My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” – My 2003 Business Plan & Financial Projection for EVERYBODY SAYS GOODBYE

The indie film world was very different than it is today. This was before the near destruction of indie film caused by the triple disasters of the Writers Strike, Digital Disruption, and the Great Recession a few years later. The excitement around "cheap digital filmmaking" was centered on the Canon XL1 mini-DV standard definition camera. If you were cool in Hollywood in those days, you had to carry around an XL-1.

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — CONSUMED BY A PASSION PROJECT

  How Is a Filmmaker Consumed by a Passion Project? The following is a guest post from Michael R. Barnard, who is in the final days of an Indiegogo campaign for his film, Everybody Says Goodbye: The Story of a Father and Son. For many years, I have been chasing a motion picture project that …

Equity Crowdfunding is dead for us. What’s next?

If you remember that there once was a glimmer of hope for more sustainable financing for innovative small business (and, for my concern, an indie film industry) through "Equity Crowdfunding" as demanded by the JOBS Act of 2012, the fact is that it's not going to happen. It's already far past the Act's imposed deadlines …

The independent filmmaking industry needs a new relationship with investors [UPDATED]

Prolific indie film producer Ted Hope, who spent the past year as Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society (as of June 2015, a Production Executive at AMAZON STUDIOS), recently posted "Towards A Sustainable Investor Class: Accessing Quality Projects" as a call to build a healthy independent filmmaking industry. As always, he makes an …

Episode 1: Hal “Corky” Kessler explains Sec. 181

Episode 1: Hal "Corky" Kessler explains Sec. 181.

The JOBS Act of April 2012 is a Failure for America.

THIS IS A MAJOR JOBS PROBLEM AND NEEDS OUR ATTENTION:America needs good jobs. Joblessness and low-wage jobs have crippled the survival and prosperity of millions of Americans, and are a drag on our entire economy.The promise of the JOBS Act, signed into law a year ago and supported by the most bi-partisanship effort in recent …

EQUITY CROWDFUNDING RULEMAKING APPROACHES SOON.

I was at a seminar this week that purported to be about the new EQUITY CROWDFUNDING, but sadly, the panel was populated by finance professionals whose disdain for those of us who are not "high end, high net worth" made the panel useless. These types of professional fundraisers, coming from the status quo investment community, …

URGENT UPDATE for filmmakers regarding the Crowdfunding Act of the JOBS ACT

The Securities and Exchange Commission is accepting comments on how it will formulate rules for the new equity CROWDFUNDING act that was included in the JOBS ACT. (See my story on ReelGrok.com at http://www.reelgrok.com/jobs-act-crowdfunding) This is important for indie filmmakers, since the ability to reasonably raise up to $1,000,000 from investors could reinvigorate the indie …

Our chance to rebuild the independent film industry.

FILMMAKERS, this is very important: WHAT CONGRESS DID The house has passed the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act which offers a tremendous opportunity to rebuild the independent film industry. The Act is designed to allow businesses to raise capital through crowdfunding. Under current securities laws, filmmakers can only ask for donations, and donors support the …

My Bumpy Road Through “Hollywood” — MOVIES IN A BAD ECONOMY

You know that your favorite movies, and even ones you don’t like, exist in an uneasy alliance of art and commerce. Movies have the potential to be both emotionally and financially powerful; sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both. They brew in a caldron of artistic expression, profit potential, and career possibilities. Some movies find …

Why Make Movies?

Read about the making of the independent feature film NATE AND KELLY here: "Why Make Movies?" Has a movie ever touched your life?

The cost of asses-in-seats

Here's what I think specifically about MARKETING LOW-BUDGET INDIE FEATURE FILMS (NARRATIVE FICTION). This is an effort to help visualize the numbers needed for this new world of filmmakers becoming responsible for their own direct distribution. For a successful low-budget indie feature film, it is reasonable to expect an audience of approximately one million people …