How To Make Money With Short Films: What You Need To Know

Introduction to making money with short films in 2013:

Filmmaking is a self employed business and you can make dollars by making short films. With anything that involves self-employment nothing comes easy and there will be a lot of hard work. When following your dreams first do it for love and hopefully the money will follow. Even if no money follows producing something that’s your own and you can be proud of is a great accomplishment.

There are no short cuts to make high money from the beginning of this business but once you start working hard, you can make high dollars. Many say when producing short films or documentaries the best you can hope for is to break even. I say this so you start out with realistic expectations.

Start with your small investment, equipments you have, time and your networks for your first short film. If you are satisfied with your first earning then never stop and make more and more new short films and add new ideas to make more money. This can be an excellent way to make money for those who love to make films and become the source of their livelihood.

Consider Kickstarter to fund your short film or documentary project http://www.kickstarter.com/. Adam Carolla is funding his next film project on Kickstarter. Mr. Carolla at the time of this writing is approaching his goal of $1,000,000 for his next movie.

Tips to make money with short film:

Here are few tips any short film makers must follow to make more money by this business.

DVD:

Make a DVD of your short film. Distribution of DVDs can be very easy. You can directly sell them on Amazon.com, other online community, through your websites, and Netflix etc. Advertise your short film on social networking websites. You will make more money if you have your own media network, mailing list, and social media relationship. Keep offering them your films and create some campaign and send them to your network. Build your network of contacts and ask people to link to your web DVD sales web site. Also, look into buying traffic through Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Yahoo/Bing.

YouTube and other online platforms:

If you are a good promoter and get more viewers to your short film then you will be get paid by the third party for pulling out traffic to their website. It may possible that you have to get millions of hits to make real money. Once you are successfully get traffic then your each new video will attract the same amount of viewers and so you will make a large amount of money. YouTube is also providing the same idea for their users. Not just upload your videos but always remember to promote them on online and other internet sources. This will definitely add more earning from your short films. Sign up for Adsense and get paid for the views your video receives. Warning Adsense is a temporary funding source. For the most part Adsense is not worth your time because the dollar amounts you will earn aren’t great enough to cover costs of a short film. This rule goes out the window if you video gets 1.000,000 views for example. At low volumes Adsense is just for emergencies.

ITUNES:

It is nearly impossible to easily short listed by iTunes or apple. You have to go through any distributor. Once your short film is into the store of iTunes then you must promote your film so that visitors get attracted and hits your video. This is the best way to make money with short films.

Film Festivals:

Visit the film festivals already going on somewhere to promote your short film with it. It will get you more orders for your video. If you are not getting more money by this then at least you’ll learn new ideas from a film maker from other state or countries. Use the idea in your film and in a new way to make more dollars. Submit to as many film festivals as you can all around the world.

Cable TV and Channels:

The cable TV and local channels don’t have commercials then they can show your video when a short film is needed to be shown in the smaller time slot. It will attract any studio and get more orders for your video and for your ideas.

Conclusion:

If you think that you are good in film making, love to filmmaking then it can be a good way to create short films and make money with it. Make DVDs and sell them online, upload on YouTube and other similar platforms, promote your video, and visit the film festival events too. These are few good ways to make more money with short film. It may possible that you would not make huge money only with short films, but do not worry. It can provide you so much experience and leads you to a new and better commercial work such as studio career, make a complete film, TV serials, and other people hope.