Film Making

Jordan97

Jordan97

Jordan97

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I suppose this should go here :p

Ok, so I'm going to make a short film, but we have a very strict budget and not exactly excellent equipment.

How would I go about getting a sponsor for this? Should I be looking to get a sponsor at all?

Would a local cinema screen it if they liked it?

How could I spread the word and get people talking about it? :D
 
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In this day and age, with the ability for people to easily make films, I think it's going to be difficult to get somebody to fund it for you. That said, perhaps somebody will if you somehow work their business into it, or just know an investor who believes in you and will put up the cash.

A local cinema is unlikely to screen your short unless they have some kind of film festival on, or you just pay to have it screened.

Generally if you want to make a film, you do whatever you can to get it funded and made, then enter it into as many film festivals as you can. It's the festivals that get it noticed, then somebody may pick it up.
 
Hmm, okay, thanks. Do you know where abouts I could find out about film festivals. Google doesn't show any in my area :(

Would it be a good idea to put it on YouTube?
 
Well speaking from experience of a limited budget. The best solution to that is people power. So I Hope you have lots of friends how know lots of people. If you can get people interested and involved in your project, they are more likely to try and help out. e.g. if you have some friend who knows someone who can get you a certain prop, or into a certain location ect.

What sort of equipment do you have? It doesnt need to be amazing, but if you can get most of it without having to pay out lots for rental/buying stuff. It leaves you with a bit extra for props and stuff.

Cant say I can give much advice on getting it sponsored. Depending on the subject matter see if there is a local arts council or something like that?

And your best bet for getting it screened is Film Festivals. Unless its a very small local cinema, it is normally close to impossible to get something in there.

As for spreading the word, the easiest is to just use whatever social networking your already use. But just keep posting info and photos from and of the different shoots you do. People like photos ;)

Not sure if this will be useful to you. But for my final year project at college myself and a friend made a WW2 based short film. Guess it sounds cliched :P But anyway we did it with whatever money we had, which wasnt much. But we knew the main actor, knew an acting teacher who told us about one of her young students who would be good for the role. We got in contact with the local war reenactment group for advice and all the equipment for free. and it continued like that, just getting more and more people on board and interested. We kept a blog - which may be a bit useful to you, who knows ;)

http://warfilmproject.wordpress.com/
https://vimeo.com/35545896
 
Wow, thanks RaV!

I know quite a few people, that know thousands of people, haha!

Did you have links to the reenactment group, or did they just give you the stuff?

The equipment we have:

- Half decent camera

...

That's it :D
 
No real links to them to start with. But my friend had done another war based 3minute short as an earlier college project. One of the local war reenactment guys saw this when my friend posted it on some online forum, he then offered us his help if we ever did something similar.

His help turned out to be amazing, especially since decent props make such a huge difference. But also, it was this guys hobby so he loved coming out on shoots with us, giving advice to the actor and being involved. These are the sort of guys you want to find. Motivated and interested people, who are happy to help you out cause they themselves are enjoying it. Trust me, get enough of these people and your flying, just save the odd bit of money to give them some food now and a again on set to show your not just using them, and you can then get really far without much of a budget.

All of that was filmed with a Canon 7D and about 3 lenses. A Zoom flash recorder and a boom mic and that was it. Maybe have a look to see if there are any local film groups where you might be able to rent equipment from cheaply. 550D's and 50mm 1.8's arent too expensive

Also, what is your role? Director? You going to be filming yourself too? If not maybe see if you can find someone who has an ok camera and who is decent enough and it willing to give you a hand filming for free. Providing they find your project is interesting ;) Giving other people responsibilities works well in cases like this
 
Well we've never done anything before, so I'll just have to hope that they are friendly and enthusiastic! :D

A Canon 7D is £700! Mine was £80! HAHAHA :D

I'm going to be directing and editing the film. I'm still not decided whether or not I'm am going to be in it, it depends on whether or not I can find anyone to play the role.

I've emailed two local fancy dress shops asking what deals they can cut us. My next mission is to search for drama/film clubs! :)
 
Well yes the 7D isnt cheap. But maybe with you can find someone with a DSLR that does video ;)
 
I think I know someone ;)

I've just emailed a local film making club asking if they would like to get involved and hopefully they could lend us a camera for nothing - unlikely though! :rolleyes:

Also, about film festivals, do you know where I could find out more information?
 
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are you saying that you have never made a film before, dont really have any proper equipment but are looking for someone to sponsor you and maybe get it shown in the cinema ?

i would guess anyone sponsoring a film, would want to see some history of your work
 
Haha, I've made a couple of 2 or 3 minute long clips before, but never done anything this big and none of them show my current skill.

I guess sponsorship is a long way off!
 
You just need to think that a Film is no different to a business. For somebody to invest in it, other than for charitable reasons, they will be looking for a return on it.
 
Jordan97 said:
I guess sponsorship is a long way off!
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I would guess that your time would be better spent persuading people to work and help for free, rather than trying to get actual money out of people (sponsorship etc.). Junior people in the film/tv industries unfortunately are well used to being asked for freebies and you're much more likely to find people who are willing to give a days work for a credit/experience, than you are likely to find someone who wants to give you cold hard cash.

In short, don't bother with 'fundraising', just start asking around. As said above; people power. Oh www.mandy.com might help.
 
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