Need Investors for low budget film

I am an 18 year old who has recently finished school and I have been putting my own money into a film I have been wanting to do for a long time (I put it off for studying and screenwriting, which I have been successful at) but I now need investors to get involved so that I can hire a few actors as well as have a location for filming.

I will simply need £1000 to £1500 and I live in London.

The movie, although breaks a few rules you usually see in Hollywood flicks, is not just an artistic movie although I would like it to be the film that I can envision in my head without ever getting tired of it. This film has a lot of potential to be commercially successful because it has the factors that usually cater to those who go to arthouse cinema as well as teenagers and young adults.

I have the main actors willing to work for free but I need a few more as well as location and some props (I have most of them but I will need a few things such as blood). I am also in need of a make-up artist (for the violence), cameraman and editor. I can be the cameraman but I would rather concentrate on working with the actors and being able to extract the best performances possible from them as well as talk to the crew so that they know the effects I am intending to achieve rather than attempt to do everything myself.

I have mentioned violence and blood already but I would like to stress that I am not making an ultra-violent movie but a drama.

Although I have never directed a movie before, I have spent a few years practising with the camera and editing as well as working with actors. I have learned a lot from other screenwriters and directors who have given a lot of helpful advice which have helped in helping me become more creative.

To all potential investors: if you would like to know more about the film please e-mail me at director@cwazy.co.uk


If any of you live in London we could discuss the movie in person if you wish.


This film will be going ahead no matter what (I can find ways to increase the budget) but I am right asking film investors to be a part of something that is very personal to me. I and everybody working on it will be working hard to make the best movie possible. And since very little money is needed there is very little that you can lose. Since only an extra £1000 to £1500 is needed to make this feature film, I ask for a few minutes of your time to talk to you via e-mail, and if you would like, in person.

OK.

My guess is that you're not going to be swamped with offers. This is for any number of reasons, but I'll ouline a few.

1) You haven't told us whether it's a feature film or a short. If it's a short then it's commercial value is next to nothing, if it's a feature £1000-£1500 isn't enough to make anything that can sell anywhere but self-marketed DVDs.

2) You haven't told us anything about why, once it's made, anyone should want to watch it. Which when you think about it is the what the commercial value of the film is based on.

and

3) As a first time filmmaker the chances of you making anything that you can sell are very, very slim.

So, here's two suggestions. Firstly, as a young first time, UK based filmmaker there are loads of funding opportunities and a £1000 to £1500 should be easy to find. Your local arts funding organisation can give you information.

Secondly, instead of asking for money, tell us what you need the money for.

Chances are that there are members here who already have the stuff you want or who will be able to hook you up for free

Thank you for your reply.

It is a feature film.

I am asking for an additional £1000 to £1500 and I would like to remind you that El Mariachi cost about £1000 yet it has taken in around 2 million dollars in the US alone. It was also Robert Rodriguez's directorial debut. The passion for film has stayed with me and I know in my heart that the fire will never burn out.

I thank you for your advice. I in fact will be talking to the film council this Wednesday for funding but I am using this as a back-up option since it would be better if I had a producer who had already made films before.

If any help can be offered by any members I would greatly appreciate it.

OK

First things first. It's great that you're eighteen years old and that you are going to make a feature film.

It's also great that you are thinking about it's commercial viability.

I would suggest that you need some help writing your pitch to investors. This is what I suggest.

Line One - The name of the film "Monkey Business," Genre, "Horror Comedy," Duration and Market "90 minute feature film for the global direct to DVD market"

Line Two - High Concept pitch or logline "A monkey in a lab is accidently infected with a nanovirus which makes him twenty times normal size and psychotic. Only the world's greatest monkey expert can save London from his simian antics"

Line Three - About the production "Monkey Business is the film debute of Dave Interesting and will be shot on location in LONDON autumn 2005 using recent graduates of Rada and the Central School of performing arts, London. The film will be shot digitally using profesional grade camcorder (Canon XL1's) for distribution to the global direct to DVD market.

Line Four - Talk about money - "The production currently has 90% of it's production budget on board and is looking for an additional £1000 from either a single or multiple investors. We are offering capital return plus 60% of investment upon sale of the picture. Our marketing strategy is available on our website"

Line Five - "You can find more information on our website" (You build a website that explains the story on greater depth, has stills photos of your cast and CV if they are even a little bit impressive. Plus anyhting else that will reasure investors)

And finally, you never, ever, ever mention Robert Rodriguez. I've listed the reason below.

El Mariachi cost about £1000

Click to expand...

El Mariachi cost £7000 to get through principle photography. (Thats £4028). The reason that figure is so low is because basically he had access to 16mm film cameras for free, was able to telecine his footage for free and was skilled enough to do all his own editing. The $7000 cost covered food, petrol, film and processing. (Film processing costs in the UK are treble the costs that they are in the US and El Mariachi was shot in 1991, fifteen years ago, prices have gone up since then)

The actual cost of completeing El Mariachi was much, much higher.

El Mariachi was only released because of a) Desperado and b) the the sucess of "Rebel Without a Crew." The studio initally wanted to dump it. c) It had been shot on film

El Mariach wasn't Robert Rodrieguez's debut film, he had already made an award winning short film "Bedhead" which had had lots of positive festival attention.

Robert Rodreiguez shot his first film when he was in the eigth grade and made lterally hundreds of shorts before shooting El Mariach (So he came to his first feature with over ten year's film making experience)

No one has ever repeated that formula, mainly because Robert Rodreiguez was a) an unusually gifted editor and b) very, very lucky.

Thank you for the advice, it is greatly appreciated.

On the other hand, Mr. Interesting...

I think that Clive's above post and others like it, are a test
of your burning need to make films. If you ignore that post,
and the good advice it contains, and continue until
you've finished your feature, then you pass the test.

I agree that every point raised above is rational, and factually correct.
I have no quarrel with it, or with the esteemed Moderator, Clive.
He is not wrong in any sense, least of all his concern that you
might fail. He is right as can be.

However...the Universe is a strange and mysterious place, and
most of the people you probably consider successful
got there by ignoring just such good advice.

I recommend to you my personal motto,

"Nothing is impossible
to a person who refuses
to listen to reason."

If you go here,
http://samlongoria.com

You'll read about a young man who raised $500k from a standing
start, and made his first 35mm feature at the age of 19 years old.
You've never heard of him. I have - only because that young man was me.

My feature didn't get "out there," (you never know, I've got a book
author calling to interview me about it), but it did everything I could
possibly ask of it.

It got me my first couple of jobs in Hollywood, and I'm thirty
years, and many adventures, past that.

If you need to make that film, and keep working at it,
nobody can stop you. You'll get there.

I'm not sure where "there" is, but nobody else can say either.
Only you can bestow the title "success" upon yourself.

Very best of luck to you.

My advice: You're 18. Run with that for a while. Take advantage of your youth and make all the mistakes you can get your hands on. You might learn from them.

Don't get meddled in money and film business- learn how to have fun making movies. Impress your friends, impress girls, drink a bit! Then when you know how it all works, start up that big project you've always looked forward to. Don't jump into the water before you wet your toes.

Thank you indycine and Spatula for your encouraging words.

I, like every other person my age, love to enjoy life. But I feel that I must start something now while I have the burning desire in me. I have free time, why waste it when I can do something useful and help my dreams come true? I intended to make a film last year but due to my studies I decided to put it on hold. But now the world is my oyster and I want to keep it that way.

And right now, at this very moment, is the best time to begin when there are people all willing to take time out from their own lives to help me with my project. All of them working for free. I have had the help of a filmmaker and after all the advice he has given me, I can't possibly shy away now.

You've got the right attitude, Interesting!

When you start asking for money outside your friends and family it turns into a business. A family member asks, "What can I do to help?" because they believe in you. An investor asks, "What's in it for me?"

When you can seriously answer that question is when you can start asking people for money. Telling us what other filmmakers have done (like Rodriguez) doesn't help YOUR case. Every movie investor know the success stories (El Maraichi, Blair Witch, Open Water, Clerks) and we also know the odds.

Not one of those huge successes was financed by outside investors. It was friends and family - often the filmmaker was the ONLY investor. I can point out 30 indie films that failed to return the investment for every 1 that made a little back. No one is using the Sundance winner "Primer" as an example. It, too, cost $7,000.

You might have to finance your first feature without outside investors. If you do the same business El Maraichi did your next request for money will be pretty easy.

Hey, Interesting, just go for it. You'll learn a great deal about yourself however it goes. It'll be experience that money cannot buy. Rodriguez still bears the scars from how he got his money to fund El Mariachi...He put himself up for medical experimentation. You don't get paid for that in the UK, they'll only give you tea and biscuits, but they do pay for "baby gravy," and it's about a tenner a shot. Of course, you'd have to make the premium grade to want you to keep coming back. If you do it this way though, you'll run the risk of settling for a short instead. Take care.

directorik said:

I can point out 30 indie films that failed to return the investment for every 1 that made a little back.

Click to expand...

Seriously, does anyone know a good estimated ratio of successful indies, to total indie movies made?

How might we come up with such a ratio?


Now if we said something like SAG independent contract movies, SAG might keep records of how many movies apply, then we'd just have to count the successful ones..

anyone else got any ideas?

Look guys... how about showing some encouragement? I produced a feature that was shot, in reality, for under £5k. Our deferred was about £10k. So £15k. It’s made so far, well more than it cost, and been released in numerous territories.

In short yes I believe for a feature you could, with the right talent, skills and people and with all the equipment you need in place , make it for under £15,500k and not make it look cheap.

How can I say that? We’ll we have tasked ourselves with a similar amount and are currently shooting an action/martial arts feature film. We have a sales agent for the film and can guarantee it will look far different than the final paper cost.

The point: if you have an imagination, talent and the kit and a smooth talking producer that can get you what you need then it can be done.

However I do agree that business and proposal wise you need more work. Posting help requests on boards like this with similar minded people prob wont get you the money.

Contact friends, families, doctors, dentists and local business owners but make a proposal which will want to make them invest. Get some teaser artwork done for free, a web site and a budget plan that will show them how they will get their money back.

If your idea is bad and you present it well you’ll still get investment. If the idea is good and you present it badly you probably won’t.

For that amount hell if you REALLY HAVE FAITH that it will work, get a credit card and put it on that (only if you can repay it mind you – you don’t want to be getting CCJ’s against you know).

Good luck!

Phil Hobden
-- Modern Life? --
www.mod-life.com

Krishna - I don’t know if there is a way to get a truly accurate ratio. So many people make movies that never see any kind of distribution - movies that weren’t made with SAG actors, that were finances by a group of friends or one person - that there is no data base.

My 30:1 was based on movies I’ve worked on and made by people I know - far from accurate.

mr-modern-life - I think we were all being very encouraging.

mr-modern-life from east sussex (Brighton? - my old stomping grounds!!), now thats a post I can get behind. This is a great post. If one can shoot for $15,000, one can surely get investors, cause as long as you've got a halfway decent plan your investors will make money back and then some.

Please share with us a breakdown on what you are doing to get an expensive look to your movie for only a few $.

And are you shooting HD? If your going DV, how are you getting it to look good on a big screen? (in my experience DV barely holds a candle to 35mm on the big screen, yet works fine on DVD).

You know, I'm shooting a couple of 16mm student films right now and I'm really not spending so much $$ either. I'm learning, so the end result is still improving dramatically every project, sometime soon I'll have mastered the basic skills to get a good look for the same price... The point is I just estimated I'm spending about $100 per minute and a half. That addeds up to $9000, or GBP4500. Thats not so bad!



Thanks for the incouragement Phil.

Krishna.

Now that would be telling! Ha!

We made the film over 2 years, shot on DV and managed to get the best audio post and digital grader on defered payments.

The film was always intended as DVD, cinema is great but a low budget action film can not compete against US hollywood films... there aren't enough screens!

My tip is always get a good grader and audio post. If the film is shot well (like most DV and HD films are ) most are let down by the sound work. Grading maked a cheap DV film look like a film shot on 16mm. We projected it on a few UK screens digitally and it looked amazing but the sound, ADR and grading made the film.

Without it the film wouldn't have done half what it has. Find good people that want to break into film (our sound guy won a BAFTA for his work on TV but had never done a real feature) and you can help each other!

Phil Hobden
--- Modern Life?---

That sounds about right from what I've heard around here also. Audio audio audio - get it right or it will let you down. I just produced a show for local TV, concept was great, camera work wasn't so bad, but the sound was AWFUL. Live and learn.

Talk more about grading? I'm not sure I know much about that. Color grading? shifting the color? Surely if you shoot it correctly you can do much of your work with just that? Like, knowing how to light the shot etc?

Ive found a couple of links for 'digital grading' here:
http://www.visuals.co.uk/index.html?http://www.visuals.co.uk/digital_grader.asp@2

http://forums.cgsociety.org/printthread.php?t=127062

So grading is basically color shifting? Shifting the color space of DV to something more akin to 35mm Film?

Ah.. to answer my own question:: Grading is essentially 'film and video color correction'.
http://www.colorist.org/
This looks like a good site...


just a thought, color correction software as complex as it probably is, will probably follow the same path as 3d animation software in its progressively getting easier to use, and dare I say it, one day one push button automatic. What do you say? Still, that doesnt help us today does it?


Qu2: how the hell do you know what to shift it to? DV seems to have more 'yellow' in it? and more 'blue'?
And film is more... balanced? Hell I'm just guessing. But then I guess it depends on the specific color looks you want for the end product, you might WANT more cold bluish looks, and then a hotter look also.

Is there something about getting all the specific color looks that one wants in ones film to match up similarly?

What is a 'grade'? a specific color style?

Color grading isn't exceptionally hard. Broadly speaking, color grading is any change in colors to the original footage that you do for artistic reasons. Color correction is used to refer to fixed poorly exposed or off color images.

The term "color grading" comes from the film process of tweaking an images color rendition. This used to be done in the darkroom (not cheap) but is now usually done via computers.

What a person considers "more film like" is up for debate. It seems many people like a warmer, contrastier image than DV usually provides. The biggest problem I see with people's color grading is poor skin tones. The classic "trying to look like film too much" effect usually comprises boosting to enormous levels the color saturation and the addition of too much yellow.

Okay I think more over colour correction is the better term with a digital grain to give the film more of a film look. Works well... no idea how... that's why I got someone to do it for me (hey I just produce).

What it does is take the cold, raw look of Dv and make it more textured and even like film.