A Message For Filmmakers Who Say "Finance My Film!"

As an independent film production company, it's important to know all your options out their as far as "Where do I get advice?" and "How do I get this in-front of financiers?" I recently had this question posed to me when I was do some simply script coverage work for an entertainment attorney friend of mine (a successful lady who lives in Beverly Hills) after she asked "YOu're in the independent production market...Can you read this for another client of ours?" -And honestly, I was honored to although I have a long road to get my own movie financed...Despite all the tax incentives and production perks I have attached.

What I'm getting at is that, after reading the small production company's script (action-packed, but not "funding great"), I gave my script notes and added the whole "keep at it!" pep talk. This is something that every script writer needs as you really feel like your putting your heart and soul on "the operating table". You get looked at and prodded by some very "heavy-lifters" in the film business if you actually want you film to get made. And as much as the script writer liked my advice, he invariably asked "Would like to know your connections as far as film finance." -Asking this question (from where they are at in the production process) is like stating, "Hey, I'm in my first year of training for the Olympics...Do you think I can talk to someone that can fast-track me to Gold?" In so many words, this is basically what I hear.

Here is the Good News and the Bad News. After taking some additional Entertainment Business courses online, I've learned that you can have a project and you can have plan..But most importantly, you must have a business plan that can accurately "project results" in front of a panel of trained http://cdvca.org which is a community capital investment alliance or more metropolitan companies like Creatis Capital (a company I work with) are all teams of savvy (often ex-Wall Street investors) who know hedge-fund managers and people with serious WEALTH.
professionals...Like judges on an Olympic jury. This being said, there are A LOT of alternative investment options (investment capital firms and angels investors) who want to invest in Independent projects, but they have to be novel and more sociologically ideal than "this is my idea...want to fund it?" Companies and site like

1st Pass of Bad Apple's Business Plan (2014)

Who do we as small independent project-creators get the attention of capital investments firms from the sites that I mentioned above? You have to speak their language and have a business plan. If you don't have the time/money to take the classes or pay a representative (on retainer) to find the funds for you, it helps to have a friend or attorney in the business that can point you in the right direction. But no one is going to do the work for you. What emerging technologies are gaining attention in the entertainment industry? How can you leverage digital and online/SEO marketing materials to get your project out there? It's not enough to have an idea...You need an idea that really sells itself. You can do this by knowing your resources and not only presenting your 4th or 5th full pass of a script, but your A-game (4th or 5th pass) business plan.

If you want investors to notice you, you have to at least show a kernel of something original enough that that can't imagine making the project happen without you.

The RIGHT Business Plan For a Movie: A Filmmaker's Key to Success

While I am NOT the industry expert that knows what makes a business plan really sell to potential investors and not the ONE who makes film projects "pop" to major production companies/distributors... I know a couple of people who do. I also have the fortunate opportunity to calls these two people my professional business partners. This is often a filmmaker's key to making a successful movie in regard to actually getting distribution and paying back their investors. And if you're one of those art house filmmakers that thinks "I don't need to pay back my investors...I don't care about money" then you are not in the BUSINESS of making films.

Michael Bohlmann of Creatis Capital

One of my partners, Michael Bohlmann from New York, went to Harvard Business school and started out as a hedge fund manager on Wall Street. But his love for film and music always stayed close to his heart, so he transitioned (successfully) to writing business plans for films...Of course they are always from the perspective of what the savvy investor wants to see. The biggest thing that Michael tells me over and over again is that "investors what to see something that has minimal risk and can show fairly immediate returns". How this has come to play-out in strategizing on my latest horror film is that I have been finding film tax incentives and working on attaching key talent (on the production crew end and B-list actor end). While most filmmakers can say "I don't have a lot of money, but I can promise you, Mr./Ms. Investor, I'll make you a butt-ton of money", its 100% more powerful (even though I consider myself a director/producer first) to say "I know this can be a risky investment for you, but I have XYZ in place and can promise you an instant tax write-off, negative pick-up deal, etc." -Which filmmaker would you go with in this case?


An accomplished finance professional and independent producer, Michael's production credits include: The Erotic Fire of the Unattainable (2015), How To Grow a Band (2011), Happy New Year (2012) and Live from the Lower East Side (2010). Michael spent 15 years on Wall Street in senior structured finance roles for investment banks including Deutsche Bank, Bear Stearns and Societe Generale and raised capital for alternative investments with Asset Alliance and other firms. -The rest of his company bio can be found at creatiscapital.com

A friend of mine in the business of reviewing business plans (from a legal stand-point) is Elsa Ramo, who runs her own law firm in Los Angeles. The important component that she thinks is the deciding factor on whether or not a film gets made is all the creative principal's belief in the presentation. -You can go over all the analysis...You can explain "why" (in my case), horror movies make historically great returns and have high-concept value...but the most important thing is to have 2-3 things that can sell a story. High concept, talent and team. And of course, a well-written plan that show real good statistical analysis is the real game-changer. Writing a business plan with the intention to present it to industry professionals that read film market trends in the Hollywood Reporter and Variety better BELIEVE you did your research to justify making a $1m + movie. Arthouse or indie project alike, have your A-game ready at all times.

Elsa Ramo of Ramo Law in Beverly Hills

Elsa Ramo founded the firm in 2005 on the Universal Studios backlot. She graduated from University of San Diego School of Law in 2002, and began her career in entertainment law by establishing the Los Angeles office for Davis Dixon Kirby LLP (a royalty litigation firm). After several clients approached her to handle their independent productions, she created Ramo Law, which is now located in Beverly Hills. The focus of her firm is to provide comprehensive legal services to producers, financiers, creators and owners of film, television and digital content. 

More on what Elsa and her team does can be found at elsaramolawpc.com

Woman Directors - How They Are “Making It”

Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman in a scene from “The Babadook.”

If you never seen the supernatural horror movie The Babadook, you may want to add it to your list of movies to see this summer. One simple reason would be that first-time director, Jennifer Kent, who helmed the horror film, has just been announced to direct the next huge Marvel franchise movie Captain Marvel. And if you want to read a review of why this movie is important, check out ‘The Babadook’ LA Times article when the movie was still making its rounds at prestigious film festivals like Sundance in 2014. Even Stephen King gave it a very positive review as “something to experience” rather than just watch.

As I’m a self-professed “comic-phile” and have written indie horror movies, I know the importance this movie has to women working in film. The character herself, Captain Marvel (known as Carol Danvers in the comic universe), is the equivalent to Wonder Woman in strength, but has some very oddball characteristics that make her very lovable and distinct in her own right. And so does choosing a female director, who helmed a horror movie, serves as a poignant reminder to a concept I’ve been throwing out there for years now. All great blockbuster movie directors, at least a vast majority of them, start off with directing horror movies first. Consider Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Slummy Millionaire), Peter Jackson (Dead Alive, Lord of the Rings) and David Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, Batman vs. Superman). These men are just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head.-But why does this trend seem so prevalent and relevant to tomorrow’s blockbusters?

For a long time, horror movies have been seen as the “underdogs” as far as film genres go. Not since the “hay-day" of high-concept horror movies, like Rosemary’s Baby, have we actually seen a horror movie win an Oscar. But we’re getting close with the film Mad Max: Fury Road garnering attention for its technical (and lyrical) chops. Let's circle this back to why Jennifer Kent was chosen for the next blockbuster Marvel comic movie. The reality is, man or woman director, if a film creative can make a $2 million-dollar movie thrive and get international acclaim for it, then it would be reasonable to reach-out to said creatives to helm an even bigger project.

Horror movie writer/director Jennifer Kent

It doesn’t get much bigger than Marvel Studios nowadays as the average budget for a graphic novel adaptation is a cool $200 million. But if the studios is to go with any underdog, they chose the right one with Kent. She has been working in the film industry for over 20 years and knows how to make something, as simply as a boogeyman, seem frightful, ominous and something that ultimately points back to the oddities of human relationships. All these themes play-out and combine beautifully in the comic movie genre where characters often seem very detached from their “humanness”. We can only hope that Kent will bring a beloved superhero’s soul back onto the big screen. My bet is that she will.

Navigate Through The "Catch-22s" of Filmmaking

My Indie-Produced film logo.

Brand recognition is everything in the independent filmmaker's world. But you may ask, "How can I create a brand when no one knows my story?" The important I've learned from my classes in filmmaking is augmented by really enlightening articles, like the ones that are mentioned in Indiewire online. One of my favorite, more recent articles, was the 10 Tips for Producing a Micro-Budget Film. The most important thing that any indie (or starting-out) filmmaker should remember is that there are some things you have to compromise one (like shooting in one location to keep costs down) and other things that you absolutely MUST do.

For instance, even though your film may make it to Cannes or Toronto Film Festival, you will always have an agent or distributor ask "It looks great, but who's in it?" This being said, the most important thing I've been working on more recently is getting a casting director. But you would swear a casting director is as hard to pin down as an A-list actor themselves.

Here are some tips that helped me - Navigate the "Catch-22s" of Film-Making:

• Pick a "Die-hard" core-crew that isn't "starving" to get paid (I use this term delicately because I believe you should always pay your team SOMETHING, but be realistic with them from the beginning and they'll be your anchor for the long-haul).
• Have a Professional in Your Corner (this professional has to be like a mentor to you and isn't someone "loosely" affiliated to the project or an investor. This person can be a professional like a distributor, agent, attorney (they actually make good friends is you pay them a retainer) or someone you really hit it off with at a filmmaking mixer...They can be good friends too)
• Cast existing talent that someone can Vouch for (what I mean by this is, as you already know, not an A-list actor...But you can find talent through local casting agencies that have actors that are serious about their craft and have multiple demo reels). 

The biggest, most important aspect of filmmaking is knowing when to let bad things (or people go). For example, I had a terrible distributor on my first movie. It made lots of money worldwide, but I barely saw a cent of it. The "silver-lining" is that when I go to film markets (like AFM), agents still remember my movie because they all heard about how much money my indie movie made. While this was the first time professionals where giving me the time of day, I was also angry because I could tell by their inferences that my distributor made a "killing" off of my naivety in signing a contract.

This story all points back to my second bullet point, have a professional in Your Corner. Well, the professional in my corner is a well-known entertainment attorney, Elsa Ramo, who is always good at giving me some good perspective (especially when I want to quite the business altogether). She simply said, "Stephanie, you made a mistake in signing a deal. It is to be expected with your first film. Now move on."

I've been moving on ever since my first "pay-out flop". What I mean is, although my film was a commercial success, it didn't solidify my "staying-power" as a filmmaker in the entertainment business. I would like to encourage all indie filmmakers out their to not stop at just one indie film project...You'll never know that you tried your best until you've done the whole production at least twice. In my case, this will be a third time. And this time, I feel the most in-control because I understand the business, but more importantly the dynamics of filmmaking.