Latest / Indie Film Podcast / Fundraising Failures: How Indie Filmmakers Survive Budget Collapses

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Fundraising Failures: How Indie Filmmakers Survive Budget Collapses · Indie Film Podcast

0:00
Welcome to Indie Film Podcast. I'm Vic.
0:02
And I am Chuck, this week we're going to be talking about
0:04
fundraising failures. You got to have funds in order
0:07
to have a film. If you don't have funds, you
0:09
can't have a film. So what should you do if you
0:10
can't raise enough funds, Vic? If I can't raise enough funds
0:13
for my indie film, then I'm going to go back to my budget
0:18
and start striking items. Or better yet, I'm going to
0:20
learn how to market my film better, like maybe getting it
0:23
featured on a podcast. That's a good way to get your
0:26
film out there in front of peoples eyes.
0:28
Are we going to be doing that here soon as far as sponsorships
0:31
are concerned? We are.
0:32
Thanks for that lob, Chuck. No problem.
0:35
Very softball throw to me. Thank you.
0:38
Yes, actually, if you would like to have your film mentioned
0:40
right now in the very beginning of an indie film podcast episode
0:44
to talk about your film in any way you want, we're going to be
0:46
opening it up for sponsorships, which means you'll get your film
0:49
right in front of an audience that actually cares about indie
0:51
film. That was a good pitch.
0:53
Thanks. All right, well, let's talk
0:55
about indie film fundraising. I have a couple tricks that
0:58
people can use. I have one single trick that
1:00
people can use to raise a couple $1000 extra if they have enough
1:04
friends on their social media. We'll talk about that later, but
1:07
do you have an example of famous films that fundraised uniquely?
1:11
This is a lot of alliteration in this episode already.
1:13
A. Lot of FFS and not even the fun
1:15
ones. No, though fun is another one.
1:18
And fund and fund we'll. Hit that one a lot.
1:20
Fun with fundraising? What?
1:22
Do you got for us? Actually I found the very first
1:26
film that was successfully funded through crowdfunding and
1:30
I had no idea it was in 1999. Oh Dang, which means it was pre.
1:35
Chain letters. They used chain letters to
1:38
fundraise this film. This alliteration is gonna drive
1:42
me crazy. There's a lot of alliterate.
1:44
Gonna say money or something else 'cause the the fund the
1:48
fund film thing is gonna drive me up a wall.
1:51
But so they use chain letters to raise money and everybody had to
1:56
like mail in checks or mail in. Cash.
1:59
It was COD only. Okay.
2:02
No it was not. I assume it was still done with
2:06
Internet funding as well. Right on dial up modem, yes, got
2:09
to get on there. You really got to want it back
2:11
in 1999. If you're going to put your
2:13
money on the Internet, I don't think people like credit cards.
2:16
Everybody was terrified of that in 99, putting their their
2:20
information on the Internet. Yeah.
2:22
Now we just do it Willy nilly. No, are you kidding me?
2:24
Everyone has it just linked to their phone.
2:26
Now you've got Google Pay and Apple Pay.
2:27
You don't even use a credit card anymore.
2:29
You just exist digitally for all this fake digital money.
2:32
It's fun. Nice.
2:33
I'm going to talk a little bit about that too.
2:35
Oh, sweet. OK.
2:36
Currency, but we'll get into that in just some because a dude
2:39
with a podcast needs to talk about cryptocurrency eventually.
2:41
So episode 32 is the one where we do it.
2:44
Why don't you talk about? Why don't you talk about but the
2:46
the first Crowdsource crowdfunded film?
2:49
So it was in 1999 as mentioned, and it's called foreign
2:52
correspondence. OK, not to be confused with the
2:55
foreign correspondent Hitchcock film.
2:58
OK, this one is. Clearly not because he was dead.
3:01
He was dead in 99. He didn't make this film too.
3:05
It's not a sequel. It's a little different, but
3:09
it's, it was just really cool to finally see, you know, a film
3:14
that this was the first time we've really marked society as a
3:19
whole. Or at least your friends and
3:22
family are excited enough about a film to tell enough other
3:25
people about it that the people have spoken.
3:29
They want this film. And I think that's really cool
3:30
and inspiring because crowdfunding now is not as
3:34
successful. Yeah, it's unfortunately you
3:37
just don't see films getting funded the way they used to on
3:40
crowdfunding platforms back in even like 20/15/2017.
3:45
Yeah, it just doesn't happen as much.
3:46
So if. You if you waited, you missed
3:49
it. So you're just like buying a
3:51
house. You're screwed if you didn't do
3:52
this like 10 years ago, you already should.
3:55
So that's our piece of advice. This you should have already
3:57
crowdfunded. You should have already created
3:59
a film that you crowdfunded 10 years ago.
4:01
So start working on that time machine if you haven't done
4:03
that. I kind of want to.
4:05
Like one of the people that took one of the biggest gambles in
4:09
indie film history, I think, is Kevin Smith.
4:12
Yeah. And so Clerks, he basically
4:15
funded with his credit card and he also sold all of his comic
4:19
books to make that movie, which I'm sure anybody watching this
4:22
podcast already knows that story about Kevin Smith.
4:26
But I think the thing that threw me off with his story was that
4:32
because you look at that and you you see his success moving
4:37
forward, the assumption is that I'm good enough to be able to do
4:41
the same thing that Kevin Smith did.
4:43
And so myself and Lower Gentry Studios, which is also my
4:48
brother and sister-in-law, we have been struggling that with,
4:52
we've been struggling through that with three feature films at
4:54
this juncture where it's like if we make it, then it'll happen,
4:59
but still hasn't. That doesn't mean it won't
5:01
happen for you, but it's kind of a lottery ticket.
5:04
And Kevin Smith, obviously excellent writer.
5:06
And I also want to kind of point out that he leaned into the Star
5:10
Wars discussions in in the movie Clerks, which we're learning.
5:16
We're going to throw out some vertical video clips on this
5:19
podcast itself. But we're learning that these
5:22
Star Wars fans are like inherently engaged.
5:26
And I just kind of wonder if the fact that they had some some
5:29
interesting dialogue about Star Wars, if that helps propel that
5:34
film in popularity. I have no idea.
5:36
Obviously like Hindsight's 2020 and it's all speculation, but.
5:39
Well, this is going to show a little bit of my ignorance, I
5:41
guess. Clerks was in the 90s, wasn't
5:43
it? Yeah.
5:44
OK. All right.
5:45
So in the 90s, I feel like we saw a big shift to very
5:50
conversational, relatable dialogue.
5:53
Yeah, good point. And I think that just worked
5:59
really well. So yes, nerds are very engaged
6:02
people. I say nerds with love as a nerd,
6:06
likewise, they're very engaged. They're excited, they're
6:10
passionate about something or some things, and they're
6:13
specific fandom and they want to hear people talk about it.
6:17
They want people to be involved in it.
6:19
It's exciting. So anytime you talk about any of
6:21
these major IPS, you're going to see every fan come out of the
6:26
woodwork and have a lot of opinions about it.
6:29
What's kind of fun though, is that nerds will go the extra
6:31
mile and do the extra research and do a lot of extra digging
6:33
about it. So it's kind of fun to see all
6:35
the the little nods and details that they know that I'm like,
6:38
how on earth did you find this out?
6:40
Like did you read the diary of one of the PAS on set for Star
6:43
Wars? How did you get this
6:44
information? There's just so much stuff out
6:46
there for people to ingest. If you don't believe us, you can
6:48
go to one of our vertical videos on Tiktok where I talked about
6:51
the 8 bit camera that they used to film Star Wars Episode 2.
6:55
You made people so mad. People were upset.
6:58
People were very upset about you talking about camera specs.
7:01
Yeah, but we'll, we'll, we'll intentionally ruin a cinephile's
7:04
Day later. So Kevin Smith, obviously famous
7:08
fundraising where he didn't fundraise, which lowered Gentry
7:11
Studios. We've tried that three times.
7:13
Didn't really work out for us. Well, hold on.
7:16
Before you get too far away from that one, I would like to just
7:19
throw a caveat out here. Kevin Smith applied for new
7:24
loans for new credit cards, even like he maxed all of them out in
7:29
every way that he could. He did get some money from his
7:31
parents. I've read somewhere before I've
7:33
heard that he had to pretend to be the the owner of the gas
7:38
station where they were filming to be like, yeah, he owns this
7:41
place and confirm it, even though it was like complete
7:44
fraud at the time. There's so many stories.
7:46
I don't 100% know how much of those are true, but all that
7:50
said, it was a huge risk and a huge gamble and a lot of debt.
7:56
Yeah. Accumulated if clerks had not
8:00
been a success, he would have been nobody would he would have
8:03
been very financially ruined. So to that point, has lowered
8:07
Gentry Studios ever gone down the route of let's just get real
8:12
far in debt because we know this is a success?
8:14
Oh no, we've never done that. We've just learned how to do all
8:17
of the technical things ourselves, so.
8:19
And I would say that might be the safer route for anyone
8:22
watching and being like Oh well shoot I'll just go get 8 new
8:27
credit cards and Max them all out and make my movie.
8:30
I would maybe say don't. I'd say do it.
8:33
Just go for it. I mean, you only live once plus
8:36
like whatever, it's just money. I mean, what don't we live in a
8:39
society now in the United States where you can just like bankrupt
8:42
yourself or whatever and it's. Only on your credit report for
8:45
what, seven years? I don't know.
8:47
Come on, that's a small price to pay for your art.
8:49
Yeah, yeah. And then just, you know, if that
8:52
doesn't work out for you, start dating someone with good credit
8:54
and. You'll.
8:56
Convince them that your your art is is important and this time
9:01
it's going to actually make cash.
9:03
So I want to also talk about the first film that was, oh, I don't
9:09
actually a famous film. It's probably not the first film
9:13
that was released as an NFT, but a famous film that was released
9:16
as an NFT was Zero Contact and that was 2021.
9:21
And that has Anthony Hopkins in it.
9:23
And so they basically raised some funds using selling it as
9:28
an NFT, which I was going to look into how to make an NFT and
9:33
I started to research it and I found social media platforms
9:37
that automatically create NFTS when you post.
9:41
And I was going to take all these notes and then speculated
9:44
about it, just like a lot of white dudes on podcasts.
9:48
Maybe you've heard of some of them that think they understand
9:52
how things work. I don't know how an NFT works.
9:54
I'm not going to explain that. If you're interested in
9:57
releasing your movie as an NFT, you can do it.
10:01
I'm not going to explain how to do that.
10:03
But there, there is that option, I guess.
10:06
And the only example that I could find online was Zero
10:09
Contact 2021, Anthony Hopkins. And it did not do well.
10:13
As far as the Rotten Tomato ratings, you can look it up
10:16
online. The reviewers did not like it.
10:17
So I didn't want to watch the movie I was just not that
10:21
concerned about. It believed the reviews.
10:22
Yeah, that's kind of sad. Well maybe I'll watch it some
10:25
other time. I don't know how much it cost
10:26
though. Like if it was an NFTI know
10:28
that's cryptocurrency. And isn't that like $100,000
10:31
right now? Only for Bitcoin.
10:33
Like doge is way down. No kidding.
10:35
I don't know. I don't know.
10:36
I have no idea. I well.
10:38
Let's get that into a vertical video and see what people say
10:40
about. It no.
10:43
So do you have any other examples of famous film
10:46
fundraising? I do, and I thought this one was
10:48
kind of fun to go back to the alliterative moments.
10:52
OK. It's also from Idaho, so of
10:56
course. Of course I know which film
10:58
you're going to talk about. Because there's only one that
11:00
anybody knows. Yeah.
11:01
Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon Dynamite.
11:03
So Napoleon Dynamite was created from what I could find online
11:10
$400,000 OK, which I would not call micro budget or super low
11:16
budget or zero budget of any right.
11:19
That's that's. But for a Hollywood, for a
11:21
Hollywood film, that's super low.
11:22
Budget it is. It's less than half $1,000,000.
11:24
So that is, that is what they would consider insignificant,
11:27
which man, one day I just want to be in a position where I
11:30
think $400,000 is insignificant. It's just a mental statement.
11:34
Isn't that it? Yeah, you just got to look at
11:36
your bank Ledger and just see extra zeros.
11:38
Like Nirvana? Yeah, exactly.
11:41
Just meditate and then money comes out of nowhere.
11:43
I don't know but. You're back to zoning like a
11:47
finance bro. Yeah, there we go.
11:48
Just meditate on it, it'll come. Yeah, your money is Wealth is a
11:52
mental state. It's not an actual anyway go.
11:55
Ahead. OK.
11:56
So half of that budget to be fair came from the executive
11:59
producer, Jared Hassan, $200,000 came straight from him.
12:02
So OK, also a good chunk of your fundraising is now done and
12:07
over, but one of the reasons they were able to do it so
12:10
inexpensively was by. Those were air quotes.
12:15
If you're just listening to the podcast, if you're not watching
12:19
it, she said inexpensively. Air quotes just want to make
12:22
sure that those listeners out there know so anyway so one way
12:27
reason they would be able to do it so inexpensively.
12:30
Was that they relied a lot on the community of Preston, ID
12:34
where they filmed Cool and they relied on their Is it still an
12:39
alma mater if it was your college?
12:41
I think so. OK, we're gonna go with that
12:43
terminology then. So the.
12:45
Hesses went to. BYU Nice.
12:47
Yeah, Jared. Which is Brigham Young
12:51
University, which is in Eastern right, Or is it Utah like I?
12:56
Wanted. There's both.
12:57
Yeah, I don't know where they all are, but.
12:59
There's a couple of campus. Brigham Young was the famous
13:02
Mormon. He like Barrel into, well, he's
13:05
the one that made Salt Lake City.
13:08
Yes. Mormon he.
13:09
Carried on the torch, so to speak.
13:11
So BYU, they were alums, alumni from BIU and then?
13:17
They were BYU alum who had already made a $500 film while
13:22
in their the BYU film program. OK.
13:25
And it did well and got into Sundance, I believe.
13:27
Oh nice, that's a good bonus. And I'm going to choke and die a
13:30
little bit. So sorry that's.
13:32
OK, that's why we're bringing water.
13:33
That's why I have water. So they were basically got into
13:38
Sundance Film Festival. Yes.
13:40
So the school already knew them and already knew they worked
13:43
well together. So Jared and Jerusha Hess wrote
13:46
Napoleon Dynamite and then of course.
13:49
Which is hilarious if you've never seen it.
13:51
It is really funny. And then Jeremy Kuhn, who also
13:55
went to BYU with them, was like, yeah, let's I'll be the
13:59
executive producer, let's make this happen, let's do this.
14:02
And so all together they just, I mean, it's wild how much they
14:07
did with that little money. It was a 22 to 23 shoot day
14:13
project. I can't find confirmation 22 or
14:15
23, so I'm going to leave it vague.
14:17
They edited it, edited it. They edited the film in nine
14:23
days. And they got the camera through
14:27
a Panavision grant. They got a bunch of extra help
14:30
and gear and stock from BYU just for being alumni.
14:36
And then the entire community of Preston was like, let's do this
14:40
together, let's help you out. So their neighbors, their
14:43
friends, their family were all hosting the cast and crew and
14:46
letting them live in their houses so they didn't have to
14:48
pay for hotels. It was really scrappy.
14:51
They got donated an entire storage unit whole of period
14:56
peace, furniture, televisions, art, decor, everything that they
15:00
were allowed to just use for free to create the whole living
15:02
room space for Napoleon's house. It was awesome, like they just
15:07
did. It was a really scrappy
15:10
community effort and I understand that $400,000 is
15:12
still a lot of money, but I was really impressed with it.
15:15
That's awesome. That's cool.
15:16
That's a good story. So yeah, everybody should do
15:18
that. Come on.
15:19
Yeah, lean on your family. Film makers like what the hell
15:21
are you waiting for? Just get your short film into
15:23
Sundance and then get your. Get your college to love you and
15:27
support you and then go for it. Yeah, but you first you need to
15:31
go back in time to when college was cheap enough to go.
15:34
Yes, you will have to do that. They they probably got a really
15:37
good deal at BYU back in the day if they were making that film.
15:41
And yeah, they were probably making that in the 90s, early
15:43
2000. I don't remember what year that
15:45
was made. But yeah. 04.
15:47
There we go. Yeah, don't.
15:50
That was back when college was cheap.
15:51
Yeah, you could actually crowdfund your tuition.
15:54
So should we ruin a cinephiles day?
15:57
I think so. This is a bit that Victoria and
15:59
I came up with because sometimes I get a little, I get my facts
16:05
slightly mixed up, yes, when I'm speaking.
16:08
And then I'll turn it into a vertical video on the Internet,
16:10
and then I'll have hundreds of people correct me and.
16:13
Sometimes it's not even that it's wrong, it's just that it's
16:15
not the nuanced level of detail that they wanted you to.
16:18
Go to. Like how 8 bit is actually 8 bit
16:22
per colour. Yes, and people got very upset
16:25
that you didn't call that out. Oh yeah.
16:27
Well, The thing is, is like you would hope that people would
16:30
know what 8 bit if they're working with cameras, but it
16:32
doesn't matter because when, when Victoria does her thing and
16:35
hashtags things with marketing, we get a lot of people that'll
16:37
just see our vertical videos that actually have no interest
16:42
in indie film making. So let's let let me just take a
16:47
stab at this because we're talking about Anthony Hopkins,
16:51
man, I'm I'm this is going to hurt when I say this, this
16:54
statement. So I'm going to cut this into a
16:56
vertical video and people are going to probably if it gets if
17:00
it takes off, they'll rake me over the coals, probably online.
17:03
And this one, this one hurts. OK, so Anthony Hopkins, yes, if
17:10
he was so great, then you know, why was Waterworld such a huge
17:14
box office failure? I mean, come on, anyone should
17:17
be able to look good opposite Patrick Wilson.
17:21
OK, a lot of shots fired there. So, but also also I'm going to
17:25
throw this out there, perhaps Waterworld was a box office
17:30
failure, but it is an entire franchise now and possibly one
17:35
of the longest running shows at Universal Studios.
17:37
Well, I was also making the joke that Anthony Hopkins and Dennis
17:40
Hopper look kind of like. So Anthony Hopkins wasn't even
17:43
in Water World? Oh my God.
17:46
Yeah, exactly so. That's you're right.
17:48
He wasn't. That's going to really upset.
17:50
People that's going to upset people for sure.
17:52
Wow. But I didn't even second guess
17:54
it. I'm just one of those people on
17:56
the Internet that just believed you when you said it.
17:58
Hey, what you need to do is get a podcast and I can do a
18:01
microphone, put some headphones on, add some compression to your
18:04
voice, put a video on the Internet, and then people might
18:06
believe you. All right, what are you going
18:07
to? What are you going to convince
18:08
people of? I was going to convince people
18:12
that, you know, if Napoleon Dynamite can be a nationwide
18:21
success promoting what real Idaho life actually looks like
18:26
for $400,000 shot in 22 days, edited in nine.
18:33
Maybe you're just not a great filmmaker if you're not able to
18:35
do the same thing. Yeah, that's gonna hurt.
18:39
I'm gonna get so man, and people just attack me for being a
18:42
woman. Yeah.
18:43
And a filmmaker, apparently. That's offensive.
18:48
Enough. All right, So we'll be releasing
18:50
those videos after on our vertical social media and people
18:54
that don't listen to the podcast will make negative comments at
18:57
us. But I am going to throw this out
18:58
there. Please don't actually just for
19:00
all the podcast listeners, cuz I'm gonna say I care about you
19:02
more. If you, if you aren't seeing
19:07
success with your film, please don't assume that that means
19:09
your film is bad or that you don't deserve to get credit or a
19:13
little bit of, you know, accolade for doing a film at
19:16
all. Even if you aren't exceptionally
19:18
proud of your film, you still did it and you still made it and
19:20
that's an accomplishment. Feel good about yourself.
19:23
I'm proud of you. You should be proud of you.
19:25
I'm. Proud of you, too.
19:26
Let's talk about like, what we've done with fundraising.
19:28
We're kind of running out of time now.
19:31
We got a little sidetracked, but one thing that we figured at
19:34
Lower Gentry Studios, we were trying to raise a couple $1000
19:39
more. Essentially, we shot our film
19:41
Stockton to Table Rock, which you can see on Amazon Prime
19:44
right now for $10,000 with the production budget.
19:48
Because we did find a lot of people that were willing to
19:50
volunteer as far as cast as casting crewing is concerned.
19:55
But the issue was we still had to get the locations that we
19:58
needed and we still had to feed people.
20:00
And So what my brother and myself and my sister-in-law did
20:05
was we created a spreadsheet and started direct messaging as many
20:11
people as we could on Facebook. Basically until we learned how
20:16
many people you could direct message in a day before you got
20:18
your account shut down for spam. Because one of us did have that
20:22
happen. But The thing is like if you
20:25
write a nice message and reach out to people individually, it
20:30
does work and it feels a little cringe worthy.
20:35
But but The thing is is even yesterday I was hanging out with
20:39
my brother and he ended up going to an event based on somebody
20:44
direct messaging him that we have a professional working
20:47
relationship. But The thing is, 1 people
20:50
aren't necessarily going to know about your fundraiser on
20:53
Indiegogo or wherever you're having it, wherever you have it
20:56
on the Internet, they're not going to necessarily see that
20:59
because they follow you on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok
21:03
or whatever. No, because the algorithm is
21:05
going to bury that because it's an outside link usually.
21:09
It's not even just that it's an outside link, it's at it's if
21:12
they haven't engaged with you a lot recently, then you're not
21:15
even going to show up in their feeds.
21:16
That's just how the algorithm works.
21:17
It assumes that you want to associate with people that
21:19
you're consistently associating with.
21:21
Or even if you're just like, hate scrolling through somebody
21:23
else's stuff, you're going to see their stuff show up more.
21:26
Oh Dang. Yeah, like you just will.
21:28
That's how the algorithm works, because that's what you're
21:30
interacting with. So if they haven't interacted
21:32
with a lot of your stuff, or at least not lately, then you're
21:35
going to get buried. And then the outside link thing
21:38
to most social platforms don't want people to leave the social
21:40
platform, so they're not going to reward you for taking people
21:44
off the platform. But if you send people texts, if
21:47
you send people Facebook messages, Instagram messages.
21:51
Better yet, phone call. Just call them.
21:53
Which is abhorrent in 2025. Nobody answers their phone.
21:56
Nope. Or just write a letter to the
21:59
rich aunt uncles that you have in your family.
22:03
Yeah, send out a Christmas card. You've never done it before.
22:05
This year is your year. Send out a Christmas card and
22:08
let them all know what you're working on.
22:09
Come into if you get into contact with everybody, but we
22:11
were very successful. What we did was because we're
22:15
family and even friends and people that work professionally
22:18
in communities, you're going to have a lot of overlap.
22:20
So we created a spreadsheet and then as soon as we reached out
22:23
to someone, we put their name into the spreadsheet first and
22:27
last so that we wouldn't duplicate our efforts because
22:30
that comes off as a little bit. Then it's really scammy.
22:34
Yeah, exactly. So I do recommend that if you,
22:38
it's a couple $1000 and potentially if you're doing
22:41
something like a short film, everybody has enough contacts.
22:45
If you say, hey, I'm going to send you a link to the film when
22:48
it's done. You know, this is a tester link
22:51
or whatever. So it doesn't disqualify you
22:53
from film festivals. It's a good way to raise some,
22:56
some funds for your film. You just, you just got to pester
22:59
people unfortunately. And kind of along those lines,
23:03
one thing that I'd I'd kind of looked at recently was for
23:08
crowdfunding, if you're working on a feature, but you can't send
23:15
a link out to people to get the link for like watch the movie.
23:19
If you, you know, donate however much money, you'll get a link to
23:23
see the movie. That's going to hurt your
23:26
distribution efforts so much. But if you kind of break it up
23:30
into right now we're fundraising for X amount of dollars to film
23:34
the first scene of the film and we'll send you that.
23:40
Perfect. If anything, that's just going
23:42
to build your marketing and build your hype.
23:44
That's a safer way to crowdfund than saying we'll, we're
23:48
crowdfunding the whole film right now.
23:51
Go ahead and send us $5 and we'll, we'll send you the whole
23:55
movie. You know, like, don't you?
23:57
You're just kind of shooting yourself in the foot there for
23:59
any chance of recouping any of the money that you're putting
24:02
into it yourself. Which if it's a short, to me, in
24:04
my mind it's like, just do, do what you need to do to to get
24:07
the funds. If you want to make a a film
24:10
that you put through the festival circuit and bother
24:12
people, I'm sure you can get plenty of people to pay you.
24:15
Yeah. 5/10/25 bucks for a link. And I was really surprised at
24:19
how nice it was because I reconnected with some people
24:22
that I went to high school and college with, and they were
24:24
really excited to find out that I was doing indie film stuff.
24:27
Yeah, because that's actually cool.
24:29
You can. Take your like decent chunks of
24:31
money, like a couple 100 bucks and it was like, oh thanks, that
24:34
was that was really helpful. Yeah.
24:36
Oh, that would be one thing I would do.
24:37
Like, I know, thank you. Card era is kind of bygone at
24:42
this point. Maybe, but if they donate and
24:46
you sent them an individual ask, maybe send them an individual
24:52
thank you that they know you specifically crafted.
24:56
I think it's worth the two minutes that it would take to
24:58
send a quick thank you text. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
25:01
And I always replied when I saw their name, like, hey, thanks so
25:03
much. We really appreciate it.
25:04
So what do you do as far as you have, you have the opposite end.
25:08
Instead of like trying to make more money, you have some tips
25:11
on how people can just, like, slash their budget?
25:13
Yeah, I'm not going to say they're great plans because
25:19
sometimes they kind of suck. But the the number one way to
25:25
cut your filming budget, right is, well, I guess technically
25:29
the number one way is to minimize your shoot, right?
25:32
Get rid of at least a one location, get rid of at least a
25:35
couple of shooting days, minimize your crew like that.
25:37
That above the line cost is going to be a lot.
25:41
So the less you can have there, the better.
25:44
Yeah, make sure your script is succinct, as succinct as
25:47
possible. Your shot list, if you if you
25:49
have an ambitious script, maybe just cut it down.
25:52
Yeah. Which is something that we're
25:54
working on right now because Lower Gentry Studios is making a
25:57
horror film that we're excited about.
25:59
But we have one draft. It's pretty awesome.
26:01
Yeah. We'll see how much money we can
26:02
raise, but it involves an entire town becoming vampires.
26:06
And so that's not going to be feasible if we don't have enough
26:08
money. However, we're going to look at
26:10
an option where, you know, it takes place in one location.
26:13
Nice. So those those will be depending
26:15
on what we can fundraise is what we'll be able to shoot.
26:19
But how brilliant to have a complete backup ready to go
26:22
where when you're going through your stages of fundraising,
26:25
because you can do it in stages. You don't have to raise the
26:28
whole budget all at once when you're going through your
26:30
stages, you know, like, okay, at the beginning we raised 10,000.
26:35
We were really hoping for 50. Maybe we should look at that
26:38
second script that's a little bit more feasible, not because
26:40
it's worse or lesser, but just because it's more feasible for
26:44
that amount of money. Yeah, so I think that's really
26:46
solid. Another thing you can cut is
26:47
your crafty budget. Yes, but you have some tips for
26:50
that which you gave earlier in an earlier episode.
26:52
But let's yes, reiterate this because it's a good one.
26:55
This one I do like because feeding people is going to be
26:58
expensive, it always is. Yeah, but if you can get
27:01
catering in exchange for either just knowing the restaurant
27:08
owner, right, Depending on degrees of separation wise,
27:11
somebody you know, is a manager at some restaurant somewhere.
27:17
Yes, they are. And they might be able to be
27:19
gilted into. OK, yeah, we can donate enough
27:21
food for, you know, 1520 people to eat lunch.
27:25
OK, we can do that. And it might not be the best.
27:27
It might be sandwiches or something.
27:29
But hey, it can be sandwiches. Another option that.
27:33
Shoplift. Oh, sorry.
27:36
I don't think I would go shoplifting.
27:38
Right on again, Just go to the grocery store.
27:40
Just walk out with a cart. I mean, you can, but I feel like
27:43
there'll be repercussions. OK, You can do whatever you
27:46
want. Let's.
27:47
ChatGPT about that, see what they advise.
27:48
No, I don't think they're gonna. OK, so sorry to interrupt.
27:51
No, you're good. The other option is to exchange
27:55
for product placement. Oh, yeah, Which I had one
28:00
producer. I did not have time to do it
28:02
myself. So I just owe Cheyenne the
28:05
biggest thanks in the world for being an incredible producer on
28:08
this. She talked to, I think every
28:11
single restaurant and chain in the the Boise area.
28:16
That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people.
28:18
And we got all of our catering covered.
28:21
And this was for the man who? Would the man who would not
28:23
shake hands? Which is actually you uploaded
28:25
that to YouTube. Oh yeah, you can find that on
28:26
YouTube now if you look up their Tris finales films, which
28:29
nobody's going to be able to spell.
28:31
Take a guess, you can just put a link in the description too so.
28:34
You said it, not I. Did, but we'll put it in there
28:36
because I have to watch this again and check the subtitles.
28:39
So you did that. Who was the one?
28:41
You had a sponsor in there, but basically like there was a kid
28:43
holding. A cop.
28:45
And it was just a Dickey's BBQ pop cop.
28:47
Yeah. And she was just drinking her
28:49
soda and didn't hurt that she's just like the cutest little girl
28:53
in the entire world. She's so adorable.
28:54
And she's just looking up at this guy like, so you're going
28:57
to be my new dad. And it's like, well, no, they're
28:58
your neighbors. They just met.
29:00
So it's awkward, it's cute, but it's a funny little moment from
29:03
the film where they got to be featured and spotlighted.
29:05
And in exchange for that, they gave us, they gave us 2 dinners,
29:09
the cast and crew for that. And you had a big cast and crew
29:11
we did. So that's not that's, that's
29:14
substantial. That was not insignificant, no.
29:16
So that was really, really helpful and obviously, of
29:20
course, gave them a special thanks and everything, but
29:23
actually another thing I heard recently, there's no harm in
29:27
asking, right? Because the worst they're going
29:29
to say is no. Did you hear that from me when I
29:32
was telling everybody to ask all their friends for money?
29:34
No, but it did kind of. I started thinking about it then
29:36
no, I started thinking about it that well, that wasn't that's
29:39
not the thing. That's that's the premise.
29:41
The premise is don't be the worst they can say is no.
29:45
And if you're afraid of no, I challenge you to try harder to
29:51
get more no's in a day so you get used to it.
29:55
Hearing no is actually not damaging.
29:57
So set a goal for yourself that morning, say I'm going to go get
30:00
5 no's today. And it can be anything.
30:02
You can go to a coffee shop, buy a coffee and at checkout just
30:05
look at the barista and say, hey, can I have this for free?
30:09
Nice. And to be fair, every once in a
30:11
while they might say yes. I don't know.
30:13
It depends on what coffee shop you're at and what they're like.
30:16
I don't know what the rules are, but odds are good they're
30:19
probably going to tell you no. You may not, You may pay for
30:23
this and then that's it. It's over, the sting is done.
30:27
Just get used to it. Get comfortable with no.
30:29
There's nothing wrong with no, but there is something wrong
30:32
with not taking the risk and asking.
30:33
Yeah, good point. And also get comfortable with
30:35
failure if you're trying to make low budget any.
30:37
Films, man, if you are a filmmaker and then get real used
30:40
to failure. I think that's all fun.
30:44
I love nose and I love failure because it's like, you know, one
30:48
step forward, 2 steps back. But the exponential growth
30:50
though, is you just don't feel it.
30:52
You don't feel it over the first several years.
30:54
I feel it every time I look back on something I made more than a
30:57
day ago. Oh, nice.
30:59
I'm glad that you're growing more quickly than me.
31:01
That's that's important. Do you have anything else that
31:03
you want to cover before we start doing our updates on our
31:06
projects? I would say the only other
31:08
option I really have for cutting your budget, and nobody wants to
31:11
hear this. But when you're the project
31:13
headliner and you're either, you know, you're one of the key
31:15
roles, your director, your producer, your writer, whatever
31:17
it is. Yeah, this one's going to sting
31:19
too. This one's going to sting and
31:20
this one's going to suck. But it depends.
31:22
What do you want more, to get paid or to make your art?
31:24
Because many, many times I've had to just say, all right, I
31:30
will not be paid for this. My cast and crew will be,
31:34
everyone involved on it will be the locations will be there, the
31:36
food will be there. But I know that I'm doing this
31:39
pro bono. And that is not a long term
31:41
strategy for success, but for the right project when you're
31:44
passionate about your art and you just want to make the damn
31:47
thing just. Sometimes you're the one that
31:50
has to Max out your credit cards, and you're the one that
31:52
has to sell your comic book collection to get the thing
31:55
made. But then you have an amazingly
31:57
successful comic book shop in Oregon.
32:02
I don't know where Kevin Smith's comic shop is.
32:04
No, it's in. It's on the East Coast.
32:06
Oh yeah, he's East Coast. Yeah, it's like New Jersey or
32:08
something. Yeah, I don't know where it's.
32:09
Portland, ME or Portland, OR one of the two?
32:12
I should have just said Portland.
32:13
So you got you got an update from Dive?
32:15
Yes, So Dive recently screened at the Portland Under the Stars
32:19
Film Festival. Which was a blast.
32:21
It was so much fun. Great turn out.
32:23
So I want to give a shout out to them if you're on the Pacific
32:26
Northwest, definitely worth the entry.
32:30
It really was. It was such a good time, those.
32:32
Standing room only on the last. On the last screening on the
32:36
ground floor, it was A2 level theater.
32:38
But I mean the other blocks were not empty by any stretch.
32:41
Oh no, no, that's that Portland OR is a community that will show
32:45
up for their film makers. That is so cool.
32:47
And though I will say at the she her fest in Seattle as well,
32:50
yes, was also really good turn out that was that was surprising
32:55
because there were only 6 films being screened there and it was
32:57
still a very full theatre. Yeah, which is which is awesome.
33:01
We're, you know, we're in Idaho, so it's a lot of times when it's
33:04
a up and coming art scene, you're just used to other people
33:07
coming to watch their own thing at a screening, which, hey,
33:10
that's where you got to start. But this was a couple film
33:13
festivals where their audience was engaged and they were there
33:17
to actually see independent art, which is super awesome.
33:21
And they're not there to see stars because there weren't any,
33:25
you know, there, there were local people that were really
33:27
talented, obviously, but then there wasn't anybody that's like
33:30
a name on social media or whatever.
33:32
I don't even know what that the hell that is.
33:34
That why people care. They were not an influencer.
33:36
No, they weren't influencer. That's the word I'm looking for.
33:39
There we go dude. Over 40 can't think of the name
33:41
of influencer. Perfect.
33:42
That's OK. So Dive got an award?
33:45
Yes, at the Portland Under the Stars Film Festival.
33:47
Did won Best twist the M Night Shyamalan Award?
33:50
Yes. Twist.
33:51
Best twist. I'm excited for you to share
33:54
that film online that. Was I am too and just recently
33:57
got accepted to the Chicago Horror Film Festival.
34:01
Cool. So that's pretty exciting too.
34:03
Let's keep. Us up to date on how it does
34:05
there. I Will Dive is Dive is cruising
34:07
along and getting a lot of positive response which makes me
34:09
very happy. And if you don't are unfamiliar
34:11
with this, the plan that Victoria has is to turn that
34:13
into a feature film You're working on the script currently.
34:16
Working on the script. So the short film concept is a
34:20
vehicle to hopefully raise money for the feature film script?
34:23
Yes. And then you can pay everybody
34:25
to make a feature. Exactly.
34:27
Very cool. So I have an update.
34:30
I right, I want to hear it. Lower Gentry Studios, we
34:32
uploaded our Stockton to Table Rock Film in May.
34:37
I want to see it say to we used a distribution company that's
34:42
self distribution that I don't want to advertise because I'm
34:44
kind of annoyed with them. But the Stockton is currently
34:49
made $165.43 on streaming, that is.
34:54
OK, I understand why. Maybe that's not the number you
34:59
want it to be, no. No, no, not at a $10,000 budget,
35:01
but. But at the same time, isn't that
35:03
like 3 or 4 times what your last feature on Amazon made?
35:08
True it is. We made like 50 bucks on our
35:10
second feature film we speak, so we're it's on the uptick.
35:13
It's still substantial growth and improvement.
35:16
Yeah, and we're working it to my Zoe and and Bradley Elliott, who
35:21
were the ones that Co produced this film.
35:24
They went out to their neighborhood and just dropped
35:28
cards in people's mailboxes as well, which I don't know.
35:30
I don't know if that's I think it's legal.
35:32
I don't. No it's not.
35:33
You should not mention that. I mean in a mailbox.
35:36
It wasn't in a mailbox. I misspoke.
35:38
It was not it. Was on their doorstep yes,
35:39
exactly that was it it was on their doorstep we're.
35:42
Local film makers. It had a link to the Amazon
35:45
Prime. Amazon.
35:47
Prime or they tucked it in the outside of the mailbox.
35:49
Exactly, yes. That's how it was all done, yes,
35:53
completely above board, but if you go around your neighborhood
35:57
you can or send letters to people, things like that.
35:59
It turned into rentals, which was nice.
36:01
That is cool. And that's a really like
36:03
grassroots style. We're just going to walk around
36:05
and tell people about this film, quite literally.
36:08
Sometimes it feels like that's the only thing you have control
36:10
over because the algorithm is so slow to build things up.
36:13
Because we've been doing this podcast now for month, we're on
36:17
month #9. Month 90 If it was a baby, it
36:21
would be incubated. Yes, and it's still incubating
36:24
because social media does not follow the same development as
36:29
humans. It's takes a lot longer than
36:31
nine months to build something up, unless you're gonna dump a
36:33
bunch of cash in it. So.
36:35
But if you have cash. For social media, you might as
36:37
well just spend it on your damn film.
36:38
Yeah, make the movie instead. Yeah, definitely.
36:41
Were you gonna add something? I was gonna say, but to be fair,
36:44
we did get recognized by another filmmaker at the Portland Under
36:48
the Stars Film Festival. Oh yeah, that was really
36:50
awesome. That was really fun.
36:52
We were chatting with. Luke Zweinziger.
36:55
Oh, thank you for remembering. I remembered Luke, but I
36:58
couldn't remember the last. Name.
36:59
I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, so now I feel like a
37:01
jerk for just rushing right into this, but.
37:03
Thanks for chatting with us, Luke.
37:04
That was that was great. He had a great film, a great
37:07
horror film that he's working on a feature and it's it's going
37:09
through the the festival circuit right now.
37:11
But it was kind of fun to. It was so good.
37:14
Oh, Vines, Yes, that's. Called Vines.
37:16
I don't want to give any spoilers away from that because
37:19
I'm sure it's 20 minutes short. It'll be it'll be released
37:21
somewhere. But yeah, it was kind of nice.
37:23
So it does work to be on social media to try to find your
37:26
audience. And we were chatting with him
37:29
about his, his short film, complimenting him.
37:31
And he's like, you guys look familiar.
37:33
And we're like, well, we have a podcast.
37:34
Oh, that's where I know you. He's like, oh, that's wild.
37:36
That's kind of cool, so. Maybe we'll see you all at film
37:40
festivals because we try to attend them as much as possible.
37:43
So. So syncs, farewell.
37:45
Absolutely, let's do it. Bye bye.