The beauty of getting older is that the more numbers you rack up, the more stories you get to tell. When tasked with writing an article about film financing I was immediately struck with a story – which must mean I am getting old.
In fact it is not so much a story as it is a memory of one of my favorite TV shows of all time – “A Different World.” For those not pushing 40 or into 80s nostalgia, I will nutshell the plot – black kids try to graduate at an HBCU (Historically Black College/University). You may think this isn’t enough of a plot to be funny, but trust me if you were an HBCU student or even a black kid trying to complete your degree, you would find the common hilarity of the show.
This may be the time where you are scrolling to the bottom of the site going “what does this have to do with financing?” This is again the beauty of being old. Stay with me I am telling a story.
Anyway one of the main characters was a snotty, bourgeois, pretty girl named Whitley Gilbert, played by the lovely Jasmine Guy. This character’s journey was not only to graduate and find love but also to take that two-by-four out from under her cotillion dress. Whenever Whitley got upset, which was about every episode, she would repeat this mantra with her horrific southern drawl – “Relax, Relate, Release” This sounded more like Ruh-lax, Rhuh-late, Rah-Lease.” The saying was funny and stuck with me for more than 20 years.
When tackling the humongous job of finding funding for your film, the stress can feel overwhelming. This is when you need to channel your inner-Whitley. But I have revised the mantra to “relax, research, and read.”
Over the course of the year I hope to bring you lots of useful and practical information about getting money for your film. But before we can even go there, you need to chant this mantra to yourself every day.
RELAX
Calm the hell down! Yes you have dreams of being the next Spike, Julie Dash or Lee Daniels, but remember they all had to start from somewhere. You will get there if you are armored with knowledge, patience and talent. Right now, however, you are in the early stages, so there is no need to worry yourself to stroke.
RESEARCH
Currently I am an MBA student at MCNY (Metropolitan College of New York) learning about media management and the business of the industry. After years of struggling as a writer I realized if I wanted to create the types of content I wanted, I had to know the industry inside and out. However, another thing I realized a month into my first semester, was that what I thought I knew about the business side of writing was very little. Sure I knew how to write and sell my work, but an in-depth understanding of how “the business” worked would have saved me time and trouble and probably increased the balance in my bank account. If you are serious about being in the film business, making films and especially financing them, you have to do your research. This leads us to our third part of the mantra.
READ
Ask wanna-be filmmakers who they would like to be when they grow up, and they will rattle off names like Felini, Hitchcock, and Lee (I love Spike Lee). These are great people to aspire to be like. However when you ask these same people what is their favorite book about filmmaking – crickets.
If you want to find out how to finance films you have to follow the money. You should have subscriptions to, or at least reading, these publications:
The Hollywood Reporter
Variety
The Wall Street Journal
As far as books go, there are several but let me first suggest one of my favorites, “This Business of Film” by Stephen R. Greenwald and Paula Landry. I was lucky enough to have Ms. Landry in one of my film classes, which is where I was introduced to the book, and let me tell you the book is pretty comprehensive on the whole business of film, and particularly the types of financing that are available to mainstream and independent producers.
Also check out “Chris Gore’s Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide 4th Edition”. If you don’t understand the correlation between film festivals and getting your film financed or picked up, you need to grab this book.
As we continue in our journey, I hope to bring you industry insiders who can provide you more in-depth analysis of film financing. We will get there. For now, though, you need to “relax, research, and read.”
-George Kevin Jordan
George Kevin Jordan is a freelance writer, author, and CEO of Pipe and Paper Productions, an independent TV and film production Co.
Contact him at gkjwriter@gmail.com