Do you stick around for Q & A at film festivals? It’s often predictable, especially that inevitable first question: “What was your budget?”

Much more interesting, and unfathomable as the mysteries of The Bermuda Triangle or the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa, would be this question: How did you find your money?

Want to make your movie? Become a student of how other filmmakers find their money.

A recent entry at the Chicago International Film Festival was Chicago Overcoat. This was made by six Columbia College Film & Video students and is the first feature film to come from Columbia grads since Robert Teitel and George Tillman Jr. helped create the Barbershop series in ’94. An article in the local Chicago Reader was enlightening on how the young filmmakers found their money. Paraphrasing here: The mother of the director contributed hundreds of thousands herself and “personally raised the rest of the two million dollar budget” through friends and real-estate acquaintances.

Thank you, Mom! You RULE!!!

How about those who try to fund micro-budget movies at Kickstarter.com? Or those who run Facebook campaigns to get small contributions from hundreds of “friends” and friends of friends? As big a director as Daren Aronofsky, when first starting out, raised $50,000+ from 500 $100 contributors for PI.

In this economy, maybe you go the Kevin Smith route: Micro-budget, starless. Clerks, according to Wikipedia, was shot for $27, 575.

Paranormal Activity was made for 15K (if we forget the multi-million-dollar Dreamworks marketing budget) and has gone on to gross $194 million. It had no stars, but had a concept that not only brought back the dead, but got you to reach into your wallet for $10. What is the concept that will sell your charming, deeply-felt character-driven movie? What’s new about it, never been done before? Why will someone pay $10 to see it?

And, most importantly: How can it get funded?

Will you pursue name actors? Without an agent, how will you go about doing that? Try calling William Morris as the Unknown Screenwriter, it might something like this:

“I’ve just written a killer script that your client Ryan Gosling would be perfect for. I’d like to send it over.”

If the assistant’s assistant is still on the line, you’ll almost certainly here: “Are you funded?”

“Well no, not yet, but when Ryan Gosling signs on we’re planning on—“

CLICK.

Rejection. Nothing personal, but rejection. Does it piss you off?

Well, get pissed off . Get proactive.

Stop waiting for the phone to ring. It’s not going to ring. You have to make it ring.

Become a detective: Follow the money. Figure out how other people are finding the money.

Make your script tight as a drum. Send out to the place you can send to, control what you can control. Find a way to make your low-budget film, and make it not just one of the thousands they get at Sundance–make it stand out. This usually involves writing about a view of life we haven’t seen before, and executing that vision well (like Winter’s Bone, the 2010 Sundance winner, recently Oscar nominated for Best Picture). Make your vision so strong that they can’t say no, and when your film screens at Sundance the same agents who wouldn’t return your call will be pursuing you.

How do you make this fantasy happen? Be a student on how others find money.

When everyone goes through the front door, try the back door.

Back door? The hell is he talking about?

I’m talking about finding the money. I’m talking about the non-conventional, about breaking out from the conventional strategies of query letters and screenplay contests. Thinking “outside the box” is all well and good, but here’s what you’ll need to start:

• You’ll need a script. Rock solid, 100%, no flies. A script to which they cannot say no.
• You’ll need relentless internal energy, relentless belief in the project, and relentless pursuit of the money to finance it.
• You’ll need a willingness to do whatever it takes proactively to get your movie made. You won’t have to rob a bank, but in your mania, you might consider it.
• You’ll need to study the marketplace. Read the trade magazines. Check out imdbpro and donedealpro.com for the latest deals. What specs are selling in the current market? What genres? Who is selling? Who is buying?
• You’ll need to ask yourself, one more time: Who do I know?

Make a list, not just of any industry contacts you have, but any contact anyone you know knows. Think six degrees of separation. Brainstorm. Be energetic in pursuit of anyone who can help put your script into the right hands. Like my producer-brother has eloquently stated about the pursuit of money: “You start by asking.”

Quick story: A friend runs a theater in Chicago. She wrote a spec TV pilot, a crime drama. Thought it was perfect for a certain LA TV producer with a history for crime drama. Wouldn’t it be great if he could read it? But how? She had no agent, no connections. Flash forward six months: Turns out an actor who had understudied in one of her shows had relocated in LA. He was working in a horse stable and doing the occasional soap opera. They got to talking about her spec pilot and the TV producer and—miracle of miracles—turns out the actor was teaching the daughter of this exact producer how to ride in the Spanish stallion “dressage” style. He was a guest every Saturday at the man’s house, on a first name basis with him! She asked if it was possible to get him script to him. He did, and she got a call back from the producer’s company. It happens, and this is how it happens.

I met Charles Bukowski the same way. I wrote a play adaptation based on several of his short stories without the rights (do not do this, ever!) So, we had a script but no rights. What to do? The theater’s Artistic Director had a friend who lived near Bukowski in San Pedro. He knew the address and promised to put my script in Bukowski’s mailbox. Flash forward two months: Imagine my shock when a letter appeared from Bukowski. He liked the adaptation and suggested we send it on to his publisher. A two-year correspondence followed. Some of his letters can be found here. Point being, we ended up getting the rights for $500 because the author liked the adaptation. Movie rights for Bukowski material these days goes for 6 figures…

One last who-do-you-know tale, a string of events that happened to my brother:  He made a 50K credit card movie, an adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s Light And The Sufferer with Paul Dano. During this time he also came to option a noir novel by Elliot Chaze, Black Wings Has My Angel. My brother wrote the adaptation and proceeded to look for funding. No takers. While working post-production on Light, he told his editor about his new project. The editor asked to read it and liked it. The editor offered to pass it on to a pair of producers he had just worked with on an Indy feature that made the Tribecca Film Festival. The producers liked it. For a piece of the gross they would come on board, but what exactly were they bringing to the table? Well, how about Elijah Wood? Wood had starred in their aforementioned Tribecca film. They gave the script to Elijah. He liked it but there was no part in it for him. Not a problem, he could lend his name to it as producer. Low time commitment, great pedigree. He agreed. Yes! Now you’ve got Elijah Wood attached. You’ve got Elijah Wood, you’ve got William Morris. The full power of William Morris is now behind the project, sending it out to the likes of XXXXX and XXXXX. One yes from an A-list actor and my brother will have a writer/producer credit for a 6 million dollar feature, his career launched. All because he handed it to someone who knew someone.

You need to put the exact script in the exact hands at an exact moment.

Who do you know?

TAKING THE FIRST SOLUTION

You’re trying to figure out a plot twist for your movie, but it won’t come. You think about it all day along. You set up in Starbucks, you brainstorm. Nothing comes. Finally, you’re at some Meinekee Muffler shop and it comes to you: It’s her sister AND her daughter!

You found the solution. Unfortunately, you also found a cliché. Chinatown did the sister and daughter thing. You claim innocence. You weren’t even thinking of Chinatown when you came up with the idea. Doesn’t matter. It’s been done and you’re guilty. Why? Because you took the first solution–which is, almost always, a cliche. Some movie you saw somewhere filtered into your subconscious and is coming out the other side in what you thought was an original solution.

How do you avoid this? Have a healthy distrust of the first idea.

When you brainstorm, never take the first solution. List every possible solution for a character or plot arc. Then work out how the story would play out in each case. Is there a better solution? Eventually, the plausible answer, the logical answer, will come to you.

Keep digging.

GIVING IT TO MOM TO READ

Are you serious? You gave it to your mother for criticism? Unless Mom is an agent at William Morris, I would seriously question the value of advice coming your way. Soothing as matzo-ball soup, do you really need to hear her tell you how great your script is?

When you finish the first draft, try giving  the script to an “inner circle” of people who will not bullshit you. You need people who know movies, who want to give you a critique and how to critique. Seek out professional help if necessary.

An actor friend was enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. I went to one of his productions one night. Backstage, afterwards, I relate how wonderful I thought was his performance. He thanked me for my praise and being a good friend, and then he stopped me. He proceeded to ask what I really thought of the play. No bullshit. See the difference? Ego is one thing; the burning drive toward wanting to do good work is quite another.

God Bless Mom and her matzo-ball soup, but…

Don’t give her your script for critique.

WHO DO YOU KNOW?

Comes time to sell your script, the Unknown Screenwriter is at a loss. What the hell can he do to sell this thing?

The first question that needs to be asked is: Who do you know?

This is six degrees of separation. 1: Do you know anyone in the business? Yes? Make the call, send the email, get them the script. You just put four months in writing it. You believe in it. Make the call. Get them the script.

Don’t know anyone in the biz? Maybe you know someone who knows someone.

Your brother sweep floors on the Paramount lot? Does he know anyone? Get him the script.

Your dentist’s assistant has a friend who works at a film production company? Get her the script.

Friend just got Finals at the Nicholl Fellowship and got signed with CAA? Get her the script. NOW.

Inside sales trump cold-calling, period. Before you write one query letter, before you cold-call production companies with a telephone pitch, before you try screenwriting contests or Pitch Fests or Screenwriting Expos, ask yourself: Who do I know in the industry? Who can help me? Often times, new screenwriters are shrinking violets. They don’t want to push, they don’t want to make demands.

Do you believe in the script? You owe it to yourself to make every contact you have to make. Relationships are the key.

Control what you can control.

Who do you know?

It ain’t workin’ out. You knew it would take time, and you’ve put in your dues, but M-A-N, that fab career in screenwriting just has not arrived.

What can you do differently? How do you shake things up?

What follows are a few downfalls any break-in screenwriter might make. Question is: Is this you.

NOT BRINGING YOUR A-GAME

Nothing derails a good idea so much as not being able to execute it. Before you start working on your screenplay, you must devise a way to find Energy. You’re A-Energy, to be precise. Yeah, you’ve got the story down, it’s all mapped out. You’re ready to go, only…

When will you write?

You’re married with kids. You’re up at 7, on your way out the door by 8. At the office by 9. The office gets the A-Energy. You’re outta there by 5, home by 6. Dinner and miscellanea with wife and kids takes you to 9pm. It’s screenplay time! But guess what: You’re played out! Not even B or C energy. Zero energy. You reach for the clicker and that TIVO’d SportsCenter, and… you wake up about midnight and crawl into bed. And like Jackson Browne said: “Get up and do it again.” You end up looking like this guy…

Life intervenes, folks. This is not unknown to you. When it comes to writing your screenplay, you’ve got to game it to find time to write. It’s one of the most critical decisions you’ll make, and one of the least discussed.

How will you find the time to write? Can you steal time at work? Will you write a couple hours a day, or five hours on Saturday? There is no one right answer, outside the necessity of energy.

I once read in Syd Field’s Screenplay: “You need two or three hours a day to write a screenplay.” Huuuuh?! Wrong. What the Script God meant to say is it would be ideal if you had wealth enough to be able to write two or three hours a day. If you don’t and you can’t, does it mean you can’t write a screenplay? Of course not.

This is a process choice. How, and more importantly, when you write is up to you. So long as it gets done. So long as you bring ENERGY. If you’re limping toward the computer, you’re in trouble. You need to game this.

Find Energy, you might write a good movie.

NOT KILLING THE PERFECTIONIST IN YOU

Don’t misunderstand: Being a perfectionist—wanting to nail down your screenplay—is a noble ambition.

What you don’t want, especially with a spec, first (discovery) draft, is writing and rewriting and RErewriting those first 30 pages. Often times in the scripts I’m asked to consult on I see first acts which have been worked obsessively, only to find Act 2 or 3 to be wanting.

Folks, I beg you: Do not censor yourself with the first draft. Say everything you want to say, no matter how many pages, and do not try to be too perfect at the first writing. With the very first draft, you want to push out. There will be a time to refine, believe me. Critique upon critique will be coming your way. But that first draft—let that first draft be yours. Do not censor yourself. Let it all hang out and do not over-polish the first pages. Just push out, push out…

Remember the scene in Amadeus where Salieri gets his hands on Mozart’s manuscript pages to discover a miracle: No corrections! No changes! The music had come down “from God”, perfectly intact, from Mozart’s mind right to the page.

Folks, that ain’t you.

Let the first draft be yours. Say what you want to say knowing a rewrite will come. Don’t be too much of a perfectionist.