Financing Strategies That Worked For Me In 2024

+early bird discount on Funding Strategies Bootcamp ends Monday

I’ll be leading a live cohort starting Jan. 20 for my Funding Strategies Bootcamp. I’ll be guiding filmmakers and producers develop a realistic financing strategy for their projects in five weeks. If you’re sitting on a slate of projects that need a kick-start into action, join me to build some momentum early on in the year. Early Registration discount is in effect through Monday 12/23 so click this button to secure your spot now.

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Hello and welcome to what I think is the second to the last business day of the year? Crazy! Time to follow up on all those loose ends or punt to Jan. 6. You know how it goes in Hollywood lol 🤷🏻‍♀️

Since I received some questions after announcing the Funding Strategies Bootcamp I wanted to go through a few of them here by discussing the most common funding strategies I’ve seen actually work this year. (not just on paper, but in practice)

So I looked back at all the films I’ve had a hand in financing this year in one way shape or form, and the most common models have been these….

For $500K and below, it’s almost always pure equity/private money or a maybe a little bit of tax incentives depending on the budget (since some states/regions require a minimum budget threshold to qualify for the tax credit).

For $1- $5 million, it’s been a healthy percentage of equity/private money (no less than 50%), definitely a tax credit, and in a couple cases about 10-15% of distributor financing depending on level of cast. For the budgets closer to $5million who have higher value cast, in a couple cases we’ve been able to use debt to cover 10%- 20% (collateralized by future sales estimates).

For the projects that justify $5 million - $15 million budgets, it’s still a healthy amount of equity/private money (no less than 30%), definitely tax incentives, definitely relying on some distributor contribution, and probably a little gap. Those projects have relied on high level directors and cast to pull in higher distributor contributions and although are on the road to being fully financed, won’t go into production until Q3/Q4 of next year due to the time it takes to package at this level and put all the pieces together.

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Where Am I most bullish?

I’m bullish on the fringes. Projects you can knock out for $5K-$200K and distribute widely across the digital universe (yes I said $5K and yes I did one this year!). I know of a couple Producers and companies knocking it out of the park with features and docs in this range and covering their downside with You Tube AVOD plus tax credits, and realizing a healthy upside selling internationally and/or getting placement on a Tier 1 AVOD platform like Tubi, Pluto, or Roku (holiday, faith, and horror do well in this category).

On the other end of the spectrum, I’m also bullish on the $10-$15 million projects that are packaged with theatrical level actors that can premiere in theaters or with major Streamers and protect their downside with a domestic deal and have international be the upside (or other way around!). These are harder to pull off and take time to wrangle the actors needed to justify, but there’s some good examples from this year I’ll go into in future newsletters in the Action, Rom-Com, Holiday, Horror, and even Drama categories here.

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What’s worked for you or not worked for you this year in Financing?

Hit me up in the comments below or email me at stacey@filmspecific.com.

And don’t forget to register by Monday for the Funding Strategies Bootcamp!

On that note, I wish you all a wonderful Friday and weekend ahead and speak to you again soon!

Stacey

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