Callumny Films

Markets for new content / material exist - get the attention of agents and/or managers. With thanks to the generous, professional insights of Dick Lowry, here’s one way suggested by Dick Lowry to engage, generate reach & pitch material to agents and/or managers. Input also from #ChuckHustmyre, screenwriter). Much appreciation to both gentlemen. Outlook at Callumny Films and Wise Words Media is global, seeking commercial collaboration and international co-productions. ABOUT US * https://lnkd.in/gQvhz7RM * https://lnkd.in/g2Ku4H94 * MEDIA KIT PITCH DECK | project slate - scripts and project pitch documents are available for review upon request. A Fistful of Scripts v2.audio | Podcast Series * https://lnkd.in/g2-DrJK3 * https://lnkd.in/gk-rMg9U IMDB * https://lnkd.in/gGzEFNQD

A script and a pitch deck are the bare minimum of what you need to get financing for your film. Both of those things are important, don't get me wrong. They are the backbone of the whole project. Let's say it like this. The script is the backbone, the pitch deck is the heart (because that's where you really feel and see the emotion). But what's missing? The brain! So many projects go out looking for investors with just the backbone and heart. You need that brain, and that brain breaks down how this project will make financial sense to an investor. Even if you are focusing and tapping more into an investors emotions, like the excitement of being part of a film and all that good jazz. You'll still want to tap into the brain. Nothing will sell more to an investor than tapping into their emotions and then dropping a well thought out financing opportunity in front of them. Some investors like institutional investors don't care about the emotion, they only care that it makes financial sense. So the brain of your package is key here! I put together a financing opportunity summary template for you. This is something that can be in addition to your pitch deck and film business plan. I use a version of this with every project I jump on board. Sometimes they will be shorter, sometimes longer, it all depends on what we have attached to the project that should be quickly summarized for the investors. Like with any template, they are designed to be broad and not project specific so that you can get sort of an overview look, but then have that base understanding to craft and create your own. Make sure you create at your own version that works for your project and the investors you are going after. The more you have packaged with your project the better. The backbone, the heart, the brain, and then you start adding more onto that, and it gives the investors a full picture of what you are trying to create and the ability to understand how it makes sense for them. It doesn't matter if you are trying to piece together $15,000 at a time or $15M. It all has to make financial sense. You are a doctor creating a new Frankenstein, putting all the pieces together so that it will be loved and make a whole lot of money. - - - When you signup for my newsletter you will get a welcome email with this template plus others - https://lnkd.in/ddgwQHjC I am very close to pre-launching my course which I am so excited to get out to you all. I've had the fortune of industry colleagues giving me input on various sections of it so that it will be incredibly robust, useful, and actionable.

This week's post is about how to create an effective trailer for your first film.? For this step, you’ll need to have shot and edited three scenes. These posts are intended to be ‘quick-start’ guides. If you don’t understand something, you can ask me or, better yet, look it up. No spoon-feeding here, mis amigos. 1. On YouTube, watch as many trailers for existing or upcoming movies in the same genre as your film. Pay close attention to shot selection, pacing, sound design etc. Generally, the more action-driven the film, the faster the pace of the trailer. 2. Reverse engineer the shot list for your tailer, i.e. start by choosing the final shot – a shocking, revealing, or mysterious shot. Select 15-20 additional shots and create a 90-120 sec rough cut. Recut it until you get to 60-90 sec, or until you are seeing double. 3. Remember, you are creating a ‘commercial’ for your story. Use your best shots in ascending order to hold the audience’s attention. 4. Add captions and text (captions are very important, as you will see). Lock the finished trailer and upload to YouTube as a ‘private’ video. 5. Set up a crowdfunding page for your film. I like Indiegogo. Copy the link of your Indiegogo page. This will be your website. 6. Create business cards (yes, I know this is strange advice but do it anyway). Make the cards very plain: your name, phone, email, and the link to your crowdfunding page.? 7. Head to a Starbucks or the like. Buy some free coffee vouchers.? 7.1 Pick a few people who are sitting quietly, looking bored. Shouldn't be too difficult. 7.2 Approach them, saying: “Hi. Sorry to bother you, but I am a filmmaker working on my latest project. Would you be interested in seeing a short trailer of my movie?” 7.3 Unless they tell you to go pound salt, play the trailer on your phone or laptop -- this is why captions are important as every place is bound to be noisy. 7.4 Watch their eyes. If they look away or get otherwise distracted, take note of when that happens. No matter what, give them your business card. If they show enthusiasm, ask that they follow your film on your crowdfunding site. Lastly, thank them and offer a free coffee card. 8. Upload your final version of the trailer to YouTube, selecting the ‘public can view’ option. Promote the hell out of it on social media. Respond to all comments, positive or negative, like the professional you are. I know, I know… this is such a lot of work. But here’s the deal – do it or stop talking about doing it :) #producerspov #filmmaking

Look to local sponsors to finance your indie film. Any level of money coming in, is how you piece together all the financing for your movie, even if you can't finance it all with local sponsors. If a local sponsor will sponsor a local film festival, they very well could sponsor a film too. Who knows, maybe you can raise enough from local sponsors that you can then present an offer to an actor, that actor agrees and now you have more opportunities for financing. Even if it's just a micro budget film, you can still find local sponsors for $1,000 a piece and get a few of them. Then maybe you do some crowdfunding. Then you get in kind sponsorship. That's what it is, just piecing together financing so you can make your movie. No matter what, there are a whole lot of ways to find money for your film, even locally. I'm about to release a whole new and updated Template Package and a Course (dang, I have been working on this course for so many months now and I can't wait to share it). If you want to be notified when all that launches (and get a discount code) sign up for my newsletter and I'll keep you informed: https://lnkd.in/dwe5wFxv I'm curious to hear if you have had success raising money through local sponsors. Tell us about it in the comments, those kinds of comments are always so inspiring for filmmakers. Repost this post to help share this template agreement, there's probably someone in your network that may find it educational and useful. Share that film knowledge and share kindness.

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Why Callumny Films cares about the topic of European film funding Since 2015,?Callumny Films?has set it’s competitive advantage towards international co-production with creative industries professionals as #producers, #distributors, #collaborators and #production #partners. Wise Words Media?seeks global #distribution partners in the?#OTT sector and online content platforms spaces?(#fastchannles, VOD, SVOD and AOD) Interested to hear feedback from European-based film producers / professionals, as well as any / all other creative industries professionals with a global outlook seeking global audiences. FAST FACTS | did you know? There's 1.4 billion smart TV's world-wide - wanna be on one of 'em? Imagine just 1% of those eyes on your story / stories... Berlin film festival opened this week. European film production is booming…? ‘…film productions on the continent have increased by more than 50% over the past decade’ [1]. * https://lnkd.in/ggFNySMe

Berlin film festival opens today. European film production is booming...? ...'film productions on the continent have increased by more than 50% over the past decade' [1]. Love French films - always been jealous of the French film industry. My understanding (as an uninformed outsider far away in Melbourne, Australia) is that a significant portion of tickets purchased at the box office are re-invested back into production of French films. Essentially, French audiences are funding new French films? Smart - wish Oz industry could pivot towards this direction to replace the constant griping about Australian government failing to fund the film industry. Happy to stand corrected on Frech film funding...but that's way off topic. NOTE: to be fair Liam Neeson loves it here, currently filming 3rd feature in Melbourne. Foreign producers, including Neeson's latest movie 'The Mongoose' (plus the upcoming Peter Farrelly movie with Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser) love, love, love the Aussie crews and love even more the Aussie tax offset: Action star Liam Neeson brings movie magic to Victoria | 7NEWS * https://lnkd.in/gchU72kk Interested to hear feedback from European-based film producers / professionals. Why?Callumny Films?cares about the topic of European film funding. Since 2015,?Callumny Films?has set it’s competitive advantage towards international co-production with creative industries professionals as #producers, #distributors, #collaborators and #production #partners. Wise Words Media?seeks global #distribution partners in the?#OTT sector and online content platforms spaces?(#fastchannles, VOD, SVOD and AOD) [1] European film is booming. Really. In spite of the disruption caused by the pandemic to production and release schedules, film productions on the continent have increased by more than 50% over the past decade. Some of these new films will premiere at the?Berlin film festival, which opens today, or Cannes and Venice later in the year. Those who don’t manage to get a slot at the “big three” can still hope for red-carpet treatment: the submission platform FilmFreeway records more than 600 new European film festivals for this year alone. * https://lnkd.in/gpjS6UdZ fyi Tyler M. Reid

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Your first goal is to get your movie made. An investors first goal is to make money off of your movie. Aligning those two things up can be tricky. This is truly the balance of art and commerce. What really is that balance? It's balancing the budget with the estimated sale of the movie. As we all know, there isn't just one sale but hundreds of sales from theatrical domestically to theatrically internationally. Every single stage of downstream both domestically and internationally. Each of those stages earns money, but also for each of those stages various fees and expense are taken out of that earned money. That's why you will read about something crazy like a $5 million movie earned $10 million but made no profit..it could have even been considered a loss. So just that above sentence can be it's own long post, but I'm not going to dive into that here. This is why you need to ensure your budget really makes sense for what is needed to actually get the film made but along with the realities of what the film will (estimated) sell for. Like that chart below, some portion is taken out of every dollar made. Everyone in the chain wants their share and that share is varied. Even if you don't have some sort of theatrical run and only go "digital", you need to take into account the various fees that will be taken out of your revenue. It's not just fees that get taken from theatrical. I will say one last thing, if you have the opportunity to do some sort of theatrical run, even if it is small, it will have a positive cascading effect on your downstream revenue. ( I am going to make a separate posts specifically about this too.) Ensure when you go to an investor and ask for money, you have taken the proper consideration into getting real estimates of how much the film could potentially make (most films lose and your investor needs to know that too) You can't say to an investor that if they invest $500,000 and the film makes $1million then they will make their money back plus a huge profit. In that scenario they may very well likely only break even...or more likely not even recoup their initial investment. More than having the budget, you should figure out how much money will be taken out of every dollar the film earns. How much money you need (budget) should correlate with how much money the film could potentially make. Thanks to Stephen Follows for the graph.

So excited to be part of this journey. One of my favorite films of the year, The Brutalist, took home three Golden Globes including Best Picture-Drama, Best Director, and Best Actor-Drama. The Substance and A Different Man also took home best acting awards for musical or comedy. I cannot recommend them enough, especially if you can see them in a theater. Following up on these successes, both The Brutalist and The Substance were nominated for SAG awards. I'm sure more accolades are coming, but it's incredibly fun to watch these films succeeding. All of them will be hitting airlines this year, so keep an eye out!