Hi ,
One of the best ways to learn about film financing, and how others overcame their funding issues, is to learn from those who have succeeded. Not only do these lessons show us the pathways to success, they help us see funding affects every film.
How Wes Anderson Made The Royal Tenenbaums
What were Gene Hackman's hesitations in taking the role?
“Yeah: no money. He’s been doing movies for a long time, and he didn’t want to work sixty days on a movie. I don’t know the last time he had done a movie where he had to be there for the whole movie and the money was not good. There was no money. There were too many movie stars, and there was no way to pay. You can’t pay a million dollars to each actor if you’ve got nine movie stars or whatever it is — that’s half the budget of the movie. I mean, nobody’s going to fund it anymore, so that
means it’s scale.”
(Source: vulture.com)
Film Financing Lessons - What Can You Learn?
When Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith, Lee Daniels, Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron and a dozen others are ALL saying they struggled with financing their films, we realize financing it is an integral part of filmmaking. Funding is as much a part of making a film as a camera or script is.
We see too many filmmakers think the hurdle is having access to investors. Do you really think the people mentioned above didn't have access to financiers? Of course they did - but the equation is much more complicated than just getting yourself in front of the right people. It's about having the right investment and about making the right comprises to create your MVP (minimum viable product).
Some filmmakers also think that if they can just fund their first film, then the challenge goes away. That's like thinking you only need a camera or script for your first film and then you won't need them again. Of course you need them for every film. The goal is to better at using them going forward - not eliminate them.
