A Sundance Light Bulb Moment
+ Adapting a market-first approach
Hope everyone had a great weekend! And for those of you that braved the Sundance cold, that your trip was successful!
After film festivals like Sundance it’s common to ask yourself things like… I wonder how they did it? How they got that big Producer on board? Or those A-list actors attached when it was their first feature? Lots and lots of unanswered questions and it can be frustrating as you bang your head against the wall trying to do all those same things to no avail 🤦🏻♀️
So much so that I’m considering a Substack series called Film Economics where I try and get interviews with filmmakers of all stripes and get them to dish on all the details we wonder about so we can actually see how people are doing it, and in a contracting ecosystem to boot. What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments if you’d be interested in something like this or maybe it’s already being done somewhere I don’t know about.
Determining Market Value Of Your Film
One thing is certain these days and Sundance amplifies this fact, that the market value of a film - aka the acquisition price paid and potential future revenue - is determined by cast. Plain and simple. The end. 💡
But seriously! I go into this in more depth in this week’s Funding Strategies Playbook course but the TLDR; is forget about budgeting your film as a first step in the process of figuring out how much financing to raise, and replace that with seeing which cast you can attach first and then making the film for whatever market value is assigned to your total package.
Sound complicated? It’s really not - it’s just a completely different mindset to adopt.
And what better place to float your project to the market than a film market like upcoming EFM, or Cannes or AFM after that. It’s what we do in our done-for-you Submissions Service but you can absolutely do it on your own by showing up in person at these market events yourself, one sheets and log lines in hand, and a little door-to-door schmoozing.
A few of the films I’ve Produced and EP’d in the last couple years went about crafting their finance plans from a budget-first approach, where as the projects I’m making this year are all from a market-first approach. Otherwise, it gets too hard to raise the equity piece because without a strong business case for recoupment and profitability, the numbers don’t pencil out in your finance plan. 🤷🏻♀️
So all this is to say if you’re moving forward with a slate of projects this year think about trying to approach the market first and back into your budget and finance plan from there. Need help? Email me at stacey@filmspecific.com or comment below with your questions.
What about you? What models are you playing around with right now to accelerate the process to production?
Look forward to hearing from you and speak soon!
Stacey
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Stacey, I would LOVE a Film Economics series from you. That sounds exactly what this moment in the industry needs- more open channels of communication and discussion of how to get things done!
This could be interesting! Curious what a ball park estimate of attaching talent cost looks like? Is there anyone working in the "build the audience" first space? Thought provoking as always Stacey! Thank you!