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Shaking the Money Tree
Cinema's New Independent Entrepreneurs
22 January 2004

“The Film Needs Help”

During the making of his 1989 Academy Award–nominated documentary short about a Washington, D.C. diner, Fine Food, Fine Pastries, Open 6 to 9, filmmaker David Petersen put a jar on the diner counter with a sign saying, “The Film Needs Help.” Beyond begging for spare change from customers, the rest of the funding was patched together from individual donors, a grant from the D.C. Community Humanities Council, one or two corporations, and the liberal use of Petersen’s credit card. Petersen is one of growing list of filmmakers who are applying their creativity and entrepreneurialism to finding innovative ways to fund their work.

“Finding funding has been a part of every level for every film I’ve made,” says Peterson. The documentarian spent a decade seeking financing for his next film, Let the Church Say Amen, about the struggles of a small church community in one of D.C.’s poorest neighborhoods. Juggling preliminary research for the film with writing grant proposals and working his “day job” as an editor, Petersen was turned down by a number of funders, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, before receiving close to 100 percent of the $250,000 budget from the Independent Television Service (ITVS), a non-profit organization that produces programs by independent filmmakers for public television. But by the time this money came through, the church he had in mind for the film had closed down. Petersen looked at more than 250 churches before he found a suitable replacement. “Every time I finish making a film I say, ‘OK, that’s it’.”

Whether working in the realm of documentaries or features, funding has long been a creative challenge for independent filmmakers. Even celebrities often have to find creative ways to get support for their non-studio projects.

Fifty Ways to Fund a Film

Even during uncertain times, one thing is sure: there are myriad ways to piece together funding for a film beyond the traditional studio development deal. Successful directors and producers are combining solid scripts and careful planning with dogged patience and blind faith to get their movies made and distributed.

When the director of The Machinist, Brad Anderson, couldn’t interest US investors in his film – studios considered his macabre tale about an insomniac mechanic too complex – he looked to Europe for help. Anderson’s previous feature, Session 9 (which had been financed by USA Films, now Focus Films), had done well in Spain, so the Barcelona-based media company, Filmax, was keen to get involved. Filmax completely financed The Machinist, whose budget came in at under €10 million ($12.2 million). (The actor Christian Bale (Laurel Canyon, Velvet Goldmine, Little Women) was attached to the project, which helped motivate Filmax to support the film.)

Other filmmakers are also having luck abroad than in finding production and distribution backing. Three years ago, documentarians Ruthie Shatz and Adi Barash began research for their documentary Garden, about teenage male prostitutes in Tel Aviv, with seed money from the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Fund. The Documentary Fund was set up to provide financial support for international documentaries tackling human rights, freedom of expression, social justice and civil liberties issues. A Canadian television network that had funded one of the couple’s previous films jumped in with production money, and before long, Garden had attracted financing from European television networks in France, Denmark, Great Britain, and Belgium. “Television-wise, European funding is much more reachable than US funding,” said Barash. “Europeans have a tendency to co-produce or pre-sell at an early stage, whereas U.S. TV stations are mostly interested in acquisition, so you have to complete the film before you can sell it.”

Yet despite the fact that some filmmakers are attracting financing from abroad, international investment has become scarcer in the last five years. “Foreign investment has dried up,” says producer Lesli Klainberg, (Company of Women) who has financed films through fundraisers, mailings, and out of her own pocket, as well as by obtaining grants and commissions from sources like the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and the NEH. “People are buying less and there are a lot more films to choose from.”

Here in America, some grant-givers, such as the Independent Television Service (ITVS), are addressing funding limitations by trying to make their money go further. Aside from scrutinizing grant applications more thoroughly, ITVS is working to get lower rates from post-production facilities for their clients.

Cable Nation

Many savvy filmmakers who are rising to the creative challenge of financing their projects have made cable a part of their strategy. Sniffed at by filmmakers in the past, cable has more recently improved its reputation, with advances in the quality of digital filmmaking and new opportunities created by such entities as ITVS, HBO, Showtime and Independent Film Channel (IFC) . “The negative perception that filmmakers had about making movies for cable television fifteen years ago is gone,” said Robert Nickson, professor of film and head of production at New York University’s graduate film school. “Cable has become a leading way to proceed with lower budget films.”

One of the main reasons, in fact, there are more films on the market these days is because of the rise of cable and digital video (DV). While most filmmakers hope their movies will ultimately be picked up for theatrical distribution many projects start out on the small screen. This is true of many of the films to be exhibited at Sundance this year, like Yu’s ITVS-funded feature-length documentary on the life and work of the reclusive artist Henry Darger, In the Realms of the Unreal. Although DV has become a standard format in the world of documentaries, it is also becoming a viable option for feature filmmakers such as in Allison Anders’ Things Behind The Sun and Ethan Hawkes’ Chelsea Walls. “A lot of filmmakers would rather see their film on cable than have it not distributed at all or distributed poorly,” said Klainberg.

Starting Early, Finishing Late

Regardless of whether a filmmaker manages to get all the backing needed to make a film from one source or from many, obtaining funding is a long process. The sheer amount of time it takes to find money means indie moviemakers generally start working on a film before the money falls into place, all the time practicing the ambidextrous art of rolling the camera with one hand and doffing the cap with the other. When Kevin Willmott began making CSA: Confederate States Of America, he obtained only a portion of the financing from the National Black Programming Consortium. Yet he began making the film right away and gradually assembled the rest of the cash piecemeal through small investors from the local community. It took him three years to finance the film, which cost less than $1 million.

Starting research and shooting early is particularly crucial in the documentary arena, where sitting around waiting for money can lose you your subject – as in the case of Petersen and his vanishing church. “Finding funding is a long process, but the story doesn’t wait for you,” said Barash. “Generally you can jump into the movie right away to get the juices flowing,” said Yu. “You don’t have to invest very much money at the beginning.” As a result, it is not uncommon for indie filmmakers to work bread-and-butter jobs like directing commercials or writing Hollywood screenplays at least during the early phases of producing their own projects.

A Good Script Is The Best Fundraiser

While financing continues to be a major hurdle, it is not necessarily regarded as the biggest challenge facing independent filmmakers today. At NYU, students are taught to place the product first, and then worry about the funding. “It is the process of getting to a good script that is the most difficult part of filmmaking, not, as many suggest, finding the financing,” said Nickson. Once a strong script is in place, NYU students are taught how to “package” their projects, bundling the script with a good cast, a tight schedule and careful budget. For Nickson, this is the secret of success. “If one has a good script, a good cast will follow,” said Nickson. “If one has a good script and a good cast, then the financing will follow.”

But while a good script it is the bottom line when it comes to obtaining funding for an independent movie project, a little entrepreneurial spirit on the part of the filmmaker goes a long way.