If you’re a filmmaker trying to raise money for your indie film, you need more than some good paperwork and a business plan (and, uh, not to mention a great script and great production team). Raising money for film is a Herculean task, but I’m gonna give you several cool websites/apps that you should be using if you want to cut down on the workload and actually boost your chances of getting money invested in your movie.
Kickstarter
If you haven’t heard of Kickstarter until now, you’re going to kick yourself. Kickstarter is a website where you can “crowd source” the funding of your film by asking for private investments from investors.
Here’s the beauty of it and why it works. Let’s say you set up a project on Kickstarter, and set it’s funding goal to be $50,000. If you don’t reach your fundraising goal by the designated time, the investors keep their money.
That way, investors are more prone to invest to begin with, because they know they’re not throwing their money towards a project that may never get off the ground. Not to mention it’s a great way to reach out to potential investors WORLD WIDE, as opposed to circulating in your geographic locale only.
The world is HUGE. Lots of millionaires. Kickstarter helps you reach those folks with a proven, working tool that you absolutely MUST be using, even if only for seed money for your film. http://www.kickstarter.com/
Weebly
Every film needs a website. We all know that. But what film investors are looking for when they’re considering investing in your film is: Who is this guy? Does he have a company? Is it legitimate? That means your production company, even if it’s just you, needs a website too. Until recently, that meant either hiring a web guy (or getting your buddy to design one), finding a hosting company, and/or doing it all yourself (and quite possibly making a mess of it).
Enter Weebly. You can sign up for a free account and, seriously, DRAG AND DROP your website together with an awesome, easy-to-use, intuitive browser-based interface.
You don’t need HTML coding skills, you don’t need to know how to install scripts, heck, you don’t even need a hosting company. Weebly does it all, and it’s free.
And oh man, is it super-easy. Your grandma could do it. Not to mention Weebly comes with awesome drag-and-drop plugins that allow you to add a Paypal shopping cart to your site, an email signup form, blogs, forums, surveys, videos, you name it.
Some of the features are only available with the paid Weebly, but even that’s super-affordable, and I recommend it highly. You can have your production company’s website up and attracting film investors in a matter of minutes. http://www.weebly.com/
Hootsuite
If you’re getting the word out about your film, you’re probably using Twitter and Facebook (or you live in a cave.) Hootsuite allows you to log into both in one easy interface and track comments about you, post new posts, add friends, update your status, and more. And it’s FREE. http://hootsuite.com/
Mailchimp
Every good film fundraising campaigns needs an email list. Mailchimp is a free email list manager that lets you create mailing lists and blast out emails to your subscribers, FREE (for up to around 2000 subscribers, I believe). You can also create signup boxes which you can use on your website, track email opens, and tons more awesome tools, like I said, all FREE. You’ve got to start building your email list if you’re serious about raising money for your film, so you can let investors know that you have a viable plan for internet marketing to fall back on should your film not be bought at Sundance. (Chubby chance.) http://mailchimp.com/
Sendible
Sendible is another great Twitter/Facebook tool that allows you to AUTOMATE your posts. Schedule posts to Twitter and Facebook days, weeks in advance, and then forget about it. Well, technically, don’t forget about it, because that’s just bad social networking. (Keep your eye on your posts, and respond!) It’s a paid service, but well worth it. http://sendible.com/
Square
Square allows you to turn your smartphone into an instant credit-card swiper. You can accept credit cards for payments, seed money, whatever a producer can think of. You sign up for a free account and then Square sends you a free small swiper tool that you plug into your phone, and wham – you’re ready to accept credit cards. Check out their site to learn more about your phone’s compatibility and all the other juicy details. https://squareup.com
