Grants
Grant money can be a great financial resource for the ultra-low-budget moviemaker, particularly if your project is out of the mainstream or focused on a particularly unique niche of our society. Granters are always looking for non commercial, personal movies that examine or celebrate cultures, population segments, or lifestyles generally ignored by the commercial media.
While you may not be able to raise your entire budget this way, a grant can help you get started or help you finish, depending on the grant program. Some programs are devoted to supplying seed money, giving you the dollars you need to get your project off the ground but not necessarily enough to complete it. However, one person’s seed money can be another person’s entire budget. Twenty thousand dollars may be only enough to help a $500,000 feature film set up shop; it’s more than enough to get you all the way through production and postproduction, plus enough left over to take a nice cruise.
Regardless of what kind of funding you’re asking for, we should point out that there’s a trick to getting grant money. Now, this is a secret, so please don’t spread it around because then everyone will know about it, and then it won’t work anymore. In fact, after you read this section, you may want to tear these pages out and eat them, just to be on the safe side.
Ready for the secret? The trick to getting grant money is this: Follow the grant instructions.
Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Yet, every day moviemakers submit grant proposals that blithely, even blatantly, ignore the grant instructions. And not just the fine print. Often the big print as well. In most cases, these grant requests are turned down. Ignored. Or even mocked. Yes, it’s true. Grant panels will openly mock incorrectly filled-out grant proposals (behind closed doors) and then unceremoniously discard them. It happens every day in foundation board rooms across the country.
It’s a shame, isn’t it? Well, no, actually, it’s great. Because if you fill out the forms correctly and others don’t, it will be their applications piling up by the dumpster and yours that gets moved ahead for further review. That’s the second secret of getting grant money: Grant committees are just itching for a reason not to give you money. It’s not because they don’t like you or your project. It’s because there are so many requests for grant money — and so little money to go around — that they need an easy way to wade through the piles of plastic binders and find those proposals that are completely and totally deserving of their largesse. And the easiest criteria for eliminating contestants from this pool is to toss them out for rules violations.
Let’s say they ask for a one-page project summary, and you, in your foolish arrogance, submit a three-page project summary — well, you’re outta there! Kiss your grant hopes good-bye! They can now move on to more deserving candidates. Or perhaps their pedantic instructions insist upon three letters of recommendation. And you submit only one. Heads up! Another grant proposal headed for the wastebasket. They shoot… and you don’t score!
Submitting your proposal late. Failure to include an innocuous piece of paperwork. Your name at the bottom of the page instead of the top. Who knows what will set off the finicky grant people? You do, that’s who.
You now know how to get the edge over most of the people applying for grants. Read the instructions, and follow them to the letter! Not everyone will. Filling out the paperwork correctly doesn’t guarantee you success, of course, but it does put you head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. At that point, your project and its merits will have to speak for themselves. But at least they’ll have an audience.
Favors
Favors are the currency of independent moviemaking. They’re the oil that keeps the gears running smoothly. They’re the sip of cool water in the middle of an arid desert.
Favors can come from anyone and anywhere. A video producer with a camera package lets you use it on weekends. A relative gives you the key to their empty cabin, a perfect location for your movie. An old friend from junior high who now works at a rental house cuts you a great deal on lighting equipment. Your ex-brother-in-law who has access to some editing equipment comes to your rescue.
While you probably can’t produce an entire digital feature on favors alone, regular trips to the favor bank can save you oodles of cash along the way.
Of course, building up an account at the favor bank doesn’t happen overnight. You must invest in the favor bank, just like a savings account at a regular bank. You do favors for other people in your moviemaking community by helping out on a shoot, lending some equipment or advice, and offering your talent and your services. All of these favors are an important investment for you and for the rest of the moviemaking community.
By the time you’re done with your feature, you’ll undoubtedly be overdrawn at the favor bank in a big way. So be sure to get back out there and start investing again, offering your help to those who helped you. Your moviemaking community needs you, and, with any luck, you’re going to need them again as well.
