HOW TO RAISE THE
MONEY TO SHOOT YOUR LOW BUDGET FEATURE
By Maxie Collier
I'm not an
attorney but I've done a couple of low budget features and I
have experience
with Limited Partnerships (LPs) and Limited Liability
Corporations (LLCs).
In both, the number of participants as well as the
number of people
you can approach about investing varies by state.
Additionally,
there are sometimes conditions about selling shares (LPs)
or inviting
adding members (LLCs) from other states.
There are also
stipulations about advertising for investors, disclosure
laws (Blue Sky
Laws), and other State and Security Exchange Issues
The best way to
receive concrete advice for your situation is to:
1. Hire an
attorney experienced with these issues (while most can draw
up the documents,
not every attorney is familiar with state and gov.
laws concerning
investors)
2. Search yahoo
for your state's agency that deals with this, usual the
Secretary of
State and/or Taxation Board. For example, here in CA you
can find all the
forms online (for free) you need to set-up a
corporation, LP,
and LLC. http://www.ss.ca.gov/
These free forms
can get you up and running, but you still need to be
very careful and
clear on the SEC issues. And be very careful of generic
layman's advice.
It can cause you problems later.
By the way, for
small investments, I have used a commonly found
renewable promissory
note. With this document people can loan me small
amounts with me
promising to return by a certain time (I my case 3
years) at a
certain interest rate (12%) with the option to extend the
loan if I do not
have the funds by the due date. Pretty straight
forward. The
forms are available at Staples or other office supply
stores.
One quick
shameless plug, I *Maxie Collier, have a new monthly
newsletter and
website, write me at email below to receive it. The DV
Filmmaker's
Report is for people interested in producing low budget
films using
digital video (DV).
I'm launching
them following the DV Expo (http://www.dvexpo.com)
this
week.
PS NOTE BY ANITA,
not certain if he actually did all this but
The information
was good so I posted it, Google him.
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