Financing independent films

The film market has two sides of the coin. One side of the coin is for the high budgets movies, which have the support of the big film studios from the production until the distribution of the product. For that reason the success at the box office, or at least the recovery of the production budget, is guaranteed. On the other side of the coin is the market of independent filmmakers who have to struggle for the exhibition of their product in the theaters to try to recover the investment on the production process. The path for the independent filmmaker it is not easy because the economic resources are limited and there are a lot of expenses involve in the production, postproduction and distribution.

The independence film’s financial support has been found by crowdfunding, an important option to get money for the movie. Another excellent option is to get incentives and subsidies from different organizations, but in many cases this money is not enough. To find and investor that will receive a percentage of the movie profits is one of the most popular choices because it represents a low risk. Actually, there is a trend in the last years, to have more support from private investors than from bank loans because they offer better rates depending on the deal.

A new opportunity for filmmakers is now available and makes the process of finding investors easier. It is Passion First Funding Portal, an online film financing company, announced in January at The Sundance Film Festival. Only accredited investors can participate, making it a safer for the producers as all the copyrights are protected.

For all the distribution procedure the ideal scenario is to find the support of a Film Festival and sponsors who help with merchandising material.  The objective is to reduce the costs as much as possible and promote the movie using free resources such as social media, free press and worth of mouth.  Today, the film market is competitive, so if the producers do not have their own resources to make the film, there are many possibilities to finance the project, especially when the quality of the movie is excellent.