How Do You Pitch Your Film and Find Financing? The First Feature: AMATEUR [Episode 4]

In this episode of our step-by-step podcast on how to get your first feature made, using my Netflix Film Amateur (out now on Netflix) as a case study, we dive into how to find a producer—and financing.

Click the play button on the Soundcloud player above to listen, or listen to our other deep-dive episodes of The First Feature.

This episode covers my experiences pitching Amateur eighty (!) times and eventually getting it to Netflix, including the following points: 

• Making a pitch into a back-and-forth conversation as early as possible
• What goes into a pitch packet other than the script, including a rip-o-matic/multimedia lookbook
• Using CRM software to track producers and financiers (I used Streak)
• How rejection can be a development process unto itself
• Why "producer" is an amorphous term and how to identify producers with complementary skill sets
• Who my producers were (Jason Michael Berman, Chip Hourihan, and Mark Moran) and what their roles were
• How I got the film to Netflix

….and more.

The articles and podcasts we mention are:

• Running a Kickstarter Campaign? Here's What You Should Think About Before — and After 
• The Mysteries of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, Explained 
• Meet Netflix’s Indie Content Team, at Sundance and Beyond - Indiewire

If you have questions about the making of the Netflix Original Film Amateur — or about your own feature project — you can ask me at firstfeature@nofilmschool.com or find me on twitter @ryanbkoo.

Here's the trailer for the feature Amateur. Watch it now on Netflix!