tips on raising money for a short

J

juneau

New member
okay so heres the deal. I'm a highschool student over at the visual and performing arts film program in Culver City. We need to raise 15k-20k for our fall 16mm production. Every year the money is raised by students but this year the legends (seniors) have gone off to college, leaving us young-blood kind of unprepared.



so can anyone share some tips on how to raise money for a short?

wouldnt going to investors (other than parents) be a problem because they wouldnt gain there money back?
 
juneau,
You are right about investors. An investor is someone who provides funding expecting a return on their investment. A high school short film isn't going to provide that. Now, you might see if you could get a grant from an Arts organization in your community. Is there a museum of fine arts or something like that? Talk to someone in public relations there and ask them for suggestions. You might also try your school's PTA and see if they will chip in. Would the company who sells you the film be willing to donate it or at least give you a steep discount? One way to earn some money would be to produce a premiere for your movie. Perhaps a parent would front you the money for the cost of it which would be repaid from the ticket sales. You could offer a pre-premiere dinner party and sell tickets for $20 each. You could probably keep your costs under $10 each....maybe less if you can get donations for the dinner.

Another thing to do is to get your budget down. Why is your budget so high? Are you buying equipment or something like that? Are you planning to pay your talent?
 
timely said:
juneau,
You are right about investors. An investor is someone who provides funding expecting a return on their investment. A high school short film isn't going to provide that. Now, you might see if you could get a grant from an Arts organization in your community. Is there a museum of fine arts or something like that? Talk to someone in public relations there and ask them for suggestions. You might also try your school's PTA and see if they will chip in. Would the company who sells you the film be willing to donate it or at least give you a steep discount? One way to earn some money would be to produce a premiere for your movie. Perhaps a parent would front you the money for the cost of it which would be repaid from the ticket sales. You could offer a pre-premiere dinner party and sell tickets for $20 each. You could probably keep your costs under $10 each....maybe less if you can get donations for the dinner.

Another thing to do is to get your budget down. Why is your budget so high? Are you buying equipment or something like that? Are you planning to pay your talent?
Click to expand...

well the films 10 minutes so figure 1000 a minute and the extra five we usually save for the year after or buy a computer or something

thanks for the advice im gonna look into those things
 
Thats kinda expensive for a short. Crap i've known freaking features that were freaking cheaper to make than that. :D
 
That's way too much for a student film.

what do you plan on spending all the money on?
 
this is a pretty late response but I agree with everyone else on this. there is no way that you need that much money for a high school student film that is only gona be 10 minutes long. instead of buying equipment, i suggest you rent it from a local production company, companies like that are very fond of making money that way. I think you should check your budget and actually figure out a close amount of what this is going to cost you. to save money, go to your drama department instead of paying for talent.
 
As far as computers go all you need is a Mac laptop and possibly a external harddrive. If you can get that with either Final Cut Pro or iMovie, then worry about the budget.

Also I suggest watching Robert Rodriguez's 10 minute film Schools, and that'll hopefully give you some ideas. And also his book Rebel Without a Crew. I pretty much reccomend that to anyone who asks for advice about film making 'cuase he's an excellent dude to research 'cause he is a fucking excellent low budget film maker.
 
The less you can spend the better. If you've got classmates that are willing to become cast and crew that cuts down costs tremendously. Also begging and borrowing props is always good, it’s amazing what you can get if you ask politely or offer people a small role in your flick (another way to do casting for the smaller roles), then it save you even more cash. If you write the screenplay with locations you KNOW you can get easy permission to film on the cheap or even for free that saves even, more cash. Costuming can be done the say way, along with frequent visits to 2nd Hand Stores. Excellent costumes for a low price, rather then paying full retail.

With all those savings, that leaves at least a grand or two off the budget, so happy filming.
 
juneau said:
okay so heres the deal. I'm a highschool student over at the visual and performing arts film program in Culver City. We need to raise 15k-20k for our fall 16mm production. Every year the money is raised by students but this year the legends (seniors) have gone off to college, leaving us young-blood kind of unprepared.



so can anyone share some tips on how to raise money for a short?

wouldnt going to investors (other than parents) be a problem because they wouldnt gain there money back?
Click to expand...

i just stumbled upon this post and just got finished with producing another project from the same program. this is what happened:

pre-production started late, december of 08.. as of then we had about $3000 left over from last year. a $10000 grant came in within a couple weeks from a local production company. then the class of 30 each pitched in $200 each (this is a really good way to raise money, if you put together a crew who is interested in learning to shoot film have everyone pitch in money. just with the students alone we raised $6000.

during fundraising the script was going through its revisions, casting took place, deadlines were made, read-throughs took place, rehearsals (tech & cast), letterheads went out for donations, and among others i started making relationships with different vendors. Vendors are key when it comes to filmmaking, and i dont think they get the respect or appreciation they deserve from most productions. we got some incredible deals and they were sympathetic to damaged equipment, and by sympathetic i mean we didn't have to pay a single cent for a couple hundred dollars worth of damage. heres a rough breakdown of the entire production:

Camera Package (Ari SR3) $1600
18 Rolls of 400 ft Kodak 7229 Expression (half donated by kodak): $1300
Dolly: $120
Grip/Lighting: $1600
Sound: $450
Set (built and shipped for free by a friends dad who works at disney, connections are everything!): $0
Set Decoration & Wardrobe: $200
5 HD Cam Tapes: $150
Processing (again, connections are everything!): $0
Supervised Telecine to HD Cam & Captured to Hard drive: $2300
Non Union Actors: $0
Petty Cash: $200
Location & Permits (used the school for our set): $0

im sure i left some things out but in total we spent a little over $10000 for our film.

right now we're still in post. a final cut is almost finished and we're curretnly preparing for foley, adr, and fx. we've been holding private screenings of the rough cut at different schools and friends houses..the audiences input is helping us out tremendously. we basically ask everyone what they thought, what they didn't like, what should be fixed, and have been taking notes of their thoughts which really pays off when you get back to the editing room.

anyways just thought id talk about the film in case anyone had any questions and give whoever motivation. anythings possible if u put ur mind to it!!! :]
 
I am curious as to what you or your school does with the movies that are produced each year for such high budgets.
 
using friends as cast

using friends as cast

using friends as cast is probably one of the biggest mistakes i see. get someone from the acting department at your school or even see if some pros are interested in working with you. don't get your best bud to over act in your film. start now thinking about getting talent to work with that knows what they are doing. sound and acting are the two big mistakes made on filmschool films. not all but many.
 
hi..................

My suggestion is to sell something like T-shirts to raise money. There are a bunch of sites you can send designs too and they'll put them on shirts for you. I don't know how close that'll get you to your budget mark (gosh...) but it might help.
That's way too much for a student film.
what do you plan on spending all the money on?
It is really blowing my mind that student films are being made with these budgets.
I suggest watching Robert Rodriguez's 10 minute film Schools, and that'll hopefully give you some ideas. And also his book Rebel Without a Crew. I pretty much reccomend that to anyone who asks for advice about film making 'cuase he's an excellent dude to research 'cause he is a fucking excellent low budget film maker.


tnkx
 
Interesting question. There happens to be an article, chock full of tips, about this subject in the September '08 Edition of StudentFilmmakers Magazine. It's called:

7 Sources of Money for Your Short Films and Videos
Fundraising Suggestions and Tips for Student Films
 
Just remember, when fund raising, you can fall into a legal trap of selling ownership of your film. Even if you are selling t-shirts or even a hot dog stand (which make a lot of money in the right location 2-3grand a day).

Short films hardly ever make any money, so this is never really a concern. But good to keep in mind.
 
Best bets:

-Approach the film like a business. Create a business plan that includes the script breakdown, a line-item budget, an ideal production schedule, signed contracts from interested talent. Get the business aspects in line first. If you are going to people, let them know that they are not "investors" as much as they are "contributers." Let them know they won't see they're money back up front -- but see if they are willing to donate. It is a high school film. Be realistic, but be mature, and people will appreciate that. Remember, to anybody putting money into a movie, film is more than a vision and and artform -- it is the bottom line, but it's also prestige.

-Get in touch with the graduated seniors. How did they do it in the past? Definitely contact any alumni of the program and see if they would be willing to donate money to the project. Play on people's emotions and experiences with the program. If it did them well, they will want to see it continue. I'm out of college now, but I still give money to my high school drama department because it had such a profound impact on me.

-If you are located in Culver City, then there is no reason that you can not contact production and rental houses in the area. There are tons of them. Let them know that you would like to borrow equipment, give the houses a credit. Go to the smaller ones, and any that may have done business with the school in the past. Use your contacts.
 
Add up all the money you spent on camera, film, telecine process. You could get a good HD camera for less than than, and save money and time, and get screen quality.
 
HD is not comparable to film unless you are getting a high end HD camera, which comes closest, but will cost you 2K a day to rent.
 
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