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To Find Funding, Think Like a Funder The tricky business of finding funding was recently addressed at the San Francisco Film Society's "Thinking Like Funders" event. Held at San Francisco's swank Mezzanine nightclub, we reviewed it in the September issue of CS but there was so much valuable info, we felt it merited a round two. It featured a panel of funding decision-makers, from Global Film Initiative, ITVS, and KQED, who gave a candid look into the criteria and kind of thinking that goes into approving proposals.
"I Love to ask people for money," confessed moderator Holly Million, author of "Fear-Free Fundraising: How To Ask People For Money," adding that, "Fundraising became a lot easier for me once I learned to love it." She suggested getting to know the donor because she feels that fundraising is a very personal process. "It's about relationship building," said Million, which is a great name for a fundraiser when you think about it. And, yes, that really is her name. By the way, she has a new book entitled "A Helluva Guide To Indie Film Fundraiser", coming out in December '09, which will surely have some good insights and advice to offer.
Santhosh Daniel, Global Film Initiative's (GFI) Director of Programming said that he's seeking projects for narrative or fiction features and, outside the organization, for documentaries. He shed some light on his process when he said that "No project is ever rejected for funding because of a bad idea. It's usually because (the proposal explains) what they're going to do, but not how they're going to do it". Daniel explained that what they look for are projects that are likely to make it to completion, noting that a proposal may fail in the production timeline, the budget, the people attached to it, being clear on the intended audience, the educational value or even simply how the story is described.
Responding to a question from the audience, Daniel clarified that the GFI usually gives out finishing funds and sited the most common problem with proposals as discovering that what people talk about in their treatment or synopsis is not the same as what appears on the film, causing them concern about the filmmakers intent and direction.
For those filmmakers desperate to do anything to get funding, Daniel advised against trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. "When people try to fit a really, really good story into something that is socially conscious, then it becomes neither really socially conscious or a really good story. It becomes something that's hard to tell what it is".
Next up on the program was Cynthia Kane and Erica Deiparine-Sugars. Kane is the Programming Manager for ITVS-International and Deiparine-Sugars is Director of Programming at ITVS and Program Manager at LINCS. There was also some discussion on the Independent Lens series. They basically said that ITVS has the bucks. They're one of the largest funding sources available to documentary filmmakers. For example, LINCS provides matching funds of up to $100,000.
Kane said that ITVS has a couple of production funding initiatives for domestic producers that happens twice a year which provide finishing funds. With LINCS, they have an initiative for co-producing that connects the independent producer with the organization's TV partners (e.g. KQED). She also mentioned their 5 year old R&D fund for producers of color, which specifically provides development funds, and only happens once a year in September.
They went on to succinctly described the process at ITVS as going from meeting their submission deadline, to an internal review, then a peer review by experts in the documentary field who read, evaluate, and look at the works in progress. Then another internal vetting takes place and, finally, the proposal goes to a panel of invited peers in the field, and together they create a slate of projects for funding for that year.
On the other hand, if you have a completed project, you may want to cut to the chase and submit it to Independent Lens, which buys finished films. Submission guidelines are on the PBS website. The deadline for the next season is September 25th.
There was also mention that ITVS is looking to fund filmmakers from Latin America, specifically from Peru, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. So pass the word on to your brethren. Deadline is February 5th, 2010.
Last on the panel to speak was Emmy winner Sue Ellen McCann, a KQED executive producer for such programs as Truly California and Quest. From the beginning, McCann made it very clear that KQED does not provide funding and is therefore not a funding source. What they will do is provide resources and, when co-producing as a partner, they'll co-fundraise for you. As an example, they might approach BAVC for off-line editing for you, broadcast the finished film, promote it, and help you find other outlets for it nationally through their network of associates.
McCann did offer one caveat, when she said that it's not a slam dunk even when she likes a project and wants to take it to a potential funder. Candidly, McCann said that everyone at KQED is competing for funds from the same sources. So one person may think a project is perfect for a specific funder and someone else may already have a project that's going in front of the same funder. In that case, you just have to wait. Under those circumstances, McCann suggests that it may be better for the filmmaker to take their project directly to the funder instead, having already established that KQED is very interest in the film.
McCann said that the process for submitting new proposals can be found on KQED's website. She encouraged filmmakers to go ahead and submit a proposal even if it just an idea as they will champion a good one.
With regards to Truly California specifically, McCann said that they only provide finishing funds. They look for something that's in a final platform or festival cut form, adding that no new calls for entries will occur until November or December. Interested filmmakers can go to KQED's Truly California website to find out precisely when the calls will take place.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the contributions of the San Francisco Film Society's Michele Turnure-Solleo to the evening's discussion. Although not a featured part of the panel, she prefaced the panel discussion with an overview and update of the Society's extensive fiscal sponsorship services, which you'll find a lot more about in my article on film financing in the September issue of CineSource.