It is difficult to travel on a
journey of independent film-making in India, especially when you are not connected
to film industry here. Even if you have money or you have a knowledge of
telling the story, you hardly have right forums where your talent could be
blossom . People who want to become film-makers believe that it is as easy as
buying a camera and start shooting videos in different frames. Yes, it is as
easy to make films due to digital revolution but it is as difficult to take
your film to around the world as getting honey from honeycomb surrounded by
honeybees. Also, it is impossible to sell your film and earn revenue without
getting recognition at the right platforms.
Then what should a film-maker do?
· Is this story or subject could bring donations or partnership with any company
· Will I use any brand/product in my film and should I connect with the product firm for getting some investment
· Should I start getting donations from friends based on the idea itself
· Is my friend working in any of the company who can do spend CSR money in my film initiative (social projects)
· Do I need to do odd jobs to earn money for investing it in my film
· Did I mark the upcoming grants or film-market dates in my calendar
· Do I have a marketing strategy of the film/ film-promo in mind
· Did I Create a balance sheet of my film that can capture all the costs vs. donations
· How much it will cost me to make website, marketing in online platforms
· Do I know someone who could write about the film project
· Do I have an automated program that will send emails to millions when the time arises
· Boosting up the confidence of film-maker as he/she can enjoy a bit of liberty in decision making
· Helping in marketing of the project as people come to know about the project from beginning itself
· Leading to larger deals as it may form some sort of links to big donors.
Then what should a film-maker do?
Right from the beginning, A
film-maker should understand that film-making is not just the artistic craft
but also a product that can be sellable and at-least could return the
investment that was made to make a film. And a film could return the investment
only when the film-maker have thought about getting money back right from the
beginning. To achieve this, a film-maker should have following things in mind:
· Is this story or subject could bring donations or partnership with any company
· Will I use any brand/product in my film and should I connect with the product firm for getting some investment
· Should I start getting donations from friends based on the idea itself
· Is my friend working in any of the company who can do spend CSR money in my film initiative (social projects)
· Do I need to do odd jobs to earn money for investing it in my film
· Did I mark the upcoming grants or film-market dates in my calendar
· Do I have a marketing strategy of the film/ film-promo in mind
· Did I Create a balance sheet of my film that can capture all the costs vs. donations
· How much it will cost me to make website, marketing in online platforms
· Do I know someone who could write about the film project
· Do I have an automated program that will send emails to millions when the time arises
As an independent film-maker,
he/she cannot afford to employ multiple people for multiple tasks, he/she
should function like a corporate company owner who changes its hat from CEO to
CFO to CMO to CTO. In any position, the company employee always think of
bringing revenue from the amount of hour spent on the task, A film-maker should
also think in similar line. After all, a film-maker’s time is also an
investment even if he is able to save money through his creative ideas.
When should a film-maker start
raising fund?
As soon as an idea becomes an
action. That means as soon as filmmaker makes sure to execute the project,
he/she should start raising funds from all the possible ventures. Be it
friends, relatives, colleagues, product related companies, foundations,
producers etc. This helps in many ways like:· Boosting up the confidence of film-maker as he/she can enjoy a bit of liberty in decision making
· Helping in marketing of the project as people come to know about the project from beginning itself
· Leading to larger deals as it may form some sort of links to big donors.
When I started making Black Is
Beautiful documentary film three years ago, I immediately started raising funds
as I knew that my odd jobs could not compensate the entire money for the
project. I shared the idea with my close friends, they liked it and started
donating some amount of money. Some could not donate due to their financial
issues but by the time I started the project, people were knowing about it and
the buzz was already getting created. People started waiting for the updates on
project and world of mouth opened up new avenues for funding
Why project’s visibility is
important?
In today’s digital era,
everything is driven through marketing and more often social marketing. The
invention of Facebook/Twitter etc. has made independent film-maker’s life very
easy but I believe that film-makers are still not able to fully utilize the
platform. It is because they are really not connecting with right people using
these networks. If an independent film-maker can get cast and crew from the
social platform then why not funders, donors, media partners, distributors etc.
Once the buzz is created on social network, you get a lot of attention from
friends and they start understanding your passion for cinema. Now, out of
thousand odd friends, you might have a friend who is blog writer and could
write about your film. A friend might recommend your film for CSR donations in
his/her company or might connect with right people to take the film forward.
As the film-maker progresses in
pre-production or production, he/she will have a fair idea of the targeted
audiences. He/she should in-parallel work on film’s marketing strategy and
should identify the targeted blogs, twitter accounts, email-groups and should
connect with them through different mediums. If a film-maker has a prior
experience of working in software industry then he/she can develop tools to
automatically send messages. If a film-maker was associated with business
research or PR/Media agency, he/she should parallel compile the blog links and
should reach out to them from the production itself.
Do you stop after completing your
film?
Completing a film is easier then
selling your film because while making a film, a film-maker is working with
known people. There is a comfort zone while dealing with people or dealing with
situations. But while selling your film, it is not easy at all. You need to
understand the psyche of an unknown person, and tell what he/she actually wants
to hear which is already in his/her pre-occupied mind. Predicting unknown
people from different geography always becomes difficult to crack the deals due
to the cultural, socio-political differences and differences in communication.
Time becomes more precious after
the film is ready and if the film-maker has already thought about all the
activities and have planned from the first day of writing the script itself
then his film will defiantly reach to very high level. Beginning always begins
with the ideas of an end and an independent film-maker should carry all the
ideas in his shoulder from the beginning itself.
About the Author:
Author is an independent
film-maker from India. His upcoming documentary feature Black Is Beautiful is a
life journey of 11 visually impaired children who go through a change through
improvisational theatre.
