE SANDMAN<\/strong> graphics \u00a9 Split Pillow
\nClick to visit the official site!<\/a><\/p>\n

SEVEN SIGNS<\/strong> graphics \u00a9 Milk Products Media
\nClick to visit the official site!<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Back to the fore, MacKnife\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Visit the Column Index<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Return to Home Page<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this edition of \u201cA Knife in a Gun Fight,\u201d author Michelle Kaffko discusses the three “f”s of locating moneys to pay for one’s movie by using THE SCENESTERS, SEVEN SIGNS, and the Split Pillow collective as case studies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,217],"tags":[1707,342,346,343,219,347,345,344],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-knife-in-a-gun-fight","category-column-du-c-u","tag-a-knife-in-a-gun-fight","tag-dennis-belogorsky","tag-eye-of-the-sandman","tag-kevin-brennan","tag-michelle-kaffko","tag-seven-signs","tag-the-scenesters","tag-todd-tue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}