Author: Ted Hope

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Truly Free Film

Film Finance Overwhelm

Guest post from Film Specific’s Stacey Parks.

As I’m unwinding from AFM last week, it occurs to me that while many of you are experiencing Distribution Overwhelm, even more of you are experiencing Finance Overwhelm. Why? Because unless you have 100% cash in bank to make your film, what can you do to get your project off the ground?

The way I see it is we’ve entered a time where ‘cobbling together’ different forms of film financing is necessary to make the whole. Sure, private equity (or cash) still plays a role in this new model, but there’s also other methods that need to be explored and implemented to finance your film

Case in point – many filmmakers today are using private equity or cash for development funds, tax incentives and pre-sales for production funds, and crowd funding for finishing funds. Is that too many financing components? Let me put it to you this way….

Ignore a diversified approach to film financing at your peril!

So how and where do you begin on this journey then to cobble together financing for your film?

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Uncategorized

It’s Agreed: Now IS The-Time-To-Invest-In-Film

Or rather, the NYTimes wants everyone to think so, and hell if I am going to be the one to disagree!

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Truly Free Film

Green Indie? It’s A Hard Road (Pt. 2 of 3)

This is the second guest post from producer Miranda Bailey.  Part One ran here yesterday.

A lot of people want to be green on set, but the cost associated with it rises. I had heard that being green saves you money and that makes sense theoretically, but even something as simple as recycling has its costs.

First off you need more trash bins. Secondly, you really need to have someone there to make sure people put the right stuff in the right bin. You would think that a simple sign would work. Recycling goes here, other stuff goes in there right? But sadly, it doesn’t work like that.

I have now tried to “Green” three films. On the last film I produced (with Ted Hope), SUPER, we had

Continue reading “Green Indie? It’s A Hard Road (Pt. 2 of 3)”

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The Next Good Idea

Creativity Should Be Encourage As Much As Literacy

Encouraged, that is… 😉

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Truly Free Film

Can An Indie Film Really Be “Green”? (Pt. 1 of 3)

Guest post from producer Miranda Bailey.

Even though I have been working in indie films for the last 10 years I never thought about the waste my company or my industry was creating and outputting each time we went into production on a movie; that is until my company Ambush Entertainment got involved on a film called The River Why. As with all indie films there are struggles along the way in making any movie and most of them revolve around money. There is never enough. So when I heard the producer of The River Why wanted to make the film “green” right after a discussion concerning the fact that we were actually going to try put the film in the can with out the completion funds in place, I thought everyone who was up for this idea might have gone mad.

What did that even mean? GREEN? And how much was that going to cost?

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These Are Those Things

“I Didn’t Know That”: Great Video, Great Music

The Books make really smart music that is still really great to listen to.  The music alone makes me giddy, but the video seals the deal.  I will never look at golfers the same.


Thanks to whomever sent me this.  Sorry that — in some regards — production turns my mind into swiss cheese.

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Truly Free Film

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: Not Just a Dickens Novel.

What do Filmmakers want from film markets and what they can realistically get?

“Discerning the difference between a film that can actually sell well enough to justify having a third party sales agent and going to markets vs a film that is best served by DIY methods that should be planned and employed BEFORE the film’s first exhibition”

Guest post from Orly Ravid, Founder of The Film Collaborative (TFC)

We get questioned all the time by members and others about which markets should filmmakers attend and which sales agents should they go with. Having unrealistic expectations is dangerous. It sets people up to do nothing on their own but wait for some third party to make their dreams come true.

Continue reading “GREAT EXPECTATIONS: Not Just a Dickens Novel.”