Money. One of life’s necessary evils. It becomes even more necessary (and sometimes more evil!) when you’re a filmmaker trying to raise money and support for your film. When you tell some people that you’re looking to raise funds for your film, you often get bombarded not with money –unfortunately—but rather with advice (“Take it all out in credit cards, man!”), stories (“This guy I know was able to pay for his entire film by selling a kidney on the black market and then getting all his friends and family to kick in the rest!”), or an avalanche of technical information that you’ll never be able to remember, let alone accomplish (“Well, first you should file for ___ government grant; and if you do that, you’ll need to fill out form ___, and then…”).
In this book, Carole Lee Dean attempts to break down the often formidable task of raising money for a film into a series of manageable steps. This book deals almost exclusively with documentaries, as they are the easiest films to obtain grants, funds, and corporate sponsorship for (due to their mostly educational nature). But even if you don’t plan on making a documentary, this book has many good ideas, advice, and suggestions that are applicable to almost any film.
Comprehension
Film funding and finance books can be rather daunting, especially for me, as this is admittedly not my forte. However, I was pleased to find that this was not a book devoted solely to the explanations of indie film finance. Ms. Dean’s approach is one that is both practical and innovative, combining research, traditional funding sources (grants, businesses, etc.), independent sponsorship, and self-promotion.
The book was fairly easy to follow; however, the chapters seemed to be ordered in a rather wandering fashion. The first few chapters deal with doing proper research ahead of time and writing good proposals. It then goes on to describe how to obtain funds from grants, businesses, and individuals. This is followed by a series of interviews that cover (respectively): how a filmmaker successfully wrote and pushed a proposal; the technical/legal aspects of fundraising; and how to put together an effective fundraising trailer. The remaining chapters cover a range of topics from product placement and branding, public funding from PBS, identifying your overall vision with the project, innovative ways of finding sponsorship, and federal/state incentives and tax information. Currently, several of the chapters seem to be out of place with their respective topics. For example, why is the chapter on incentives and tax information at the end of the book instead of with the topics of fundraising or technical finances?
It would really help to have the chapters organized by their topics, as there seems to be three general categories: Research and Preparation, Funding and Legal Stuff, and Other Forms of Sponsorship. Chapters 2,3,7, and 4 could go in the first section, as they cover (respectively) writing a pitch, developing a proposal, an example of a successful proposal, and organizing information. The second category would be comprised of chapters 5 & 6 (grant/individual/business funding), chapter 11 (public funding), chapter 8 (the technical side of fundraising), and chapter 14 (incentives and tax info). The chapter about making a fundraising trailer (9) doesn’t quite fit into any of the three groups, but it would make a good transition between the second and third section. The final category would consist of the chapter on vision and values (12), other creative ways of getting sponsorship (ch. 13), and product placement (ch. 10).
Depth
of Information
The amount of information contained in this book is amazing, really. Although the budgets that comprise most of the films in here are above the $30,000 microfilmmaker mark, the information can still apply. One of the things that I liked in particular were the chapters dealing with the legal and financial aspects of financial fundraising. I know, I know, those are probably the most boring and difficult to understand parts of the process. However, they’re also the most necessary. If you screw up on one of those two, you can end up paying for it (both literally and figuratively) for years to come. Attorneys Mark Litwak and Hal “Corky” Kessler explain some of the more complex legal aspects of financial fundraising, including tax breaks and exemptions for both filmmakers and supporters, legal requirements, state and federal laws, and much more. They break down these concepts and explain them in an easy-to-understand way. Additionally, there is an extensive appendix chock full of resources, contact information, and organizations to help get you on your way.
Interest
Level
For the most part, this book held my interest pretty well. As mentioned earlier, the random order of the chapters threw me, especially if one covered a topic that was dealt with much earlier in the book. As it was, I ended up skipping around the various chapters, going by the descriptions in the Table of Contents. I think that a more organized structure would help the book flow better and increase the interest level.
Reusability
Books such as this one tend to have a high reusability factor, because the principles, ideas, and advice they give generally don’t change much over time. And even if the technical details (various tax laws, requirements, etc.) alter, the contacts and other resources in the appendix can be used to find out any new changes.
Value
vs. Cost
If you’re a documentary filmmaker, then this book is an absolute must-have for your collection. The amount of information and resources you’ll find in here will more than make up for the cost of the book.
If you’re a general filmmaker, you will definitely be able to glean some valuable information from it. However, because this book is geared primarily toward documentaries, you will probably not get as much out of it. For this reason, I wouldn’t recommend you pay full price for this book; but if you come across it for a lower price, I’d definitely suggest picking it up.
Overall
Comment
While the chapters could use some significant shuffling to help the book flow better, The Art of Film Funding is a very useful and informative book overall. It has a lot of helpful information and it explains in easy-to-understand terms the more difficult areas of film funding. While the concepts covered in the book can be applied to both general and documentary filmmakers, the latter group will likely find it more useful. Because of the nature of the content, this book will be one that can be referenced repeatedly, and would be a great investment, especially for documentary filmmakers.
