It will depend a lot on who you work with and what they're looking for; I read a friend's business plan for his movie (which was funded and shot a few years ago) and he had a full market analysis and the like. On the other hand, I believe that 'Evil Dead' was funded by taking a super-8 short version of the movie around and showing it to dentists.

You're right, fjsmith.

What other filmmakers have done doesn't matter to the
investors. You'll hear lots of stories - lots of success
stories - because those rare examples end up in financing
legend. Filmmakers talk about the rare examples because
it gives them hope. Hope that they can achieve the same
results.

Real investors don't care.

They know that projections are inflated to make the prospectus
look good.? They want to know how much you have in
personally, how much you've raised so far, how many other
investors are already in the boat, and WHEN they're going
to get their money back.? These are businessmen, not artists.
? Of all the money people I've dealt with so far, not ONE of
them has asked for the script, or even cares, beyond the
two-sentence synopsis, what the film is about.? They don't
care what camera you're using or how talented the people
involved are - outside of the actors. They care about actors
and numbers.

Because, seriously, when was the last time you decided what
film to pay to see based on what camera it was shot with?
Or who the gaffer was. How many times in the last year did
you chose a movie based on who shot it? Nothing else - just
who the DP was.

Investors don't care. You can put all that into your business
plan, but no one will care. They want to know who is going
to star in it and when they will get their money back.

Do you have a professional line-item budget?
Do you have any distributors interested?
Do you have a sales agent or a producers rep?
Does the director and producer have a strong track
record of completing movies that turned a profit?

If you are missing even one of these - your job is going
to be really tough.

=============================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

well certified instigator. i am trying to find distribution information and i am having a hard time trying to find that. and the ones they want a finished film or the terms are not to our advantage. i have also been told that it is better to just finish the film and then go to film festivals and shop it around. so when i come to the part in my business plan about distribution deals already in place i am going to tell investors the truth, and that is that very rarely an independent filmmaker is going to get a distribution deal without finishing the movie first.
how do i go about finding a sales agent or a producer's rep? as a matter of fact i don't even know what their functions are. i told you i don't know about the film industry.

This is a good point; distribution is the single biggest problem for most movies I've worked on or which have been made by people I know. Many of them were at least decent movies, but never got much distribution outside of film festivals. Others weren't very good at all, but they had a hook (typically nudity and/or at least B-level name actors) that got them a release that paid back the budget.

So if I was being asked to fund a movie, my first question would be how it would be distributed after it was made. Because that's how I'm going to get my money back in the end, if I ever do.

that's is the thing. we have everything in place. my partner has worked with a lot of b list celebrities that are well known and he has told them about the project and they would be interested in doing it. we don't want to get caught up in a distribution deal right now or even tell an investor our intentions becuase after the film is made we might decide to go another avenue and realistically just because you have a good script doesn't mean that the movie is going to be any good. and if we shop around the script for distributors they might offer us some terms that do not benefit us whereas if we actually make the movie and distributors really like it then we would have the power to negotiate a little bit more.

That's the thing - you don't have everything in place.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic - I really do believe in the
Joubert quote in my signature - but you have a long way to go
before you can generate a business plan that will interest
investors.

You're a finance major so you know better than most of us what
attracts investors. Experience and a track record. Whether
opening a restaurant, setting up an accounting firm or starting
up a video store investors look for people with experience and a
track record. But you know this.

I asked four questions - four questions any legit, experienced,
qualified investor is going to ask. You answered two of them. And
unfortunately both were (essentially) no.

That's going to make your job harder. I hope the answer to the
other two is a very strong yes. If not it just gets harder.

I understand that you don't want to get caught up in the
distribution deal right now. In my experience, that's not a good
business practice to take. Without distribution your movie will
not make any money. That's kind of like telling an investor in your
restaurant that you don't want to get caught up in where your
restaurant is located - you just want the money because you
love food and have a great cook lined up.

Remember that your competition also has B-list actors, a great
script, a talented director, DP and gaffer. None of those things
is unique. And we can all name two dozen movies made with B-list
actors, a great script, and talented director, DP and gaffer,
that lost money.

You asked for some truthful information about what film investors
really look for. This is as truthful as I can be - based on my
experience seeking investors.

Investors want name actors.
Investors want a professional line-item budget.
Investors want a director or producer with a strong track record.
Investors want a distribution plan.

Your business plan should emphasize those aspects.

And just to be clear - I'm not saying you can't find investors if
you don't have all of those things. Many movies have been made
and earned a profit without any of them. But the more you have,
the easier it is to attract investors.

=============================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

certified i think you have mistaken me or maybe i worded my response to distribution wrong. right now it is very hard to get a distribution deal with just a script. we do have different strategies about how we are going to go the distribution route. what i mean to say is that i don't want to set up distribution now that is unfavorable to our company and our investors before we have the movie made. when the movie is made , and correct me if i am wrong, is when distributors start to show more interests in a film. and that is when we can kind of sift through distribution companies that might try to take advantage of us first timers. i think this is why my business partner approached me with this business idea. he is the creative side and i look at everything from a financial point of view. i hear all of these independent filmmakers talking about that they want to make movies and they don't care if the first few movies the make they don't profit from them. just as long as they get their foot in the door. well eehh i think that is the wrong mentality to have. why would i want to do all of this hard work just to get my foot in the door and let others make money off of me. that's why i am going into business for myself in the first place right?

also certified the one of the four things that you required us to have was a sales rep. now i see that those are generally easy to acquire. from my understanding you can actually pay them a flat fee that if you want to you can work into the budget.

what do you mean fail? is it that the film bombs at the box office? producers only make enough to recoup the intial investment? or is it that the producer's loose all of the investor's money? because more and more i see that everyone in this business has a different meaning of failed.

-we generally know what route we are going to use as far as distributiion in concerned
-we have name actors in mind(i might call them b-list because they are not in the realm of brad bitt, samuel l. jackson, tommy lee jones, but they are well known)
-the budget (that was the easiest of all believe it or not)
-the director is just starting out on his own projects, but he does have his name on other projects (not necessarily directing), but no one starts out at the top

i enjoy this discussion with you. i am a curious sort. i like to ask questions and you are the first person that has given me the answers that i seek. not only that you in turn make me ask other questions that i would not have even thought of.

As you post more, you give out little bits of information that
makes a big difference. My first comments were based on not very
much information.

You have name talent, a professionally done line-item budget and a
distribution plan - that's what investors want to see. I would
suggest you emphasize that and not the DP and gaffer. Or even the
script. Sure, you need to tell them the genre and the log line,
but very few people can even understand a script and every,
single filmmaker on earth thinks they have a great script so I
wouldn't push that in the business plan.

You're the business end of this and you're a finance major so you
know better than any of us creative types what people who invest
want to see. Is it a great script? Or a great plan to get the movie
to paying people?

quote:

---

Originally posted by fjsmith81
what do you mean fail? is it that the film bombs at the box office? producers only make enough to recoup the intial investment? or is it that the producer's loose all of the investor's money? because more and more i see that everyone in this business has a different meaning of failed.

---

By fail, I mean a movie that didn't return a profit to the investors.

While you were majoring in finance, what did you learn about
what investors in high-risk projects look for?

=============================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

as a finance major i am shocked that most investors do not want to invest in film. sure the film industry is risky, but there are many different streams of returning an intial investment and a profit. in my observation most investors like to invest in dot-coms, stocks, and the housing market. those investments generally have one of very few ways that an investor may recoup its initial investment or even turn a profit. since most investors are entreprenuers and entreprenuers are defined as risk takers one would assume that these investors would take on an investment that has many different avenues of recoupment.
what i really think is that when it comes to the film industry investors are not aware of certain details. a film investment is not like a traditional investment. like the general public i think that they assume that a film generally costs millions (more than 50) to make and when an independent filmmaker says that i can do that with just one or two million they assume that the filmmaker is lying and can't do it or that the movie won't be that good and that it will fail. they also assume that a failed investment would mean failing at the box office. and that is not the case because in my research i have seen that some movies that fail in the box office return a hefty profit to their investors and movies that do very well at the box office they have so much debt to pay back.
i think as a producer i would have to educate potential investors on some of these things. truthfully before i started this business i had a strictly finance mentality. i was a little leary about doing this, but when i started to do the research i said to myself, shit why don't more people want to invest in film. i still do understand why it can be leary because you have to trust someone with your money, especially if you do not know about the industry, but a good producer or filmmaking team would let you know upfront that you will be kept up to date on everything and encourage you to be apart of the whole process.