Financing / Crowdfunding : Is this the right place to discuss built in fan bases? by Debbie Croysdale

Shall you put together a crowd fund with the footage?

Are you asking about built-in fan bases from an investing standpoint or a producing standpoint, Debbie Croysdale? If an investing standpoint, this is the right Lounge. If a producing standpoint, the Producing Lounge is a better place to discuss this topic.

@Preston If I don’t secure interested investors I’ll do my own crowd funding. At present I’m securing the right locations/institutions to make engaging cross platform content to promote key elements of film in a successful social media strategy. Small film footage in 3 countries, each section being relevant to a particular story factor. Connemara ponies, unemployment, racing & diamonds. The universal theme is love, a Rom Com. A long game but the project has been on back burner since covid & I’m determined to see it through.

it's the right way to think about it for sure, and this direction certainly supplants the need for IP to get something made, because the appeal of IP is the built in base, not the story. There are a few ways to go; you could secure the locations for soft equity or paid placement, or see if there is a non-profit org that rescues the ponies or the other issues you mention that you can partner with and even give a share of revenue to. Investors could also look at the same orgs as a charitable write off or form of impact investment. Or a combination of all of the above.

@Laurie Thanks for your input. Yes, film finance should not come from one single source particularly for budget Indie or high risk. Embedded marketing, product placement, soft money, legal and ethical trade offs can be used for film or social media campaign. I'd not heard of charitable right offs before though so will look into it. It's a coincidence you mention donkey sanctuary as I offered to hire stables in Spain but they prefer to have their name in any footage for publicity, it's not always about the hard money! In the middle ages Galway merchants brought horses from Andalusia to breed with their own mares. The Connemara resulted and some were brought back to Spain. For the racing theme I'll hire a central London venue with a vast social media following/ unique props, Might offer a commercial cross platform to reduce outgoings. The diamond theme is an old fashioned cutter in France. Investors will judge my directing work but competition is tough, they see good projects most days. If one has no built in fan base but the other has they'll choose the latter. to mitigate their risk. It pays to have all the aces up one's sleeve.

Thanks for asking Debbie. A fan base can be a very helpful element in driving interest, finance, audience, and hence revenues. Definitely a good subject for filmmakers to consider and take advantage of.

Theres some good advice from Jack Binder here in my opinion Debbie! Especially if you think there's a big fanbase from the sport out there, may be good to consider harnessing this and crowdfunding. If you go that route I recommend taking a look at what Robin Block has to say - he raised the highest ever amount for a film (1.6M I think) in kickstarter, in a month or so. So impressive that Kickstarter added him to the advisory board, he's a wealth of knowledge on the subject of genre audience. https://twitter.com/robinblock?lang=en

@Emma Thanks for the new insight.

Hi Debbie! Our founder and CEO literally wrote the book on this and it’s a #1 best seller on Amazon. I’d highly recommend this as a resource: https://www.amazon.com/Crowdsourcing-Filmmakers-American-Market-Presents/dp/1138849898

@Amanda Thanks for the info. I’m on the move at present but when back at desktop will certainly download RB’s book.