Financing a movie is asking for peoples trust. How you are looked upon by the other party is crucial to the financing process. The movie business is not so much about “hard selling” (as one first might think after seeing Ari from Entourage in action one too many times…) – but rather about “soft selling” and building relationships over time. An important tool for this is the biographies used for marketing, on the web page, in the business plan and elsewhere.
KEEP IT SHORT
Try to be as brief as possible, but still include all necessary information – but at the same time only what’s relevant. En biography should not run more then 200-300 words and in a meeting you should be able to pitch the presentation on less than 30 seconds. The biography should be the “pitch of you”. Be direct when you describe your background and make sure to draft a line that catches the eye and interest of the reader. After this “grab” you move on with a more through explanation and finishes with some sort of subtle invitation and/or recommendation to the reader.
INTRODUCTION
As stated the introduction should emphasis on something that is both unique, appealing – and makes you stand out from the crowd – Something that grabs the reader in the same way that a headline for an article in a newspaper, something that forces the reader to reflect upon who you are, what you might have to offer. What you have that other film makers or entrepreneurs don’t have. Something that makes the reader wants to go on and keep reading. Almost everyone has something that sets them apart from the crowd and makes them unique –the challenge is to get to know enough about you to know what this is – If you find that you have difficulties with this, so ask friends and colleagues to help you by describing you, your skills and qualities – and then use their words. The guiding star should be to be to bring out the unique.
THE EXPLINATION
When you’re done grabbing the reader, it’s time to move on with a more through description of who you are. Bring out the strengths you have, told them about your success and your experience – because you do need to tell them – otherwise no one will know about it. You need to make references to past productions regarding nominations, award and commercial success stories, as well tell them about prestigious schools you’ve attended or successful corporations you’ve done business with or famous, influential and/or talented people you’ve worked with. This can be anything from a famous actor, you might be friends with, that might have agreed to star in the project – or you might be good friends with many journalists since you used to work as a publicist – or if you have great deals for camera rentals and/or with post-production houses.
To be in the movie business is being a traveling salesman in film projects. You are defined by those projects you create, in the same way a store is defined by what products they sell. If you’ve participated in successful movies before, this will strengthen your chances to finance future projects. In the same way the number of and sizes of productions you’ve been involved in before may grant you investors trust in that you can deliver. Your track record also tells a bit about your network and who you’ve done business with before, and possible might do business with again.
The ending
The end should, as stated, be some sort of subtle invitation and/or recommendation to the reader, which can be linked to the project you’re presenting. Like: “Mr. X is currently financing his new feature, THE FILM, which is estimated for production next summer. He’s looking forward to meeting new business partners and have them be a part of a fun, exciting and possibly very profitable venture”
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