How to start a movie production company

At some point in time almost everybody has dreamed of making their own movie, Hollywood makes it look so glamourous In most cases it isn't nearly as glamourous as it seems, making a movie is a lot of hard work. If you are prepared to put in the work there is no reason that you can't start your own movie production company and start making your own films.

The first thing that you are going to need in order to start a movie production company is a script. You can either write the script yourself or option it from a screen writer. Before you even start you should have a good understanding of movie scripts and how they are normally written. When assessing a script you should not only be considering whether or not it will make a good movie but how much it will cost to produce it. Money is probably going to be tight when you are first starting out, a script with lots of characters and lots of different locations is likely going to be expensive to shoot.

The next step is to find the money, this is where most movie production companies run into trouble. If you are prepared to shoot on a real shoestring budget you may be able to finance it yourself. Realistically you are probably going to need to find an investor. The first step is to create a business plan, this should tell potential investors how much money you need, how you plan to market the movie and when you plan to have the movie finished. The key to getting investors is to convince them that you actually have a good idea for a movie, you need to have a good script and you need to be excited about it. Your first film probably won't make any money, and you should be upfront about this with your investors, don't make unrealistic promises. The idea is start a partnership the will lead to profitable films down the road.

Once you have your script and your money you will need to actually shoot the movie, this is a big job in itself and you will likely need to hire people to help you. You will need to do things like casting actors, finding locations, and arranging all of the equipment that you need. There are many jobs involved in shooting a movie and you will need to decide which you can do yourself and which you need to hire somebody else to do.

Once the movie is shot and edited and ready to go you will need to work out a distribution arrangement. The best case scenario is to find a major studio to distribute your movie, this is very unlikely to happen. The more likely scenario is that you are going to have contact independent theatres on your own and ask them to show your movie. Independent film festivals are another great way to get your movie out there, enter it into as many of these as you can.