Build First, Finance Later

In my tenth grade economics class, my peers and I each had to research and write an essay about the risks associated with loans and credit. What I took away from it was to never buy something you can’t immediately afford. In other words, don’t buy a new computer if you don’t have the funds for it in your bank account. While I’ve mostly lived by those words for personal purchases, I can’t seem to apply this principle to my professional creative practice. As a freelance documentary photographer, I often have to shoot a project first, and then shop it around hoping that a publication will find it of interest.

Discussions with my colleagues revealed that I’m far from being the only one in this situation. At times, it feels like the industry standard. This is not only the case in photojournalism. Media-makers and entrepreneurs alike are expected to develop a “minimum viable product” before approaching investors or applying for grants. While this requirement may not be new (pilots have long been a staple in the broadcasting industry for instance), expectations have escalated, as well as the costs associated with producing said MVP. So how do successful creatives do it? Members of Ryerson’s Transmedia Zone share their personal stories and the lessons they learned along the way.

All That Sizzles

Kathryn McKenzie, Studio Manager Transmedia Zone and Co-Director of the Secret Marathon

Asking the question “if you build it, will they come?” is common in the world of filmmaking. Unlike the film Field of Dreams, filmmakers may not have to build an entire baseball diamond, but the standard expectation is that we will create a sizzle reel.

For independent filmmakers operating on a shoestring budget, creating a sizzle reel in advance of receiving funding for a project can be challenging since it often requires asking your crew to defer their rates until funding is achieved. For producers, it means that the cost may not be recovered if funding is not secured. It’s a pricey ticket to gain admission to the game with no guarantee that the film will generate revenue in the end.

In filming the original sizzle reel for The Secret Marathon, my co-director and I were able to reduce the cost of production with careful planning, allowing us to shoot everything within one day. We also encouraged our crew to track their hours at each stage of production as part of their overall investment in the film. There is often an assumption, especially within documentary film, that the sizzle reel will be a passion project rather than crediting the work of the crew as a financial investment in the project. By budgeting the cost to make the sizzle reel in advance, including full day rates for all involved, we determined we could afford to shoot even if we were unable to recover the sunk costs. For our team the gamble worked: the sizzle reel we shot intrigued our funders. However, having a sizzle reel is not enough. You have to be able to effectively sell your vision.

Ultimately, for our team there has always been a 50/50 chance of success with our film. It was never a question of whether we could build a sizzle reel and if that would attract investors. It was about building a vision bold enough for people to believe in. We did not attempt to build a baseball diamond but we did set out to build a community that others would want to join and a movement that would inspire action. In our case, that has meant highly engaged investors like Viiz, innovative partners like The Running Room and countless volunteers and donors who have believed in our project enough to help us get this project to the finish line. We’re still on this journey but so far it seems that as we build the film, if we keep our purpose front and centre, our community will keep growing.

Building a Puzzle

J.R.McConvey, Founder Lichen AR

Some projects are like a puzzle, not only in that you have to build them piece by piece, but that you may end up having to make more content than you initially planned.

In the mid-2000s, I was working with colleagues at FilmCAN on an idea that involved taking our favourite artists out to national parks to make a series of short films. However, a series of shorts isn’t an easy sell. So, the first step was to find development funding for a “pilot”. Telefilm ended up contributing some money, which my colleagues used to spend a few days in Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, shooting with the filmmaker Peter Mettler.

Originally, the shoot was only intended as a test. But one of the producers, Ryan J. Noth (who is also an editor) took a bunch of the footage, cut it into a 43-minute abstract nature doc with music, and submitted it to film festivals. It was accepted by Rotterdam and eventually Hot Docs(having Peter Mettler’s name on it helped), and although it was a piece that didn’t fit traditional molds, it served as a kind of calling card for what would become the National Parks Project.

The pilot helped get the attention of Parks Canada, and their support eventually led to a deal with Discovery Canada to produce a series. The catch was, Discovery Canada didn’t want a series of short films.They preferred the idea of a factual/doc series following the artists through the national parks, which offered them a mix of beautiful landscapes and some famous names like Sam Roberts and Sarah Harmer.

So, in order to make the series of short films that had always been the heart of the project — FilmCAN, in partnership with Primitive Entertainment, signed on to make thirteen half-hour episodes chronicling the artists’ week-long collaborative journeys. The series, ostensibly a funding vehicle for the shorts, went on to win a Gemini for Best Performing Arts Documentary Program or Series.

Pre-selling and Other Crowdfunding Promises

Josh Gonsalves, Founder and Director Contraverse VR

Contraverse as an undergraduate thesis project at Ryerson’s RTA School of Media. We created three VR short films in 8 months with no prior funding and no track record as a production “company”. On top of paying $8000 for tuition (for a semester that included only a single regular weekly lecture), we had to self-fund our project by any means necessary. So with a core team of 5 members, we decided that we would each put in an additional $500 to cover some start-up production and equipment costs. We then turned to Indiegogo to raise $8000 to cover the rest of our costs. Imagine if our thesis year tuition was only $500 and we each put $8000 into production instead? What an idea that would be, Ryerson ….

We found that going the Indiegogo route was very beneficial for us. We were able to “pre-sell” our VR movies to a global audience (most of which ended up being friends and family), and we promised them access to the content upon completion and a premiere event they would never forget. After 8 months and lots of hard work producing our content, we hosted the private premiere event. Everyone who backed us on Indiegogo would get a free ticket to the event where they would be able to watch what they had already helped fund. We also opened up a few more seats to friends and family members who didn’t get around to backing us on Indiegogo. The rest of the money we got from the event covered our venue costs and some of those associated with production. Although we did not “make” any money with these three VR pieces, we now have a solid track record for selling our content, a successful crowdfunding campaign, and of course three awesome VR shorts that we will leverage for future campaigns and funding applications for future projects.

The Challenges with Conceptual Projects

Liam Maloney, independent photographer

The more conceptual a project is, the more difficult it is to describe it to a potential patron. In which case, an artist will most likely have to demo the project on their own dime. This gets incredibly expensive, time-consuming, frustrating and can stretch the timeline of a project beyond reasonable limits.

If you’re lucky enough to work with a commissioning editor who is willing to take a chance and pursue a more conceptual approach to documentary storytelling, the challenge then becomes balancing the needs of the particular story with your own interests and motivations for exploring an issue in that way. So, you either accept the inherent compromise of doing assignment work to develop your own projects, or you embrace the added expense of being truly independent. In my experience, collaborating with sympathetic editors is the best way to develop ideas into projects. Those relationships are so valuable — and it helps to not feel alone with a potentially great but impossible expensive idea.

A Passion that Snowballed

Emi Johnson, Marketing Director, Science Everywhere

Science Everywhere started out as a passion project. We roamed the streets of Toronto with a camera and conducted DIY experiments. We met at a local pub every week and we did a lot of experimentation with content styles, branding and project types. Funding and grants were tough to come by, so we had to rely on paying clients. Our core team worked many, many unpaid hours over these first few years. ur mission was simple: make science everywhere. Watching that mission unfold is what kept us going. Making connections with our audience, sparking curiosity, and building a culture that truly appreciates science. Each one of us loves our job, we’re committed to the vision and determined to succeed.

In a media landscape where it’s nearly impossible to hear your own voice above the din, success was and continues to be a challenge. Still, there are a few strategies we’ve found to be effective over time when building a business in the creative industries.

Take for instance our willingness to be different. It surprises a lot of people that we are firmly not for kids because . the default assumption when you do science engagement is that you’re doing it for children. There’s already a ton of companies out there with the important job of educating and entertaining kids. The downside is a lack of relevant funding grants. The upside is that, by addressing the entire 18+ demographic, you fill a badly underserved niche in a highly visible way.

Being proactive was also extremely valuable to us. We wanted to build science culture with large audiences. No one was going to give us a stage, so we made our own with outrageous live science engagements. These events got us noticed in bigger ways that snowballed into partnerships with CBC, Cityline, and the ROM among others. The most valuable thing we’ve found is to have a clear sense of what our mission is and be vocal about it within our professional networks. We did not use advertising to build any of our relationships, from Ryerson University to VICE. It was all because those who worked there and supported us knew what we were trying to do. When opportunities to showcase fun adult science programs came up, people looked to the group who wouldn’t shut up about doing just that.

Build for Yourself, and Others Will Come

Emily Doherty, Marketing Manager, Dare-U-Go!

Some of the greatest ideas and inventions have been created by individuals who see an opportunity, not just for business, but to simplify their own lives. A parent, Lisa D’Amato had an idea for a product she couldn’t believe wasn’t yet on the market so she; patented, designed, trademarked and created it for her on-the-go parenting lifestyle, in hopes it would benefit other parents worldwide. In short: Dare-U-Go! (which will be available in January 2018) is a twist to the everyday bib that holds and divides homemade healthy meals, to ensure portions of the different food groups and helps prevent food from mixing. Baby products are especially challenging to bring to market because they require product safe testing and loads of boxes to check off, ensuring they’re free from harsh chemicals, materials, and are ultimately child friendly.

Still, the biggest challenge was getting the funding needed to see this product through and bring it to families worldwide. Lisa wanted to be in control of her product and did not want to go with a large investor. Hence, she took to the crowd-funding route and created a dialogue with fellow parents and peers. It proved a success. The Kickstarter was 104% funded! This leads us to conclude that if you build something with the intent to better your own life and have a personal connection to the project, those who support your vision will follow.

When a Pilot Is Worth it

Sarah Shelson, Producer Cherrydale Production

In the Canadian web series world, there is one fund that looms large over all the others: The Independent Production Fund (IPF). Once a year the internet is flooded with Canadian web series pilots from amateurs and professionals hoping to be one of the limited recipients. On one hand, it makes a lot of sense in for a web series to have a pilot. Since both the creative and audience engagement is so critical to the success of a web series, being able to see a team’s skills in action is useful when it comes to assessing which to support. It also opens the door for newer creators who have the right skills despite being newer to the industry: that’s how my company Cherrydale Productions was able to secure IPF funding. On the other hand, we bootstrapped our pilot and it’s not sustainable for independent creators to use that model for every single fund. That’s why early stage grants that support early development, such as COGECO, are critical to the grant ecosystem.