Eric SamulskiThe Funding Pie
November 20th 2006 02:13
Duke meets Santa
Ho-Ho
A mate of mine made this doco about women in the porn industry. It’s a great film. When I saw it I thought that maybe film-making is all about creating something that makes a difference. After about two minutes I went back to smutty. That’s just me.
In Australia there’s this pie. Everyone who comes out of film-school is trying to get a bit.
The funding pie.
The trick to real film-making is not to even try for government funding.
Self-funding is the only option for survival.
Duke always says; baby steps. Start small and work your way up. Our first feature, The Killbillies cost $2000 to make. It wasn’t near perfect but it played all over the world and was released on DVD in Europe. We doubled the budget on our next feature, Bloodspit and we’ll double on the next.
It’s not easy raising cash for films but at least you save yourself the humiliation of grovelling to the cry-babies dishing out the pie.
One of the first things Lloyd Kaufman said to Duke and me when we met him in Cannes was;
“Why doesn’t the AFC help promote all the Australian films being sold here?”
If you’re not funded by them – they don’t care, we were told later.
He knew the answer, he was just pissed off.
The rule is;
Never ask anyone for help. Always pitch something you want like it’s doing something for them.
Whoever it is. Tell them how it’s going to help them.
And as far as the Government and their arts funding – there will come a time when they’ll actually give film-makers some tools to work with. Like go-go tax breaks. Then you can hit Big Bill and offer him a tax incentive he can’t refuse.
Until next time and happy film-making.
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