Filmmakers and Financing: Business Plans for Independents (American Film Market Presents)

Have you ever wanted a step-by-step guide on how to finance your independent film without being given a step-by-step guide on how to finance your independent film? If so, this is your book. A bloated, 200 pages too long, set of confusing instructions that has many glaring omissions, but still manages to tell you how to go about financing and building a business plan without actually telling you how to finance and build a business plan. A masterpiece of the round-a-bout. With great hollow sayings like, "Be persistent," "Every investor is different," and "Seeking reality," all multiple times, in different chapters. Ugh. Most of this book can be learned from reading a simple article on how a small film made it big in the Hollywood Reporter, then analyzing from where they started. But instead, this book contains ambiguous chapter after chapter. Promising a step by step and simple approach to creating your business plan later in the book, and then never delivering on it. It's also a reference book to information never given in each chapter. Example; References are made to information never emphasized in previous or upcoming chapters in the current chapter you are reading -- [As discussed in Chapter 6] -- When all that was discussed in Chapter 6 is how the chapter you're currently reading has the answers. It doesn't. It's as screwy as the head-spinners at a Hollywood party and in its <u>Seventh</u> <u>Edition</u>. There are no insights. There are a few bits here and there on what you need to do, which basically boils down to common sense: Research and use the internet. Find an example business plan out there, then adapt it to your project. Grab a phone book and call doctors, rich people, or throw a party. Use a crowd-funding site, or ask your family members for money. Get an Attorney, somehow. Not necessarily in that order! (like everything else in the book.) I read through this believing that it would be the light in the dark, the water at the bottom of the well, the final helpful insight after my long search through book after book and article after article as it promised. But all it managed to do was reminded me that no one in this business knows what they're doing and the ones that do aren't going to help or share it with you. The profound knowledge that is claimed to be had is never gave in the order it should be given out. Nor is it given out at all. It reads like an executives water-cooler joke, bad, unstructured and can be summed up in one quote from page 157: "Too much irrelevant information will only confuse your reader".

It should deserve no star at all. Boring, terribly written. Louise Levison repeats herself on and on, she drags you on... and on, with useless and distracting examples, constantly highlighting oblivious facts by using fear and disproportions. it's just filled up with clichés, and its packed with cynical hard conservatism bias. Basically if you have NO IDEA how a movie is produced, and how financing is put together, you may want to look at this. Still, I suspect you may find this book painfully boring and repetitive, but you may learn a few useless things and be lectured on a few other obvious things such as seeing a random summary for a « business plan ». This book will not help anyone raise funds. I regret spending money and time reading this crap. The book is empty. It's void. It could be summed up in 5 pages. It's a dishonest and deceptive attempt at taking money from readers.

Very detailed and concise book. Easy to follow. I like this book because helps the reader think of a film as a product, not just art. And some may feel like filmmaking is an art form for their creative ideas but filmmaking is a business; unless you don't plan on ever making a dime. It covers how to make a business plan, how to approach investors, what to expect if you are unprepared, it covers the distribution process and how to acquire distribution, how to have a financial plan, advertising and how to market your product (film). There's a sample business plan included at the back of the book. I highly recommend this book for any independent filmmaker, especially if you're a novice. I'm a student filmmaker, and this book has been extremely helpful. Read this book before you spend a cent on filmmaking, so you'll at least know what type of film you want to make (niche) and the best way to maximize your profit from it. Good luck!

Great book for filmmakers to get a glance at everything that involves the distribution of your film!

Another excellent source of info for film financing. Easy to understand and insightful

An informative read that breaks down how to create a business plan to get film funding. Easy to read and follow.

Very informative.

Fantastic reading for anyone interested in film producing. The steps in this book helped me get funding for my debut feature film!!

Although it's only based on the American film market, but it is a great book for new producers who would like to know more about funding and how to write a film business plan for their up and coming films.