It’s a weird thing. My ex-landlord, good friend, known him for twenty years, total ass… well, he’s a production assistant by trade, and he wants me to take out a business loan to help finance a production company he and the producer he works with wants to start.
I’m pretty sure I’m not going to, but it’s tempting. I know it’s how Sam Rami started, you pretty much beg everyone to hock everything, but I don’t know.
It doesn’t help that the first two or five movies they want to make are based on movie outlines I rattled off for them off the spur of the moment. Couple of the scripts are even half-written, on and off… the outlines date back bout five years, in random stages.
(I’ve got real hopes for the one we’re calling Hotel Titan. The nice thing about s/f is that if you treat it with respect, people will buy it. They buy the Roger Corman FF, don’t they?)
One production company I’ve been involved with told all of their investors (there weren’t very many of them, but we work cheap) “Don’t invest any more money with us than you’re willing to lose at the casinos in a year.” I think that’s excellent advice in this case.
The guy I’m currently working with has his own production company. His primary business is shooting wedding videos. (Always a two-camera shoot, currently using JVC GV-500s.) But what he really wants to do is make movies. He found my website, and discovered I was local. He’s gathering like-minded people to put together some films and videos. The idea is that we’ll make some ‘practice’ films, and then try to tackle a feature. We’re shooting one guy’s romantic short now; and my project, Somebody is next. The former is being shot on video, and my project will be shot on 16mm.
The shorts are cheap. Mine is the more expensive, and should come in around $2,000. How will the feature be financed? Who knows? We have plenty of equipment, and the first one will use digital video. Actors can be had locally or from the Vancouver area, and we’ve found a good make-up artist in Vancouver. It’s cheap and easy to film in Bellingham. Unless you’re closing a street or blocking a walkway, I’m told you don’t even need a permit. (Unlike L.A., where you need a permit to film in your own apartment!)
Anyway, this production company already exists as a business. All we need do is come up with a new name for the ‘production house’ to separate it from the wedding business. I’d be extremely wary of putting money into a new production company.
I know nothing about the movie production business, but I know a fair amount about starting up businesses in general.
I’ve always found it a wise idea to only raise money at the point where you need it. And I wonder if it’s not a good idea to complete at least one script, and take some other steps before doing that.
You can form the production company today if you want. That’s cheap.
If your primary value-add here is the money, you should really push back on the creatives, and make them do their work first. The fact is, creatives love to spend money and starting off before they even need it is setting a bad precedent.