FilmStew gives thumbs up as handbook prepares to launch Stateside

"Each one of the book's four main sections, printed it must be noted in a highly readable font, is a veritable treasure trove of information and inspiration."

As we prepares to launch the Film Finance Handbook, How To Fund Your Film in the US, we're delighted to see a big thumbs up by one of the US's top film news sites. It's an interesting experience launching it, as a UK based one-title-self-publisher, attempting to launch our product in America, without the budget to so much as fly out there and promote it ourselves.

But we have been helped in no small part by the excellent Trafalgar Sqaure Publishing, the UK-import imprint of the IPG group, one of the biggest indie book distributors there. I had experience of the American entreprenrial, hard-working collaborative and enthusiastic work spirit when launching Shooting People in New York, but this has really impressed me. When I consider all our business communication has been virtual, without so much as a trip to the states to shake hands and sign paperwork. Emails are received and replied on Saturday evening, people seem to actually enjoy work, and it appears as if the organisation from the CEO down are all wanting to make the book a success there. 

 It's ironic that the Americans, like Cannes Film Marche, Guerilla Filmmakers Handbook and the NPA, can recognise something worth supporting, while here the book has had no support for the UK Film Council (or other institutions) besides an advert they took out to promote a competing free film funding info service they provide. Yet it will be a huge advantage in introducing to American producers the new UK tax incentive and funding opportunities, the very thing the Film Council should be working on. Indeed, with British spelling throughout, liberal use of pound sterling, and case studies with dozens of new British film talent the book could be seen as a great bit of PR for the UK industry. 

 book review from FilmStew.com

An Impressive Handbook

Though the emphasis is on the international rather than on the domestic, a new global edition of The Film Finance Handbook deserves a place in the laptop bag of any serious indie U.S. filmmaker.

So just how effective a tool for film financing fundraising is the Internet? According to The Film Finance Handbook: How to Fund Your Film, a UK reference book being released in the U.S. next month by Trafalgar Square Publishing, it now looms on the horizon as "the seventh major." For example, Kinooga.com, started by Max Keiser, founder of the Hollywood Stock Exchange, tries to entice feature film micro investors by pre-selling them an Internet download copy of the future movie in question, for the very affordable sum of $10-15. At the opposite end of the spectrum is BraveNewTheaters.com, a tool designed to help makers of documentaries and politically themed films arrange and publicize screening events.

The man behind this venture, Jim Gilliam - a producing partner of documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald - is evidently putting his money where his mouth is. For Iraq for Sale, he and Greenwald were able - via four viral emails over the space of ten days - to raise from 3,000 of the 170,000 people contacted more than two-thirds of the required $300,000 budget. "We basically put a lot of effort into collecting all of the emails and contact information for the folks who bought [the previous Greenwald documentaries] Uncovered and Outfoxed," Gilliam recounts in the book. "...We had a commitment for $100,000 and none of us thought we could raise more than $100,000 online. I was the most optimistic, I thought we could do $100k, everybody else thought it was more like $50k. But we pulled it off... We raised $220,000, basically through our email list."

Cleverly, the entire "Chapter 4 - The Internet" of The Film Finance Handbook can be downloaded for free via the book's official website. As a whole, the 468-page guide - compiled by attorney Adam P. Davies, Netribution.co.uk film portal co-founder Nicol Wistriech (original publishers of the book) and ShootingPeople.org Editor James MacGregor - is a must-have for anyone engaged in the highly competitive pursuit of celluloid cash. Each one of the book's four main sections, printed it must be noted in a highly readable font, is a veritable treasure trove of information and inspiration.

What's more, the authors have peppered the tome with more than two dozen exclusive and reprinted interviews, spanning everyone from Paul Haggis and Gus Van Sant to BBC Films' David Thomson and filmmakers Susan Buice and Arin Crumley, who leveraged their podcast FourEyedMonsters.com into a limited theatrical release and $100,000 film competition prize.

Previously available in the United Kingdom and priced for its upcoming North American rollout at $45.00 in the U.S. and $56.95 in Canada, The Film Finance Handbook counts the Cannes Film Market as an official partner. For aspiring U.S. filmmakers, there's no doubt the book's most useful element is how it will open their eyes to the vast array of potential international funding sources that can be targeted.