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5.1: The Business Plan and The Production Plan

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    The Need for Plans

    The way films are financed differ greatly depending on the size of your budget. Pulling out your cell phone and following your dog around the neighborhood on his adventures is something that you can self-finance. If you want your film to play in movie houses, get selected for film festivals, or to demonstrate skills sets that will catch the eye of Spike Lee, you will need larger budgets.

    Despite the size of your budget, you will want a Business Plan, a Production Plan, and an overall Film Proposal for each film you make. If you seek investors for your project, they will also need to see a project Production Plan as well.

    The Business Plan

    Your film production is the product of your production company. Think of your filmmaking skill sets as a product of your company. This company has an owner, management people, and other employed individuals. You may even wear all the hats as a sole proprietor. In smaller video productions, each individual takes on more than one role. At the top are the producers, those individuals who supply or find the financing. As producers go out and try to secure production financing, they will need a detailed explanation of your company and the feature they will be making. Even if you are just completing a project for a film class, it helps to think of yourself as a business. You need people skills to interest your fellow students to act as crew or cast, negotiating skills with your parents, neighbors and investors, or maybe bartering skills with sandwich shops to cater the production shoots.

    Start with a business plan:

    • Name your production company
    • Apply for a business license
    • Prepare the production bible
    • Create talent releases
    • Have everyone sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement

    We have covered some of these items in the previous chapter. Your business plan has similar elements found in your production bible. The difference is that your production bible reflects your current project and a business plan covers present and future projects. You may want to think about creating a mission statement reflecting on the kinds of projects your business will be creating. Mission statements identify your business strategy and help define your activity in a concise manner. If you do not write an actual mission statement then at least think about the kinds of projects you will produce and why you want to do them.

    A Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) protects your valuable story ideas while they are still just ideas and not yet produced into features. It is a legal document that your crew sign to keep confidential the nature of your productions. This allows you to pitch your ideas to actors, directors, financiers, and anyone you talk to about your projects and not have your ideas appropriated by someone else. A producer would have to disclose their story idea to a potential director - without an NDA, that director could make the film on their own or may disclose to others what you plan. Like many of the other documents in this chapter and the previous one, there are many samples of these agreements found online.

    Investors in your project will want to see a professional-looking business plan. If you apply for financing - whether from friends, investors, or seeking grants - they will want to know that you are prepared and that you have long-term goals. Having all of your blank forms, documents, and strategies in one place helps to look professional.

    The Production Plan

    The production plan is a separate document. It deals more with the logistics of filmmaking rather than the business side. A production plan explains what will happen when your project actually starts filming. It will give specific dates, from the first take to the wrap party. It will disclose the post-production activities and how the film will be distributed.

    One of the roles of the assistant director is to create a roadmap of the entire production. This includes dates and locations as well as necessary equipment needs on each individual shoot day. This plan enables the video production to progress smoothly. It breaks down the scenes, crew needed, times, cast, set pieces, and meal periods across all the days of the production shoot.

    Your business plan and your production plan are just two elements of your film proposal. The next section details the proposal, which clarifies specific details of your overall production.

    This page titled 5.1: The Business Plan and The Production Plan is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Steve Shlisky (ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)) .