Selling a movie?
 

Hey all
So i haven't posted in a long long long time as i've been absolutely swamped with filming my first 10 minute short for a local asian film competition.

However that's all done and over with. Alas, we didn't win, but we learnt a ton (myself as director/editor) and thoroughly enjoyed the competition (1 week to film/edit a 10 min movie).

Now my producing partner and i are absolutely motivated and totally psyched to start pre production on a longer more interesting character driven piece and we'e already begun writing.

What's this got to do with the business forum, you ask yourself?
Well in order to make another movie, we need moolah.. not tons, but at least some for equipment rental and hopefully to pay some peeps.

Question is, would it be possible to sell our 10 min short? and howabouts would we go about doing that? It's not the greatest movie ever made but it's definitely watchable and fun- basically a 10 min suspense thriller flick with awesome acting and a decent storyline.

We'd love to be able to make some moolah off of it to finance our next project so any ideas would be much appreciated.

Btw we're based in Vancouver canada but we're not against selling our souls to any american based tv stations :D

I would say the value of your film is educational. Do you honestly expect to be paid for your first short? Maybe I am wrong and it is fantastic, but you have to be realistic.

A simple way to market your film is to put it on your Web site, open a PayPal account, and and provide a link to the film in your receipt for payment page.

*nods* nopes don't expect to be paid @ all for my first short- You're right in a way that we learnt SO much in those 3 days of filming, much more than the $15k i spent for 1 year of film school.

However there's an actor i was acquainted with who had the worst filming skills *or lack thereof* and would make these really odd 'self filmed' little shorts with no lighting/on board camera sound and like no real story but just himself being in different characters and he apparently used to sell these shorts for like $5g's apiece.

Just got me thinking that's all

I do like your paypal idea but if one person downloads it, all the gotsa do is smack it on youtube and anyone/everyone can watch it right?

Again, you have to be realistic. People are going to put your video on Youtube? After paying for it? If they really do, just notify Youtube and they will remove it.

Hmm i guess.. either way, thanks for your advice.

in general shorts usually do not make $$ ..
cable channels play shorts to fill in the minutes when main program is a bit short of that hour ...
PBS has some programming for shorts ... i've seen shorts on HBO & showtime ...
most of the time shorts are calling cards to show what you can do .. most of the time shorts are entered into many festivals over a year period ...every now & then somebody gets a call from a producer or agent ..

Some film fests have cash prizes. You can find out which ones, and enter it in there.

I got paid a small fee to license my first short to travelling film festival.

Pardon the newbie question- but where can one find a list of fests and comps?

I think this thread would be very approperiate in the Techniques of Independent Production too.

I have no idea how things are arranged in Canada, but what about film and cultural funds? In Holland for example there are a lot of funds fur film and cultural stuff. With your first short film to proof that you can actually make films, you might be able to get some money that way.

(almost all films in Holland are supported with money from filmfunds and other cultural funds)