How Indie/Low-Budget Films Get Financed

So you’re an aspiring film director and you’re ready to make your first movie. You’ve got the idea, you’ve got the motivation, but you’re still missing just one thing: money. So, how can you get your film financed? There are quite a few ways to get a film funded, but here are three of them:

1. Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding involves getting a lot of people to donate to the project, whether that be through a few large donations, many small donations, or a combination of the two. There are popular crowdfunding sites that include places like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. According to Samantha Hurst of Crowdfundinsider.com, the 2013 Veronica Mars Movie Project raised more than five and half million dollars from over 90,000 donors on Kickstarter.

2. Equity

Another strategy for raising money for a film is to give up equity to investors in return for financing. By giving up equity, you will not be receiving all of the profits that the film brings in. Cassian Elwes, a film producer, discusses some of the ways that a film can get financed in nofilmschoo.com. When discussing equity, Elwes stated that an equity investor would not be likely to contribute a really large amount of money to the movie.

3. Go Into Debt

Going into debt is certainly the riskiest option when choosing how to fund a film. Elwes says that if you are able to sell the right to distribute before the completion of the movie, a bank will lend you the money at a low interest. However, if you do not have the option of selling the right to distribute, then you may have to resort to maxing out credit cards. While this is extremely risky financially, there have been successful films that raised money by maxing out credit cards. One example is Kevin Smith’s movie Clerks. According to Daniel Wesley of Creditloan.com, Smith had to put $25,000 on a credit card in order to make the movie. Wesley also notes that Robert Rodriguez’s movie El Mariachi needed to raise $7,000. In order to raise the money, Rodriguez not only used credit cards, but also underwent experimental drug testing in order to help raise the money.

While these are three common ways that indie and low-budget films get financed, these are not the only ways. Some people are more willing to go to extremes in order to fund their films, like maxing out credit cards and undergoing experimental drug testing similar to Rodriguez. However there are certainly less risky ways in which money can be raised. Giving up equity is definitely a safe way to go about it, but you do lose a share of the profits the movie makes. Crowdfunding is likely the best way in order to get a film financed, since there is no risk for the filmmaker, and no equity is lost.