Hello guys, I wanted to start this new thread as a general discussion, hence in the lobby section too. I assume most of you guys are aspiring indie filmmakers and rather than bringing negativity in the place, the aim of this thread was rather to encourage discussion towards insights into financing. It is after all, the filmmaking topic that I find hardest to tackle.
Speaking of filmmaking budgets, I'd like to share the experience I had if I may, it's by far the experience I know best, and my hope is that this thread is at least relevant to other people's situations too.
I have been a film student, have made several short films both before and part of the film degree, and finally trying to break in with my most ambitious short film as of yet, also being the first that I took as an entirely conscious process - basically slowing down all the main three stages, pre-production, production, and post. It was so so that I KNOW I have nailed every single detail down to the way I wanted it to be. It did come at a cost though, regardless of the fact that it may not seem like much to some.
Although this was written with budget in mind, expecting it to cost around 400 Euros to produce (or 450 USD), it ended up costing 1000 euros (1100 USD) instead. Now it's festival circuit time AND / OR online release, both of which I expect to use a budget of 1000 euros for, or 1500-2000 if IT GOES BOTH WAYS (pun intended, that's the title of the film).
I feel I'd waste money on festivals which may reject the film on the basis of too many factors that might or might not even have anything to do with the quality of my film - I have read too many things about how these festivals go so I'll allow myself a healthy amount of skepticism. But this is kind of irrelevant anyway since what matters here is of course, budget management.
Maybe worth mentioning that this was all out of my pocket, since I kind of feel that it is the only serious way to produce high quality work in a personal style, not letting go of a said personal vision. I did also have the opposite experience, of people invoved wanting to take over certain creative aspects, because of feeling entitled through said investments in the project.
How do you guys tackle this frustrating start, careers wise? I'm sure there's at least a few out there who are downright stubborn like me and prefer to make their own films and hope for the best rather than work for others, for different reasons. But not to say it's all disappointments though, the upside is that I have also managed to invest around 3000 EUR in great filmmaking equipment that I'm very happy to say that I now actually own and won't have to rent in the future. All falling under the philosophy that I'll use this equipment to make money on the side too (cinematography probably being the only area I'd be satisfied make money with doing it for others). But this equipment is far from something actually useable in a production enviroment as of this point, I still need to go 6000-7000 in investments for that. It's only usable on personal projects, where I know how to tackle the needs by DIY-ing the crap out of my productions.
I guess another question would be, am I right in thinking that in order to get on high grounds for investors to take one seriously as a director, one would need to somehow invest as much as possible of their own money to build up that killer portfolio beforehand?
To put things into perspective regarding the title by exemplifying through contrast, to see where I'm kind of coming from, a programmer needs to only invest their time and (not much) money in a computer to code in, after which they start earning like mad, whereas us the insane people who chose filmmaking instead need to invest the same amount of time but also so much money that we don't even make in the first place because, well, what jobs do we generally manage to get? I'm kind of betting it's bartending or something along these lines. I can't seem to figure things out financially regarding this. And time kind of goes by, stuck in this limbo kind of situation.
Any constructive criticism, both in terms of objective approaches that could benefit us all and/or maybe some that applies to my situation specifically?
(Btw, English isn't my first language, I'm sorry if some things may have sounded odd so I kindly ask you to look past that).
Speaking of filmmaking budgets, I'd like to share the experience I had if I may, it's by far the experience I know best, and my hope is that this thread is at least relevant to other people's situations too.
I have been a film student, have made several short films both before and part of the film degree, and finally trying to break in with my most ambitious short film as of yet, also being the first that I took as an entirely conscious process - basically slowing down all the main three stages, pre-production, production, and post. It was so so that I KNOW I have nailed every single detail down to the way I wanted it to be. It did come at a cost though, regardless of the fact that it may not seem like much to some.
Although this was written with budget in mind, expecting it to cost around 400 Euros to produce (or 450 USD), it ended up costing 1000 euros (1100 USD) instead. Now it's festival circuit time AND / OR online release, both of which I expect to use a budget of 1000 euros for, or 1500-2000 if IT GOES BOTH WAYS (pun intended, that's the title of the film).
I feel I'd waste money on festivals which may reject the film on the basis of too many factors that might or might not even have anything to do with the quality of my film - I have read too many things about how these festivals go so I'll allow myself a healthy amount of skepticism. But this is kind of irrelevant anyway since what matters here is of course, budget management.
Maybe worth mentioning that this was all out of my pocket, since I kind of feel that it is the only serious way to produce high quality work in a personal style, not letting go of a said personal vision. I did also have the opposite experience, of people invoved wanting to take over certain creative aspects, because of feeling entitled through said investments in the project.
How do you guys tackle this frustrating start, careers wise? I'm sure there's at least a few out there who are downright stubborn like me and prefer to make their own films and hope for the best rather than work for others, for different reasons. But not to say it's all disappointments though, the upside is that I have also managed to invest around 3000 EUR in great filmmaking equipment that I'm very happy to say that I now actually own and won't have to rent in the future. All falling under the philosophy that I'll use this equipment to make money on the side too (cinematography probably being the only area I'd be satisfied make money with doing it for others). But this equipment is far from something actually useable in a production enviroment as of this point, I still need to go 6000-7000 in investments for that. It's only usable on personal projects, where I know how to tackle the needs by DIY-ing the crap out of my productions.
I guess another question would be, am I right in thinking that in order to get on high grounds for investors to take one seriously as a director, one would need to somehow invest as much as possible of their own money to build up that killer portfolio beforehand?
To put things into perspective regarding the title by exemplifying through contrast, to see where I'm kind of coming from, a programmer needs to only invest their time and (not much) money in a computer to code in, after which they start earning like mad, whereas us the insane people who chose filmmaking instead need to invest the same amount of time but also so much money that we don't even make in the first place because, well, what jobs do we generally manage to get? I'm kind of betting it's bartending or something along these lines. I can't seem to figure things out financially regarding this. And time kind of goes by, stuck in this limbo kind of situation.
Any constructive criticism, both in terms of objective approaches that could benefit us all and/or maybe some that applies to my situation specifically?
(Btw, English isn't my first language, I'm sorry if some things may have sounded odd so I kindly ask you to look past that).
