easy ways to finance

i have just written my first script but now i need financing. So if you have any good or easy ways to finance
please let me know because it will never get off the ground unless i figure this out.

thanks,
wicker man

The easiest way is to finance it out of your own pocket, every other way is hard

easy and finance hardly ever go hand in hand

You’ll get some really good advice on this board if you give us a little info to go on:

Are you looking for someone other than YOU to finance your movie?
Are you going to be directing this movie?
Is your movie a short?
Is your movie something you see ending up in the theaters? Not what you HOPE will happen, but a realistic goal.

When you say “easy” does that mean you don’t want to have to work too hard to find financing? How much work are you willing to do?

There are many ways to get financing for a movie. Clive mentioned the only “easy” way - and that’s not so easy. If you want someone else to give you money, someone who doesn’t know you and believe in your talent on a personal level, you’re going to need a package that will inspire people to give you money.

Not just the script - but the whole package. That’s IF you plan to do everything. But your first post here doesn’t give much information to go on.

Tell us a little about you and your goals.

The easy way to get your film financed (an attempt to explain a complex issue in as few words as possible)

Step One - Understand that film making is a business and operates on the same rules. Investors want the largest ROI (Return on Investment), with the smallest amount of risk.

As film making is high risk for investors the easiest way to secure funding is to find a way of removing or reducing that risk.

Step Two - Realise who your customers and what they want, then give it to them

Film makers sell to distribution companies, they are our customers. Each distribution company has a set of criteria that a film has meet in order for them to even consider it. These criteria vary from company to company, but the bottom line is that each of them is looking for product that is easy for them to sell to the public via cinemas, TV stations worldwide and DVD's. So step two is really identifying which companies sell the kind of film you intend to make and finding out what their basic requirements are. (For example - Must have a recognised name actor in the film, must be shot on 35mm, Super 16mm or HD, must have all legal issues clearly covered by existing contracts etc. etc)

Step Three - Secure Pre-Production sales

Pull together a pitch for your film that will demonstrate to your target distribution company that they would be insane not agree to buy your film BEFORE you make it. The key elements of that pitch are:

a) A killer script with an orginal concept within an easyly understandible genre (A new twist on films they've done good business on)
b) Letters of agreement from box office magnet actors saying that they can't wait to make this film (For example Jude Law wants to take the lead)
c) A producer and directorial team that have already made money on other feature films or in some other way proved that they are hot (Like winning the Palm D'Or at Cannes with their low budget flick)


Step Four - Having secured pre-sales, by getting "insert name of hot actor/actress" to agree to do your fantastic script, directed by whoever is hot and produced by someone who has already made the industry money, you now go back to the investor and say "We've secured a five million dollar pre-sale on this film with Columbia, we need three million to make it, it's being directed by X and Y is staring in it, do you want in?"
Having reduced their risk to the lowest possible and shown them that the film can do business, you will then have no problem financing your film.

Let me pull this together in even fewer words - The easiest way to get your film funded is to

1) Have studied the film industry and know who the key distributors are and what they want
2) Be known by those distributors as a cash cow by your previous sucess
3) Have a great script that will attract major league talent
4) Have already established your reputation as the kind of director that kind of talent wants to work with

Now, having digested all that you will probably realise that the reason that no one has said "Hey all you have to do finance your film is X," is because there is no easy answer, which is where I came in.

As this is your first film script and you've obviously not made a film before you won't have any of the things that you need to make this process easy, what youa hve is a script that you believe is solid gold, which it maybe. At this point the easist way for you to get your film produced is to find a up and coming film director who has already won awards for his/her short films and is looking to make their first feature. They at least will be open to your script in a way that the mainstream industry won't be.

However, before you even do that I've one more piece of bad news. You say this is your first script, well there is a 99.98% chance that not only does it suck, but also that you've made loads and loads of really basic mistakes that a more experience writer wouldn't have. Of course it could be solid gold, but chances are it isn't.

So, I would suggest that before you try to raise money to make the film you invest some time in getting some feedback on your script from more experienced writers. If you put it front of someone who has already made some films and they say "Man, this is solid gold" then you can worry about finding the money.

you could always flirt outrageously with homosexual thespians.
worked for me.