Show me the Money! Crowdfunding Your Indie Film with Victoria Westcott - that's me!

Woohoo! So excited that this workshop is almost sold out already!

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!
Crowd Funding your Indie Film with
Victoria Westcott

Victoria, BC, March 17th , 2011 -

This will be a hands-on, interactive workshop to help filmmakers learn the ropes of crowd funding from the first idea to the final two minutes. Victoria will focus on what lessons she learned in her own crowd funding campaign (she raised $20,000 for her feature film Locked in a Garage Band) and will use examples from other recently successful campaigns.

“As a group, we will examine what works, what doesn't, and what we can do for our own projects,” says Westcott.

The workshop will be a hands on opportunity to look at what will work for individual projects.

“Whether you're in pre-production, production or post-production - all types of projects can use crowd funding so let's help each other with planning different fundraising campaigns,” says Westcott.

Victoria Westcott - Producer

When she was sixteen-years-old, Victoria convinced the good people of Nepean, Ontario to give her enough money to fund an eco-trail building excursion through the jungles of Costa Rica. Sheʼs been convincing people to give her money for her intrepid endeavors ever since. From volunteering for a cataract surgery in Bangladesh to working in an English school in Guatamala, Victoriaʼs ability to put words (and dollars) into action knows no bounds. And since she already owns and operates a successful recruitment company, what better career path than independent movie producer?

Her vast experiences in both the cuddly world of volunteerism and the cutthroat world of business have proven to be the ideal preparation for writing (and sticking to!) budgets, hiring great cast & crew and getting through all the legal aspects of filmmaking.

Most recently, Victoria & her writer/director sister, Jennifer Westcott, managed to "crowdfund" $20101 for their upcoming feature film, Locked in a Garage Band. 68% of those funds were raised on the final day - in the last 10 hours mostly through Twitter & Facebook.


The Details:
Date: April 2nd, 2011
Time: noon-5pm
Place: CineVic 1039 Lee Ave. Suite #1931
Price: $20 CV/MN/VIFPA members $25 non-members


For Information Contact:
Krista Loughton office@cinevic.ca 250-389-1590
Link to the event on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=143185959080589

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About CineVic
Cinevic is an artist run cooperative facilitating the expression of unique, innovative voices in the ever-evolving language of film.
We are located in Victoria, BC, Canada at 1939 Lee Ave. Suite #1931 -- office hours are Mon-Fri 9:00am to 1:00pm.

How to Get Hired and How to Get Fired on Independent Film Productions

Check it out! I finally wrote my blog post for Karen & David's blog, Film Courage.

What are you waiting for? It's not here. It's over there!

Please leave a comment if you read it so I know I am not talking to myself (not that I don't, I definitely do talk to myself. A lot).

On Patience & How I Need Some

When I was at the Austin Film Festival this past October, I kept hearing fellow filmmakers tell us newbies that we needed to learn patience.  Our first scripts probably wouldn't be the ones to sell, and it takes 6-10 years to make it in the industry.  "Just be patient," we were told.  I probably heard those statements in various forms about 20 times over the 9 day festival.

As a former primary school teacher, I like to think I can be patient.  Key word: can.  It doesn't mean I like to be. In fact, I think that's why I enjoyed teaching in primary schools - those kids move fast!  I had to move faster than the kids, keeping one step ahead of them at all times, particularly in inner city schools in London, England - or else fights would break out, kids would be hurt and I'd ultimately feel like a really rubbish teacher (like my use of "rubbish" there? Oh, the British! I love them so).

But now, I'm making movies.  And let me tell ya - it takes a whole lot of time to go from point A to point B in the movie world. And we're moving ridiculously fast according to our film-making friends who have already made their first features.  Apparently, it takes at least a year to go from script to final movie.  We're doing it in 6 months. 

Jen, the writer/director in our sister-filmmaking team is much more patient than I am.  She's already written 12 scripts, had a bunch of options and a Praxis contest win, and she manages to write while her 3 kids are running around the house around her.  I'm not even kidding.  I call it the circus over there. 

Our website's not done yet, so we're holding off on the kickstarter launch until it is.  Any day now folks!  At least the teaser is out there and getting loads of great reviews & retweets on twitter.  Now, my patience is being tested as I click "refresh" a gazillion times a day to see how many people have seen it.  I hope to reach a level where I stop refreshing.  If you haven't seen it yet, here it is.

Please share it!

Also, if you have any tips or tricks for learning to be more patient - send them my way.   I need all the advice I can get!

Riding the wave of emotions. How do creative types deal?

Yesterday, I tweeted:  

VictoriaWestcot Riding the wave of emotions from "OMG this is frikkin' awesome!" to "This is getting real & now I'm scared!"... how do creative types deal?

I received a flurry of amazing replies from fellow filmmakers.  Here are a few of my personal favourites:

@GlynisMitchell booze

@rfontaine71  Know the feeling. The more awesome things get, the scarier they get. Just means the payoff is better when you rock it! 

lmcnelly We drink. A lot. 

d0kk amen RT @lmcnelly We drink. A lot.

britmic And some more RT @d0kk amen RT @lmcnelly We drink. A lot.  

montoure - Elation can look like fear from the wrong angle. Just remember why your heart is racing and you'll be fine. 

drawclose I'm a cork. No matter how deep I dive, I always surface

Lanceliot #HowIDeal sweets, mind numbing electronica music, walking by water, incense, writing about it, tea, espresso, booze, movies

I must admit that my consumption of wine has increased since venturing on this filmmaking business.  At least I'm not alone in that one eh?

I really appreciated the outpouring of love from filmmakers all around the world, most of whom I've never met, but they piped up to offer advice.  Makes me love this journey even more.

Thanks tweeps.
  You rock my socks.

How to Shoot a Teaser/Trailer (in the Rain)

Photo from @YukariP's phone, our Line Producer and Twitter Queen.

I know I need to write down my reflections on shooting our teaser/trailer yesterday, but I must admit - I'm knackered!  So this will be short, but sweet I hope.

We shot on the Canon 5D with separate sound files over about 5 hours yesterday afternoon in my garage for our feature film, Locked in a Garage Band.  We were shooting for a teaser/trailer that will be 45 seconds long and should be complete and ready to show the world by January 1st 2011.

The day's objectives were to have fun, get to know our cast & crew & see how we all get along before we go into April's 10 day shoot, and to cut a teaser that will be used in our Kickstarter campaign and in our social media marketing efforts.

It's all to create buzz, get more $ in place and start building up an audience for our movie.


Read on for my thoughts & advice on how to shoot a teaser/trailer ... in the rain.

But first, check out our weather report for this week:

11°C | °F Current: Showers Wind: W at 21 km/h Humidity: 88% Sun 10°C | 7°C Mon 8°C | 6°C Tue 7°C | 4°C Wed 6°C | 4°C

1. When shooting in the Pacific Northwest in December, prepare and plan for rain.  Just the way it is I'm afraid. 
2. Garbage bags are really handy.  They can protect gear from rain, be used as hair protectors and of course, be used to collect garbage at the end of the shoot.
3. Hiring a competent, fun crew is really awesome.  Love our crew!  Seriously - they came up with great ideas, made us laugh, had an incredible selection of tape in every possible colour of the rainbow, and hardly took any time to stop & eat.
4. When people are working for free, you gotta feed 'em well.   Actually, even when people aren't working for free, you gotta feed 'em well.  And not just sugary junk.  That'll cause lots of problems a few hours later.
5. Bringing a Wii or other game system will make for a fun day.  Click here to see a picture of some of the cast playing Mario Cart.
6. Make a schedule & stick to it.  We told everyone that we hoped to get them on the 7pm ferry back to Vancouver, but in actual fact we had planned to get them on the 5pm. So when we wrapped and packed up at 3:15, in time for them to catch the 5pm ferry, the entire cast & crew were super-impressed.  They told us horror stories of shooting independent movies until 7am when being told they'd be done by midnight.  Yuck!  Under-promise, overachieve. Such a simple rule.
7. When it's done, you might feel a rush of emotions, ranging from relief, to sadness that it's over to elation that the day rocked.  I felt all those feelings this morning and must admit - it was really overwhelming & unexpected!  I even had to go for a jog to re-ground myself.
8. Back up your files & then back them up some more.  We didn't so much learn this yesterday as know this already, but I might as well add this to the list.  We purchased a 1 Terabyte external hard-drive from our local Apple store, and sent it on to our editor in Austin, Texas with our teaser/trailer files from the day.  We backed it up on my laptop and my sister's desktop, plus our sound guy & DP have copies.  I think we're safe.

What am I missing?  Please leave your million bucks below & let me know what you think, want to know, or care about.