The Film Fund: One Sentence Can Get You Financing

Write one sentence for a chance to win up to $10,000 to fund your short film. That's the premise behind the film fund, a unique grant program that offers funding to filmmakers based on this one simple level playing field concept.

Today, I'm sitting down with film fund founder and CEO Thomas Verde. To learn more about this refreshingly straightforward system for helping get projects made. Welcome, Thomas, thank 

you for joining us on the podcast. 

Thanks so much for having me Candace, super excited to.

Um, so as the founder of the film fund, uh, that story starts with your story, I guess. So how did you 

get into media making 

Yeah. So I started, uh, in college really. Um, I thought I wanted to go to school for engineering. I went to Lehigh university in Pennsylvania and uh, got a couple of months into calculus and just hated it. So, uh, switched to English and creative writing and started teaching myself screenwriting on the side.

I was looking for, um, funding for a short script that I had gotten into a contest out in LA Holly shorts, screenwriting. Um, they have a film festival, but they also have a screenwriting competition. And I was named a semi-finalist was like, oh, okay. This script must be pretty decent. Maybe it'll be worth, uh, trying to produce.

So I was trying to get funding for it. And I just realized how. Difficult that process actually is especially for a short film. I was also doing an entrepreneurship program at the time. So I created the film fund as one of my capstone projects and then continued through it in an independent study. Um, as well as a fifth year master's program at Lehigh, where I was able to really flesh it out and just kept doing it on the side.

 I worked as a producer at a digital agency in the Philly suburbs for about a year and a half all while doing the film phone on the side. Still filmmaking as well. I was doing short films, um, you know, passion projects  I always just, you know, I fell in love with storytelling. I've always been a big reader and I, I always, always watching movies, uh, growing up and I didn't. Realize that filmmaking could be a career.  I was pretty ignorant in terms of the whole industry, Um, I started an ad agency re recently, which kind of spun out of the film phone called FFF branded. And I realized I made a crest toothpaste spec commercial with my sister on like our cam, like VHS cam quarter when I was like five or something. So,  I should try to dig that up, but yeah, I've always been, you know, making videos since I was like five, I guess. Yeah, it just kind of fell into, or, or I formed my career around that.

Awesome. Yeah, it sounds like, um, creative spirits tend to find ways to create things with all the tools they have at their disposal. I know I made videos with my brother and everything is well growing up. Um, but yeah, so I guess this might date you a little bit, but so when, when 

was like, how long has the film fund been 

we're relatively new. Um, I, I think I've been doing, I looked at my LinkedIn the other day and six years was coming up. So I, I think I started around 2017. Mm-hmm

Okay.

And it does feel different 

yeah. 

as well. Time doesn't make sense anymore. Um  but yeah, so, um, Yeah, just to, to give people some background. Do you have kind of, what is the process? What is the film fund like when people come in? Obviously we St we opened with saying it's it's one sentence.

Um, so yeah, talk us 

through the

So it is pretty simple. You write one sentence for a chance to receive up to $10,000 and other prizes, depending on our sponsors to produce your short film. Now, there are things we look for in that sentence. There are two main components that we judge on. Uh, one is how compelling is the premise.

We have, you know, blog posts on our website to kind of explain, well, what is compelling mean? Um, if someone really wants to do a deep dive or they send us an email and say like, Hey. You know, what do I really want to focus my sentence on? We send 'em a few posts. Um, you know, what makes as sentence compelling?

And for us, it's really two things. It's conflict and stakes, you know, what is the conflict of the story? You know, what are the opposing forces going on? Whether that's internal or external conflict and what are the stakes of that conflict? You know, what's going to happen. What's the risk. If what. It doesn't come to fruition in that, uh, that premise.

So I know that sounds pretty vague. Um, but we have examples on our website as well. If you wanna check that out. And then the second thing we look at in the sentences is the use of funding. So not only do you have to have a compelling premise, you also have to say what you would use some of the funding for if you were chosen as a winner.

And generally, uh, you don't have to say everything cuz it is only one sentence you're limited to 200 characters, but the sentences that are the strongest, the use of funding portion of the pitch. Kind of relates to and strengthens the premise. So if you have a sentence, that's like, I'm just gonna spitball something stupid here.

But, um, you know, a man falls in love with a woman who believes she's a human alien hybrid and our funding will be used for alien special effects. That's a good use of funding cause it relates to the premise and it's pretty specific and it shows us, okay, this, this filmmaker has a clear plan for what they're gonna use a bulk of the funding for.

Whereas sometimes we get pitches that are. This funding is going to help us make the movie like that. Doesn't really like, duh  we would hope so. Um, so yeah, being pretty specific, um, in the funding use is, is what we look for.

excellent. Um, yeah. So, uh, you, you 

fund shorts, narrative and documentary 

was easy to start with shorts. Um, you know, as when I was a college student, I was looking for funding for a short, and I realized that. Niche. Um, there wasn't really an easy, straightforward way to go about funding. Sure. So that's what we started with. But to your point, we have been getting a lot of emails over the past few years saying, do you fund features?

I have a feature I wanna fund. So we're actually launching feature funding. Uh, our goal is by the end of September. So keep an eye out for that yet. It won't be as simple. It'll be a little bit more in depth than one sentence, but we are gonna try to keep it as simple as possible.  yes. Maybe one paragraph

paragraph or, or two or three sentences.  okay. That's interesting. Yeah, that's exciting. We'll definitely, uh, keep an eye out for that. Um, and it, it speaks to the fact that this is a really successful model that now you can grow to a larger, a larger size, um, At least in terms of the projects you're funding.

Um, that's awesome. Um, so it sounds, looks like currently there's six different judges for selecting winners 

based on these sentences. How do you 

Yeah. So just to be completely transparent. The first judges were either friends of mine from school, or, uh, one of them is a former professor of mine, Don Keeley. Um, she works in the horror space, so she's very familiar with, um, You know, horror, film and film studies and analyzing it. But really we look for anyone who has kind of a creative and analytical mindset doesn't necessarily have to be limited to film.

Like one of the judges is Eli Hess and he's actually, um, an architect. And I, I was interested in having him, um, as a judge, just because I wanted. I wanted a non filmmaker judge. I wanted someone who was passionate about filmmaking movies and storytelling, which he is, but I wanted kind of an outsider perspective because sometimes as filmmakers or directors, producers, whatever role you fit into within film, we kind of look for certain specific things.

And I wanted an outside perspective on that. Um, but yeah, in general, you know, we look for creative people, people who do have experience.

Evaluating projects and pitching projects. Um, so Eli is kind of an outlier there, but he has experience now , we've been doing it for almost six years.

you span style preferences as well, I guess. Right? 

Cause obviously some people have 

Yeah. Like I would say, um, Brandon Harrison, one

of our

judges, his experience comes from the documentary side. Probably more than the narrative side. So we do have a, um, it runs the gamut on, on what our judges kind of prefer and their tastes. So we get a good balance.

Excellent. And do, do all of the

judges look at every 

Yes. So they do receive all the 

Like how do you tackle all of the entries?

Yep.

Okay. So it's is, it's like a consensus then on if it filter how it filters through . Um, cool. So how long, how long do you think that process takes? Like when 

someone submits it?

Um, how 

So we

we do four contests per year, so we do have to move pretty quickly. Um, so the contest periods are eight weeks long.  sometimes we extend the deadline. If. You know, wanna stay up to date on that, make sure to subscribe to the newsletters. That's pretty much where all of our communication comes,  from, but judging period is about a month, I would say.

So once the contest closes, um, and we process all the entries and pick our finalists and then the final winners that takes about U it's usually less than a month, but usually I say,  within one month after the dead.

Mm-hmm . Um, do you have a, a 

Just during as many as 

you allow or is it just during the time it's open as many as you get in. Okay. That's awesome. Um, and then, uh, so you basically then award, you said four times a year, 

and then is that for, so is it one for narrative and one for documentary each of those four?

Okay, so that's eight. Okay. And then, um, these 

are funded, exclusively 

No, all of our, uh, well, depends if we have a sponsored prize

or not. So sometimes, uh, we'll work with I'm in Philly. So most of our sponsors have been in Philly, but if we do an inkind prize, like, uh, Meister film works, local production company here, they. Occasionally sponsor a post-production prize, either editing or color grading, um, depending on what we agree on.

And that'll be obviously, you know, donated by them in kind same with,  expressway, cinema rentals, they're local rental house. They'll sponsor our weekend camera package that then is shipped to the winner for a two day rental. So those are in kind,  but yeah, all the other cash funding, so to speak, I mean, it's digital or I mail a check, um, that is from the entry. Thanks. Yeah.

okay. That's that's 

wonderful. It's a great, great model. It 

So we're actually international. Um, yeah, one of 

all it's all in the

us,

a Maestro, um, film works prize 

okay. So 

was from

Ireland. 

They were just in the, the Galway film flag, I think is how you say it.  that's like their word for festival. And then we had a winner who is based in Australia.  I would say the majority of our users are in the us, but, um, we do get the entries from India, from the UK.

It's kind of all over the board.

Mm. That's awesome. That's really, amazing and inclusive, cuz this is such a great program. It sounds like,  it sounds like it was born a lot from your 

There's I mean, 

not wanting to deal with all of the, the paperwork and the hassle of all of the

funding that goes into it. So it

focuses on 

um, my own.

on the art and the 

I don't wanna use the word 

struggles cause it's not like. I guess. Yeah. Like the, the struggle I had with going through that grant process,  I submitted to grants and some of them are like 20 pages long. I actually met with one, um, grant committee and they said, oh, this is looking really good.

You're like, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you're likely going to receive this grant. I was like, oh my God, that's so exciting. And I didn't end up getting it. I was like, I just spent hours and hours and hours meeting with them and writing this proposal. And it was just so frustrating. So I took that and I also combined it with what I learned in my entrepreneurship courses.

Uh, the. Mindset and product development, minimum, uh, viable product. So make the simplest version of your product or service you can to test the idea. That's really what we're doing with short films.  and the, the one sentence pitches, like, okay, what's one sentence. Let me test this, this story idea and one sentence,  and see if it's producible.

So yeah, it definitely drew on my, uh, my own experience.

mm-hmm. Yeah, well, that's where a lot of the best solutions come from you. You find something that needs improvement, and. That's how you begin  and this one worked out really the website is also just a really great resource.  in general, it's got a lot of educational links and tips and articles and things like that.

 things for pre-production post-production writing, there's also a blog and a podcast. Um, I definitely encourage listeners to check it all out.  and you also support films, uh, in different ways sometimes with, if they're not the winners.  so what, what drives

this like desire to, to be, um, an 

as.

general, in the filmmaking process? 

owner, trying to get the word out there. SEO is a thing search engine optimization. So the more content you have that people are searching for on Google, the easier you're gonna come up and search results. But another big part of it is I with filmmaking I'm really self-taught um, had a film studies minor.

That was more, you know, there's, there's a distinction between production and, you know, film studies, film studies, more about analyzing films as works of art, like a novel writing papers about them. Like, I, I. Picked up a camera, um, during my education, through the film program at Lehigh. So everything I learned was either Googling and being on forums.

I don't even know if people are on forums anymore. Um, but yeah, like YouTube, so, and just reading blogs. So, um, I realized, you know, like the film phone can also be a community. It can be a resource for. Footing filmmakers who have no idea where to start. I have no idea how to make a budget.  I have no idea how to write a script or there's so many books out there.

Well, what books would you recommend? Cuz some of them aren't great.  some of them are amazing. So I just, when I was writing that content strategy, I just thought, in addition to the keyword research I did for SEO, it was like, okay, well what. What content would, I would, would want to learn, as a,  budding filmmaker.

So a lot of our content comes from that. And then the podcast, it's a really great way. I'm really bad at looking at our analytics for the podcast. To be honest with you, I look at our, our page views and our website traffic, but the podcast specifically, I don't track as much, which I should, but it's also, I think, a bigger part of it is just connecting with our community.

 and whether that's having a previous winner on, you know, a filmmaker who had, has won. The film funds contest or if it's one of our sponsors or partners,  it's just a great way to connect. Cause everything we do is online. Like I'm running this film company, but I'm not set a whole bunch. Uh, you know, most over the producing is remote, which is me from my laptop.

 giving away the funding and managing the projects through email. Um, ad agency is a little more hands on. Like I'll go out to set if we have a local project, but it's just a great way to connect with community and, and talk to people face to.

 I mean, the filmmaking community really is a community. I mean, you can't do any of these projects by yourself ever. It seems like  and it's all networking, getting to know. So this is a really valuable resource.  anyone would be,  Absolutely stoked to see all the stuff that you have there that you offer.



Yeah, we mostly 

talk about, um, most of the guests are 

you know, an 

So

I mean, it's definitely 

educational not in the sense of.

like,

We are going to cover screenwriting today. We're gonna cover budgeting today. Um, it's more tell me about your project. What were some challenges you encountered on set? What some advice you would give to our filmmaking community and you can really learn a lot by, um, you're really being immersed in their project.

Cause they're talking about, oh one day on set. We did this and this happened and the camera broke and we had to fix it and get a new camera. And it's just like, it's really. Um, like a producer it's it's if you're interested in producing, um, it's a really great resource, cuz you can find out like horror spurs of what happened on set or maybe really good things that happened on set like, oh, I'm gonna do that on my production or one really great tip that I learned actually myself was, uh, you should definitely create a trailer for your short film because you can upload it.

Now. I knew that was a good marketing thing to do. Um, just in general, but film freeway has a service where you can pay to upload and promote your trailer. And then. Other film festivals are then sent this trailer and they can actually invite you to submit to their festival. And sometimes they give you fee waivers, which I didn't really know that.

 so just for my own filmmaking career, I learned that in the podcast. So there is just a bunch of tips yeah. That you just get from talking to the filmmakers in the community.

 And obviously as, as a similar sort of minded podcast, this one media and monuments, we also kind of try to just talk to people in a variety of subjects, but also just about some individual project journeys, because you can learn so much just about hearing the specifics a little bit more specifics about one particular project, cuz everything's unique, but there are nuggets of information that can be great advice moving forward.

From any, any source, you know, you, you definitely learn a lot in 

every project. Um, 

so, but speaking of, uh, also

talking 

to some of those,

we had 

what are, um, some of your favorite success stories that were made possible

because 

Mike Orino his film. Freelance that was just in dances with films and another festival in New York city.

So that was super exciting. Uh, we got, um, an earlier winner. This was like pre I wanna say this was pre pandemic. Cause I remember doing the podcast recording with them over at COVID. Um, but it was called Sunday dinner and that is our project. That's probably had the most.  views it got into,  Aleto, which is a, an online curator on YouTube.

If you're not familiar with it, they, they only accept films that have played at, I think, academy award qualifying festivals. So we got selected on Aleto. That was super big for us.  I don't know that I could pull it up, but I think it has close to a hundred thousand views or maybe more so that's super awesome just to get his work out there.

 and just him and the team, they. You know, getting, and it's networking too, just like meeting people. Um, one of the producers, Darren Miller, he's on the, I don't know his exact title now, but he works with fun or die, um, doing their online, their digital content. So that was super cool. Just to get to know those guys and get their work out there, online.

So yeah, I mean, it's, it's really cool to see festivals coming back to, um, you know, and the local ones I can go to. Like they screened at a festival in New Jersey that I went to last. Oh God. Was it two years ago? Yeah. 20 20 20, I guess it was maybe 20, 21.  there are a couple projects that I'm super proud of. Mm-hmm

That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, and it sounds like there's gonna be a ton more in the future as well, especially 

as the film fund continues 

thank you so much. 

stay international and, and get with bigger projects and everything. And I, I mean, I think 

this is really, 

I would say,

definitely 

read the rules, um, and read our, our 

it out.

Um, is there, is there anything you would want 

useful. Like I, and email me, my email's super straightforward, Tom, at the film fund.co I respond to every email, even the mean ones. So I get, I get some nasty ones that say, you know, cuz it's, it is a contest at the end of the day.

So not everyone can win and sometimes people get a little mad.  I would say check out the blog for useful tips, um, but also make your pitch sentences, your entry sentences.

Make sure there're only one sentence, cuz that is an important role and that's a distinction we have and if it's more than one sentence, you actually will be disqualified. So that's kind of something that's very important to us because as a producer, to detail is so important.  even just as a filmmaker, you know, regardless of whether you're a cinematographer or a director, filmmaking's about the details and producing is about the details.

And if you know, from step one,

enter this contest, make a pitch.  the rules say, write one sentence all over the website, websites as one sentence, we get so many pitches that are two sentences. So if you're listening to this and you're submitting to the film, Big tip, make it one sentence 

Yeah, they're serious about that. It is just one 

sentence. It's not just the 200 characters. It's one sentence within that. Well, we 

So our main

website 

is the 

film fund.co that's co not.com. check us out.

at the film fund.co we're also on Instagram at, uh, film fund. Twitter is at simply film fund. Facebook is facebook.com/film fund co. And we have a LinkedIn, which is just the film fund.  

thank you so much. I've enjoyed learning a lot more about the film fund, 

um, and also learning more things 

Thanks so much, Candace. This is great chatting with you as 

fund.co and seeing all of the resources that you have there.

So thank you so much for talking with us today and definitely all listeners check out the film fund.co