Sometimes I feel like a traveling salesman, going from festival to festival selling my finished films, and from market to market pitching my new projects.  I recently participated in my ninth project market on the “filmmaker” side, and I’ve done four of them on …]]>

Film Independent's Fast Track project market

Sometimes I feel like a traveling salesman, going from festival to festival selling my finished films, and from market to market pitching my new projects.  I recently participated in my ninth project market on the “filmmaker” side, and I’ve done four of them on the “industry” side, so I figured I’d write about my experiences with project markets to try to demystify them a bit.

What is a project market, you ask?  It’s basically a matchmaking program between filmmakers (writers, directors, producers) and industry professionals, with the goal of getting the filmmakers’ projects closer to production.  They usually run over 2-3 days, and are often held in conjunction with a film festival.

Examples of U.S. project markets include: Tribeca All-Access (held during the Tribeca Film Festival), Film Independent’s Fast Track (held during the Los Angeles Film Festival), and IFP’s Project Forum (which, by the way, is currently accepting submissions).

Examples of non-U.S. project markets include: Cinemart (held during the Rotterdam Film Festival), Berlinale Co-Production Market (held during the Berlin Film Festival), Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (held during the Hong Kong International Film Festival), and OMDC Toronto International Financing Forum (held during the Toronto Film Festival).

If you are a filmmaker with few industry connections, project markets are a great way to start building your network of useful contacts.  A project market essentially “validates” you and your project, and prompts the industry to start tracking you.  These markets serve as curators of new talent, which is critical because industry professionals are so inundated with submissions that they need curators to help focus their attention.

However, filmmakers who get accepted to project markets should be careful to manage their expectations. If you think your film will get greenlit within the months following a project market, think again!  Chances are, as ever, slim—I think this is because project markets tend to favor first- and second-time filmmakers and less commercial projects, and because it takes time to build a relationship and mutual trust with an industry person.

But don’t dismay: there are, of course, a handful of films that I know found a chunk of their funding at a project market. And at the very least, you’ll get a chance to meet a lot of industry folks in a short period of time, and to start developing relationships that may later bear fruit.  The value of a project market has more to do with building relationships and a network for yourself than getting a green light for your project. Hopefully, you will have other projects in your back pocket so that if you meet someone who doesn’t like your drama, maybe they’ll like your comedy instead.

So…who the hell are these “industry professionals” anyway? Below is a breakdown of the industry types a filmmaker might meet at a project market:

Production Companies & Producers

• 1. Production Companies Backed by Investors: These companies have private equity, the holy grail for independent films. Some also have first-look or overhead deals with studios.
• 2. Production Companies Connected to Actors: Some have studio deals and connections to financiers. Sometimes, the particular actor must be attached, so if you don’t want to abide by that condition, look elsewhere.
• 3. Production Companies Connected to Directors: Some have studio deals and connections to financiers. Sometimes, the particular director must be attached, so if you don’t want to abide by that condition, look elsewhere.
• 4. Production Companies and Producers With No Backing: The vast majority of “producers” fall under this category. While these folks have no money, they do often have connections to financiers, talent agents, distributors, etc., and can help develop your script, do a budget & schedule, attach cast & crew, and shop your film. Every film needs a producer, so if you don’t have one, find one.
• 5. Development Companies Backed by Investors: These companies focus on script development only. They usually acquire material (books, articles, etc.) and seek writers to do adaptations.

Agencies and Management Companies

• 6. Financing Agents: The major Hollywood agencies (UTA, WME, CAA, ICM, Gersh) and Cinetic have financing divisions that specialize in packaging and finding financing. These agencies work on commission when shopping a project to their network of financiers, and reserve the right to sell the finished film domestically. It’s rare for an agency to take on a low-budget project unless the director or actors attached are repped by that particular agency.
• 7. Domestic Sales Agent: Also called producer’s reps, these companies or individuals work on commission when trying to sell your finished film to a distributor at a festival, market, or directly. Most of them who aren’t one of the aforementioned financing agents don’t have the deep network of financiers necessary to greenlight your film (though some do). As such, these agents are most likely just tracking your project in anticipation of representing it when it’s done.
• 8. Foreign Sales Agent: These guys are responsible for selling the foreign rights for your project. Some of them can offer financing in the form of minimum guarantees (MGs) at the script or financing/casting stage, but this usually requires a big star or big director attachment, or other elements that have specific commercial appeal for certain territories. Even if you can’t get that rare MG, these agents can provide foreign sales estimates that you can show to your potential financiers.
• 9. Talent and Lit Management Companies: These companies can assist with cast attachments, and possibly represent you as a writer or director, thereby opening up their network of connections to you.

Studios and Distributors

• 10. Studios: A major Hollywood studio has the power to fully acquire and finance your feature, but chances are, they won’t do that if you’re a filmmaker early in your career. More likely (though still pretty unlikely) is a negative pickup deal in which a studio promises to pay you an acquisition fee upon your delivery of the film to them. You would still have to cashflow this deal through a bank or other financier. Note that you should expect to give up a degree of creative control in a studio deal, especially in a full acquisition. A studio executive might attend a project market to track you as a director or writer, or your project as a potential future acquisition after you’ve finished the film.
• 11. Mid-Sized and Smaller Distributors: Companies like IFC and Magnolia don’t typically finance production, but in very rare cases, they may put up a portion of the budget in exchange for certain distribution rights. But these companies are still useful to get to know since they’re among the most likely to buy your finished films.
• 12. Other Distributors: There are a whole slew of smaller specialty distributors and newfangled platforms (cable VOD, online streaming sites, etc.) that are helpful to know.
• 13. Distribution Service Companies & Consultants: Distribution service companies will release your film for a fee, and consultants and PMDs (producers of marketing & distribution) will advise you or manage your distribution, also for a fee. These guys won’t help get your film greenlit, and are probably just tracking potential future clients.

Debt Financiers

• 14. Banks and Debt Financiers: These guys can cashflow your negative pickup deal, foreign MG deal, tax credit, or similar collateral.  It’s rare for very low-budget films to use debt financing because a portion of the financing fees (bank, attorney, completion bond, etc.) are flat, so they’ll suck up a bigger percentage of a smaller budget.

Non-Profit & Government

• 15. Grantmaking Organizations: Generally, grants represent a small fraction of a film’s budget, but they’re still great if you can get ‘em!  Most focus on special interests (women, social issue, etc.).
• 16. Government Film Commissions: Whenever possible, “soft money” should be a part of every film’s financing plan as it can mitigate financiers’ risk and give you some “free” money for your budget.  In the U.S., various states have tax credits (NY, NC, LA, CT, AK, to name a few), and in Canada and elsewhere in the world, there may be loans and grants in addition to tax credits. Sadly, soft money is disappearing due to the state of the world economy.
• 17. Project Markets & Labs: Project market organizers sometimes troll other project markets for submissions.  It’s good to do multiple project markets to widen your industry network, but note that like festivals, project markets don’t like to take projects that have already “premiered” elsewhere, though there are of course exceptions. These guys primarily want to meet and track up-and-coming filmmakers, and see what other projects they might have that may be more suited to their own project markets. Also sort of related to project markets are screenwriting, directing and producing labs, which can be helpful in developing your craft and connecting you to more potential collaborators.
• 18. Film Festival Programmers: They don’t have the power to greenlight your film, but it’s good to develop relationships with programmers since so many indie films are launched and acquired at festivals. These guys want to meet new filmmakers and track future films.

Services

• 19. Post-Production Companies: Some post-production companies grant post services, or do in-kind equity deals.  Note, however, that post equity deals will value services at full rack rates.
• 20. Production Service Companies: It’s helpful to get to know the production service companies that have a lot of experience shooting in the region where your film will shoot, particularly if you’re not familiar with shooting there.
• 21. Completion Bond Companies: These companies oversee the production of a film and provide assurance to financiers that a film will be completed on time and on budget (and they’ll cover any overages). But it often doesn’t make sense to bond a small-budget film because these companies require a minimum service fee and 10% contingency.
• 22. Attorneys: Attorneys attend these things to track new potential clients. This is a good time to start shopping around for an attorney so you’ll have one when you’re ready to make deals. Note that some of them also represent investors.

* * * * * * * *

I think that about covers it!  Notice anything missing?  I do: high-net-worth individuals, who are the primary financiers of very low-budget films in the U.S.  You’ll have to find those folks elsewhere.

Some other suggestions

- Write a project summary that includes: logline, synopsis, director’s statement, bios of all cast/crew attached

- Bring a look book, or at least some visual references

- Don’t hand people a full paper script

- If your project has both a director and producer, you should both attend because I find that pitching as a team is more effective

- Be conversational and keep any formal presentations short and sweet

- Follow up over email, and include links & attachments presented at the meeting, even if you’ve already given them physical material

One last thing: before you start pitching to the industry person sitting across the table (whether at a project market or not), figure out exactly which of the above categories they fall into, and adjust your pitch accordingly.  Happy networking!

In my first post I covered some assumptions I feel are key …]]> Thanks to those who attended our panel at IFW last month on navigating funding options for non-fiction films! For those who missed it, you can watch the video here. I look forward to continuing the conversation on this blog.

In my first post I covered some assumptions I feel are key to a film fundraising effort, that film grants, while important, can be scarce, competitive, small, and should represent only one piece of a diverse fundraising pie. In my second post I suggested basing your expectations for raising funds on a realistic assessment of your existing resources, the stage of your project, and your filmmaking track record.

Now it’s time to build a list of potential funders that are a comfortable fit for your film. In this post I’ll offer thoughts on how you might assess which of the funders you learn about truly belong at the top of your list. I’ll also share the potential perils of “adjusting” your proposals or pitch too much in an effort to meet different funders’ preferences.

We can focus on how you might conduct your actual search for funders in a future post (hint: visiting the Cinereach resource page might help). But however and wherever you search (resource lists, Google, the Foundation Center, or other tools), I think it’s useful to first make sure you’re ready to recognize a good target when you see it.

Each funder has its own preferences for qualities it wants to see in supported projects. Some relate to
- Specific topical, thematic or issue areas
- Filmmaking styles or approaches
- Type: fiction, nonfiction, experimental, etc.
- Length: features, shorts, etc.
- Phase: research and development, production, post-production, community outreach, exhibition, distribution…
- Filmmaker Experience: emerging, established, etc.
- Demographics/Geography: race, ethnicity, heritage, religion, gender/sex, nationality, etc.
- Budget: budget size, percent of budget raised from other sources
- Intended Audience: broadcast, theatrical, educational, etc.
- Timeline: when the funds will be used

It’s useful to figure out where your project lines up with the above list, and then keep your eyes peeled for funders that have their eyes peeled for you!

All funders are different, and most make clear any preferences they have on their web sites in the form of funding “priorities” or “guidelines.” From my own experience at Cinereach, I can tell you that we put a great deal of time and thought into the language we use to describe what we’re looking for in applicant projects and make sure it’s easy to locate. For our Grants program (currently accepting letters of inquiry for our December 1 deadline) and our Reach Film Fellowship (applications open in April) we are very concrete about some of our preferences (related to our ideal length for a supported feature or short film, which phases of the production process we support, and the range in grant amounts we can offer). We are purposefully a bit more “abstract” and broad in how we define our preferences for subject matter, visual style and storytelling approach. It is exciting to see how differently applicants can interpret our mission to support films at “the intersection of engaging storytelling, visual artistry, and vital subject matter,” and the other ideas expressed on our site.

Funders my also change their preferences and priorities between years and/or grant cycles, or add or dissolve funding initiatives. I recommend your list of funding targets be an evolving, frequently updated list rather than something you create once and reference forever.

With so few funders out there, and so many potential preferences to meet, it may feel like due diligence to cast the net wide while you generate your list of funding targets. You may feel the urge to approach every funder you find and come up with ways to construe your project differently to meet the preferences of each one.

It may seem harmless to present your film differently to different funders, especially because films in progress evolve so much as they near completion anyway. Topics and characters shift, financial circumstances change. You may wonder if it’s really such a huge deal to write that your film will be 60 minutes instead of the 90 minutes you’re aiming for, or to describe your footage as verité when it consists primarily of first-person interviews.

Yes, a lot of the information you include about your film when you’re pitching or writing a proposal is assumed to be hypothetical, especially when you’re early in the process. So how do you know where to draw the line regarding the appropriate level of “spin”?

I would argue that you should put your energy into envisioning and articulating a true plan for how you would like your project to unfold in your ideal (within feasible reason) world. I feel it’s a bad idea to write anything into a proposal to a funder (film industry or not, not-for-profit or for-profit) that you wouldn’t say about your project, or that wouldn’t be important to you about it, if you weren’t applying to a specific funding source. When you feel you’d have to do that to pursue a funding source, it probably doesn’t belong on your list of targets. Here are some of the reasons why:

1) If a funder goes to the trouble of publishing specific funding preferences that means its leadership really really cares about them. They might represent the founding principles or mandates of the organization and the area of expertise of that organization’s staff. They are probably experts at finding projects that meet their preferences perfectly. They will also receive proposals for more projects that are a natural fit than they can fund as it is, and have no room for sort of or almost projects. Chances are if an aspect of your project doesn’t ring true to them, or sounds less developed than others it will not seem competitive.

2) Writing persuasive proposals and preparing supporting materials that convey your vision well to funders is a lot of work and can take months to do well. When a funder is a comfortable fit, however, I don’t believe a single moment of the time you put into developing a proposal to that funder is a waste. You can reuse a lot of the writing on proposals to other well-matched funders, even when there is some variation in funder requirements (e.g. one funder may need a synopsis with a higher word count; another may care more about the social significance of applicants’ stories and need more detail about that aspect of your project). Additionally, the exercise of writing and rewriting about your plans and visions for your film forces you to refine how you communicate what you’re trying to do, and might even help you deepen your own understanding of your project. It’s also a critical step in collaborating with folks who may work with or support the project in some way. Creating multiple different versions, where you struggle to interpret your project so that it seems to fit the preferences of a funder that isn’t a great match, is also a lot of work, but the only value of that work is completing that particular application.

3) Funders are best friends with each other (especially in the film industry). Okay, they don’t all know each other, but funders around certain industries or focus areas are small, intimate bunches. This can be a good thing for you, because if your funder is 100% behind your project, the funder can, and often will, chat you and your project up to other funders. Your success is part of their job. Film funders can also make connections to festival programmers, broadcasters, sales agents, and so on. If you have something to hide, however, this community connectedness can backfire.

4) Not all funders stay in close touch with their supported filmmakers or require detailed updates, but many do. If you have finessed something about your project or yourself in order to squeeze into a funder’s preferences for the purposes of one application, and you actually get funded by that source, when the funder’s staff learns your film is actually going to be 10 minutes instead of 70, or that their grant for post-production was exhausted during production, they are unlikely to offer you the full benefits of their support. They may not be able to promote your project and their affiliation with it (which is an important part of receiving funding as well) or they may even ask for their money back. Or, if you get funded for something you added to your plans for the sake of a grant application, you will no doubt end up having to invest more than just the grant money in that aspect of your project. You will be committed to doing something that can take on a life of its own, is not aligned with your actual passions or skills, and will likely require more resources and time than you’d like to invest.

Fundraising is a time consuming and costly process (researching, writing, cutting teasers and sample scenes, making DVDs, not to mention all the printing, collating, postage, and runs to Fedex). I think it borders on self-abuse to put time and budget that could go towards good solid leads into pursuing sources that have a slim-to-none chance of coming through for you, or come with strings that are not worth the value of the funds you’ll receive. The more specific a funder’s focus is, and the closer that focus is to your own actual goals for your project, the better your chances are of receiving funds from that source. Not only that, you’ll gain meaningful funder relationships that add value exponentially to the funds you receive.

Each time I have the same thought, but have never really voiced it before:

There …]]> Each time I attend an event about grant-making for films, I watch the room overflow. There is huge demand for concrete, insider information on how filmmakers can start, sustain or complete their films by applying for grants.

Each time I have the same thought, but have never really voiced it before:

There are way more filmmakers in the audience at one of these events than there are grants to go around, in a given year, from all the existing film foundations.

Am I sharing this thought to dissuade filmmakers from applying for grants (perhaps out of a selfish desire to lesson my own reviewing load)? Hells no!

I encourage you to stay positive. I encourage you to continue to put time, thought and heart into your applications. My colleagues at Cinereach and I love to read and screen them. We’re thrilled and honored that we get to discover your projects and approaches. They surprise, engage, unsettle, transport and transform us in a seemingly infinite number of ways.

On the other hand, your projects have a better chance of survival if you can take a realistic approach to your fundraising strategies. Don’t be in denial about the funding landscape you’re entering each time you embark on a new project.

It is critical that filmmakers not view grants as:

a) a guarantee
b) plentiful
c) large in size
d) the primary way to get a film funded

It is critical that filmmakers do view grant-seeking as:

a)  an art in itself, usually mastered only through practice
b)  highly competitive
c)   slow (in most cases)
d)  only one sliver of the fundraising ‘pie‘

In the panel I’ll moderate at this year’s IFP Filmmaker Conference (Tuesday, Sept. 21 at 12pm) we’ll tackle that ever-popular topic: fundraising for socially relevant documentaries. We’ll definitely discuss the grant-seeking portion of the funding pie, but ideally, we’ll also adapt a more holistic and, I believe, productive approach to the conversation.

I also want to discuss some of the pie pieces that exist in addition to grants—in case they are not on your radar. And, more importantly, I hope our panel will help you gage which combination of potential pieces and flavors might be right for your pie, based on where you are in your filmmaking career, and where your project is in its own life cycle.

I look forward to our upcoming conversation and invite you to please share your ideas on what we can cover.  What have you found lacking in previous funding panels you’ve attended? What roadblocks have you hit in your own work?