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Here’s an overview of how five independent films were funded, showcasing various strategies filmmakers used to bring their projects to life:

 

"The Blair Witch Project" (1999)
This iconic horror film was financed through a combination of personal contributions and support from family and friends. The filmmakers worked with an extremely low budget of about $60,000, which they used for handheld cameras, practical effects, and marketing. Its grassroots funding approach paid off, as it grossed over $248 million worldwide, proving the potential of microbudget films with innovative concepts. 

 

"Veronica Mars" (2014)
After being dropped by its network, the team behind Veronica Mars turned to Kickstarter, raising over $5.7 million from passionate fans in just 30 days. This demonstrated the power of crowdfunding for projects with strong existing fan bases. It was a milestone in showing how filmmakers could leverage their audiences to directly finance films

 

"Wish I Was Here" (2014)
Actor-director Zach Braff used Kickstarter to fund this film, raising over $3 million. Fans of his previous work (Scrubs and Garden State) eagerly supported his vision. By offering creative perks like set visits and special credits, Braff engaged contributors and secured financing while retaining creative control​/ 

 

"Super Troopers 2" (2018)
The sequel to the cult classic Super Troopers raised over $4.5 million via Indiegogo. The Broken Lizard comedy team tapped into their fan base, offering rewards like early screenings and roles as extras to backers. Their approach showcased how humor and strong community connections could drive significant funding​

 

"Anomalisa" (2015)
This critically acclaimed stop-motion animation directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson raised $406,237 on Kickstarter. Despite being a niche project, its distinct artistic vision attracted backers. The filmmakers used the funds to maintain the painstakingly detailed animation process and deliver a visually stunning final product

 

We write up as many interviews as we can, so we can all learn from them. Some of our top articles include: 

We offer the best tools, documents and templates in the industry, to help you craft your OFFER, but a filmmaker still has to pave their own "golden road" to find the pot of gold. We believe our job is to help you find the most direct path AND, more importantly, to make sure you have an extremely compelling case that makes people want to invest with you when you do find them.

 

Too many filmmakers think it's hard to find investors. It isn't. They find FilmProposals almost every day - because we attract them AND because we have rock solid investments (as much as a film can be) for them to review. When we talk to investors, we can ramble off how the financing came to be for at least five other similar films.

 

This is totally made up, but something like, "Yes, Movie X started with 30% tax incentives from being filmed in Louisiana, 10% was raised in back end talent agreements and in kind donations, then the first in investors put up the next 30% for production and some of post, they got gap financing for another 10%, used crowdfunding for 20% and found additional private investors for the last 10%. They also used product placement to reduce some costs and partnered with brands in alignment to get low cost/free marketing. The initial investors recouped 150% of their investment and the second wave made their money back." 

If you don't know the financing story of at least 5 films, you haven't done your homework. If a filmmaker is having trouble finding financing, it's because they don't have an investment. And it's 100% certain that if you don't have an investment, you won't have investors. You've got to give people something in which to invest. A script is not an investment vehicle.  Who do I make that check out to? "Working Title"? "Logline"? 

 

Your road will look different than 10 other filmmaker's. But learning from everyone else's roads is how you find financing. It is not by emailing a stranger this: 

 

"I have ready script, casting done,costings, location  marked, Now i need a investors who can work along with us"

Yes, that's one of thousands of emails we get, many of which are responses to these very newsletters. You can send 2 million of those emails to strangers and you won't be a single step closer to making your film. If anything, you're moving further away from financing, because you are advertising to the industry you are inexperienced, uneducated and frankly, too lazy to learn about financing - no one is giving money to a person who won't bother to learn about money. 

If Martin Scorsese, Matthew McConaughey and Spike Lee are telling you how hard it was for them to find financing for their movies, then that should tell you financing a film is serious business and requires a filmmaker willing to take it seriously.  

Learn from people who HAVE made their movies and then use what you learn and make it your own. 

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- Barry 

 

"Financial Film Package Invaluable and Well Worth the Money!!" 

I've made short films before, but this is my first feature, and the first film I've tried raising money for. This template, actually the whole package, has been invaluable and well worth the money I spent on it. So much information is packed into what I got that I'm almost dizzy from it all.