Finding Private Investors for Film Projects - The problems

A recent discovery of an embarrassing example of how NOT to do this triggered an obvious question - how do successful film projects find private investors?

There are plenty of horror stories.  While our legal system here in Australia seems to ignore even the most blatant illegal funding schemes there have been occasions when law enforcement has shown an interest - as Robert MacLeod of Starlight films found out when he was sentenced to seven years jail for raising finance for his film projects without a proper prospectus.  (The fact he spent that money on himself might not have helped things)

Even the guy who tried to raise money for the film 'Jack the Director' by cold-calling people and inviting them to an investment seminar might have even gotten away with it if he hadn't made the mistake of cold calling the former director of consumer protection at ASIC !

So I thought I'd do a bit of digging to find out more.

Feature Film Accounting

All art is defined by its limitations.  Origami is an artform where you are limited to using only folding paper.  A sonnet is limited to fourteen lines.

And a feature film's major limitation?

Budget.

So to understand this better, I figured I'd better talk to an expert.

Testing Myths: Is Hollywood obsessed with remakes?

I was recently listening to a writer complain that the US Film industry is only interested in is remaking earlier films.


It is a common complaint - but how true is it?

SPAA's proposed Producer/Distributor fund

The Producer/Distributor fund is a proposal by SPAA to get around 17 Australian films financed (with an average budget of $15 million each) financed over 3 years - without private investment.

Selling a Short Film in Foreign Markets

We all know that Short Films are a very  hard sell. So when I heard that David Gould had sold the Italian Pay TV rights to his short film 'Awaken', I had to find out more.

The deal was truly an international affair - it was brokered by Premium Films in Paris who was contacted by a buyer from Italy who had seen his film at the 'Short Film Corner' at Cannes. The Pay TV deal also covered Monte Carlo, Malta, Switzerland ... and even part of Slovenia!

This gives the first clue - I suspect that the first key to selling the international rights to a film involves not sitting around at home. So this led to the first question - how his exposure in Cannes helped him:

Getting funds to finance a short film

Crowdfunding has been successful for raising finances for some short film projects.

In one recent success story, Megan Huitema recently raised completion funding for her short film 'Toot Toot' using an Australian crowdsourcing website here.

So I thought I could find out what she did right - so hopefully the rest of us can learn a little.

Are you a screenwriter outside of Hollywood ?

I've often been told how it's almost impossible for screenwriters outside of Hollywood to get the major agencies interested. So I thought I'd chat with Joe Nienalt - a guy who not only signed up with UTA - he's also picked up a six-figure deal to write a movie to be filmed in Russian. And no - he doesn't speak a word of the language!

And despite what the naysayers would claim - he achieved all this from Tacoma .. which might as well be Dubbo as far as Hollywood is concerned. So how did he achieve all of this? I figured I should talk to him to find out.