“Deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas, a suspected murderer escapes a manhunt staged by his longtime rival, the Sheriff, by taking refuge on the land where he learned to hunt as a child with his estranged friend who uncovers evidence that he might be the villain they’re looking for after all”

If we were having coffee right now I’d tell you…

The film, is moving along at a good pace, but I’m not rushing it because the new indie film climate involves DIY marketing which calls for a lot of prep work leading up to a festival run.  Now that the film negative is back from the lab, I’m planning for the rest of the post work.  I’ll share the budget through a crowdfunding campaign that will raise the money needed to finish the post production work.  When I started, crowdfunding was not even a thing so I can not put into words what a phenomenal opportunity this is….

Last week I talked about the importance of crowd funding to the national film market in general.  Now I want to talk about how crowdfunding helps to even the playing field for independents:

Making movies is a risky, expensive endeavor and always has been.  The only exception to this in history was during the studio system of the 1940’s and 50’s when the majors (Hollywood studios) cornered the exhibition and distribution markets creating a group of monopolies.  That allowed them to remove all the risk which decreased the quality of the product.  The resulting decline in quality of the movies is no surprise because according to the market system tenets, No competition = No consumer choice and that throws the system out of balance.  The federal government threatened to break that up using anti-trust legislation so the majors acquiesced and divested themselves of their theatre chains.  Since then, the statistics show that 7 out of 10 films fail at the box office, so, were back where we started.  Film production is a risky endeavor for anyone and the goal is always to be profitable, however if the film has a strong theme, then the product has value to society even if it loses money.  And that goes for both Studio or indie productions.

Here’s a difference.  When borrowing money for production, the studios have always used sophisticated finance products tied to their business (not the private individual), but when I finished production, I had $15,000.00 worth of personal credit card bills to pay off.  After that, I spent another several thousand out of pocket for post work.  It was in the neighborhood of 20k overall which I paid off over a long period of time by working a regular job.  That total is not including the “In-Kind” column of the budget which adds another 20k in food, transportation, labor, and equipment rental costs, some of which were donated by family members, classmates and some that was received as part of the film school tuition.  If the studios lose money, then its the business that takes the direct hit, not the individual producer or director because they still get paid.  If I fail, then I take the hit which is obviously not a sustainable model for independent film production.  Now that we have crowdfunding, the risk can be spread among many fans and supporters.  And, even if the film loses money, the supporters of the campaign still get the rewards that they were promised through the kickstarter or indiegogo campaign.

This is just a quick and dirty list but here’s what has yet to be done.

1. Lab Expense –
   1. Telecine – 2k 4:4:4 DCI Print
   2. Color Correction
   3. Digital Dust busting   
2. Sound – Score & Sound Design
   1. Composer
   2. Sound effects editor
   3. Final Sound Mix & Master
3. VFX: Visual Effects artist
   1. Object removal/replacement
   2. Particle creation & animation
   3. Digital Dust Busting
4. Producers/Consultants:
   1. Indiegogo
   2. M&D producer
5. Graphic Designer
   1. Film Titles
   2. Post Cards…maybe posters

After hiring a consultant, it looks like Indiegogo is going to be our best bet.  The campaign will raise the money needed to get to the festival entry stage.  Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more information on the movie and the Indiegogo campaign.

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