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FNB EDITORIAL: Forget The Oscars, The Future Might Just Be Slated February 13, 2012

We’ve been hearing a lot about Kickstarter lo, these past couple years, and have always found it an interesting diversion for smaller projects and flights of fancy. Not to diminish the site, it clearly does a lot of good for people, but it’s always struck us as a bit limited, with a defined ceiling for the size of the projects the site is designed to help. We thought there was room for something bigger, but we never actually got around to doing anything about it. Luckily, a couple guys named Stephan Paternot and Duncan Cork did, and the result is the terrific Slated.

The very purpose of the site is to match accredited investors with developing projects, allowing people to monitor the progress of casting and hiring, maintain buzz, it’s … it’s … intoxicating, really.

Seriously, creating a site where filmmakers, distributors, investors and sales agents can interact with each other and track projects in an online environment protected and vetted by the community’s own members? Genius. On top of that (and, truthfully, the best part for us, as we are noted snobs), it’s kind of an exclusive club. You have to be approved by two existing members to get in. Again, seriously. It’s like being a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, only without the bombast and boring ceremony.

All kidding aside, what took everyone so long? This site is exactly what the internet was made for, as far as the entertainment industry is concerned. It’s eHarmony, J-Date and Match all rolled into one, but instead of trying to score a mate, you can score a sweet deal for your project (or, on the other side, score a sweet project to deal. It really does work both ways!). Already signed up are reps of IM Global, WME, Participant Media, Weinstein Co, FilmDistrict, as well as high profile indie producers like Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte, Lesley Chilcott, MaryJane Skalski and Rene Bastian. Fairly elite company.

One of the reasons why we’ve never really investigated Kickstarter is because it always felt too small. Getting a few bucks apiece from a couple hundred people was great in theory, but didn’t necessarily serve the purposes of anything on which we might have been working. But this? Even Chairman and co-founder Paternot admits, “all our investors are accredited investors, about 50 percent of our investor community represent institutions, distributors and sales companies.” That’s some serious juice right there, and most definitely the kind aimed at bigger fish.

It’s amazing, really, that some of the best ideas are the ones you look at and say, “How come no one thought of this sooner?” This is one of those times. 

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Five tips on how to make the most of your networking experience at Slated.

1. Track films you like

If you track someone, they can get in touch with you. If you are an investor, you can always ‘Get An Intro’ to a filmmaker through their film profile. That is your privilege. However, if you track a film you’re interested in, the filmmaker can get in touch with you too.

By tracking a film, you will also be alerted to any updates the filmmaker adds to their profile. For instance, if they secure a high-profile actor or add financing to their project, you will get notified.

2. Click ‘Get An Intro’ 

If you’re visit film profile page that you like, clicking Get An Intro is the first step in investing in a film and starting a dialogue with the filmmaker. All filmmakers are at a stage where they are ready to talk to investors. They will have more material to send you...simply reach out to them and start the dialogue. 

3. Check investment range and 'I'm Interest In' criteria

Make sure that you’re investment range and ‘I’m interested in’ criteria are accurate. At Slated, we don’t want to send you anything you won’t be interested in, so we only alert you to deals that match your criteria. The more accurate your profile is, the smarter we can be.

4. List films you invested in or been involved with

Top-quality filmmakers are attracted to experienced film investors. We know that the better the filmmaker, the more likely they are to work with you on a film if you have invested in, or been involved with, the industry before. So list some of the films you’ve helped produce or finance.

If you are new to the film industry, be open and honest when you reach out to a filmmaker. Tell them about your interest in the film, it’s subject matter, or the team behind it. Build a rapport as you may soon be working with some of the smartest filmmakers and talented story-tellers the film industry has to offer.

5. Check back in regularly

We are adding the highest quality independent films every week, and adding award-winning filmmakers, sales agents and distributors every day. We are also constantly launching more features to help you find projects you like, quickly and easily. So keep checking in.

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Reach the most investors, sales agents and distributors on Slated by following these ten tips.

1. Keep adding to your film profile

This is the number one way to get in front of the community. If you raise additional finance, sign a high-profile actor, add a trailer, or get press, click edit and add it to your profile. This way, everyone that is tracking you or your film get an alert.

We will be launching a new feature that allows the Slated community, including investors, to get digests of what is happening on Slated. Adding to your profile will help promote user activity and highlight the momentum behind your project in our digests and on the activity feed of those tracking you.

2. Add all of your principle cast and crew

At Slated we believe that promoting your film begins with the team you're building. Get them to sign up, fill out their profiles, add their networks, and connect with the community.

Everyone attached to your project becomes a marketable element to get your film financed, sold or distributed, so we are constantly adding tools to promote the team you're building.

The more people that are connected to other people, the more buzz you can generate. Investors, sales agents and distributors will want to know who is behind the project before they get in touch with you. For example, if you have an award-winning DP, add them to the film page. An investor may be a fan of a film they worked on.

3. Act on investors tracking you

When someone tracks you, you can contact them. It's that simple.

We've designed the site this way so that once an investor tracks you or your film we assume they are interested in what you're up to and you can message them. We let you know every time someone tracks you or your project so that you can reach out, and open up a dialogue.

Verified Slated investors don't need to track you before they can message you though. We ensure that investors can always contact you through your film profile. That's a feature for investors only.

4. Fill out all your financial information and add investors

List every investor you already have. The money that you’ve raised looks great to prospective investors.

We know that negotiations with film investors are sensitive, but our goal at Slated is to build a trusted and sustainable investment community. So we encourage you to be transparent with your fundraising efforts. Transparency builds trust.

If you want to add financing to your project and demonstrate momentum, we ask your investors to verify that they are atttached. This way, Slated investors can feel confident and trust that other investors are already involved.

But if you are still unsure, you can always make your investor confidential. This means that they will not show up on your film profile.

5. Make your high-profile actors visible

Your profile is a way to communicate to the Slated community that you are making progress and have talent interested in the project.

While the confidentiality feature is great for those not yet ready to be associated with your film, the more attachments you can name and share, the more exciting it will be to investors.

6. Add a trailer or promotional video

Film profiles with videos are far more likely to gain attention from the community at large. This is your opportunity to pitch your vision in a simple promo, giving sales agents, distributors and investors an idea of what the film is about.

More attention will generate more trackers which means climbing the rankings in our search feature.

7. Update your personal and film status each week

This alerts everyone to the what’s happening with you and your film and acts as a log of all the progress you’re making. Use this to demonstrate momentum, and broadcast breaking news to those that are tracking you.

BE CAREFUL THOUGH. Please don't publish any sensitive financial info as it's against our User Agreement and SEC regulations. If you would like some guidance on updating your status, contact team@slated.com. 

8. Publish 3rd party sales estimates from top sales companies

Sales projections always help investors gather whether this is a good investment or not. But ensure a third party verifies the figures before adding them to the profile. If you have a sales agent attached to the project, add them to your profile, link to their website.  

9. Link your social networks and use the Share feature

Link your social networks. This automatically checks if anyone you know is already on Slated. This will open up the opportunity to meet the people your friends are connected to.

And use our new Share feature. This allows you to share your film's profile with all of those that are tracking you and your film. We are working on extending this feature to reach out to your social network too.

10. Check back in regularly

Slated only succeeds if we build the sales, distribution and investment community. We are adding people every day and launching more features to help you raise awareness, increase buzz and connect to the community. So check back in regularly.

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Slated, a next generation marketplace which aims to increase efficiency, transparency and capital flow for the independent film industry, just successfully completed a two month private beta period with its first customers, signing on some of today’s most prolific film producers such as Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte (The Kids Are All Right, Thirteen, Laurel Canyon), Lesley Chilcott (Waiting For Superman, An Inconvenient Truth), MaryJane Skalski (Win Win, The Visitor, The Station Agent) and Rene Bastian (Transamerica, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints).

Chilcott said of Slated: “Every once in awhile an idea comes along that when you first hear about it, you find it hard to believe that it hasn't been done before, it just makes that much sense. Slated brings crowd funding to a new level.  By actively trying to connect established filmmakers with serious investors that would normally not meet one another, entire new financing models are going to emerge. When I joined Slated last month, I immediately received emails from individuals tracking my next documentary film, "Privacy.””

Kusama-Hinte said of Slated: "Slated is the most inspired innovation in independent film financing that I have seen in years.  It is clearly built upon a profound knowledge of finance, filmmaking, and social networking and provides investors and filmmakers the perfect marketplace in which to bring capital to film production.  It is more than a website or a company, it is the first shot of a coming independent film revolution!”

Already listed on the site, are notable new projects such as TRUST ME (William H Macy, Felicity Huffman), THE WAY, WAY BACK (Sam Rockwell, AnnaSophia Robb), THE MOURNING PORTRAIT (Melissa Leo, Wenthworth Miller), Sally Potter’s BOMB (Elle Fanning, Alessandro Nivola), Marina Zenovich’s ROMAN POLANSKI: ODD MAN OUT and Amy Redford’s PHOENIX (Liv Tyler, Benedict Cumberbatch).

Slated, which exclusively caters to seasoned filmmakers, and award-winning break-out directors, received over 2000 feature film submissions for the private beta, of which 30 were approved, and has signed on accredited investors, including some well known executive producers, production companies, sales companies and distributor, with a combined capital interest of over $100,000,000.

Conceptualized and built to facilitate exclusive access and interactivity between top filmmakers who are looking to introduce their film projects to sophisticated investors, Slated has begun to prove its ability to create a trusted community of industry veterans where producers and production companies can benefit from an exclusive and organized private investment network. Investors and distributors can find the films by tracking those they’re interested in uploaded from validated sources, and a vetted marketplace allows newer investors to begin building relationships with trusted industry leaders and filmmakers.

To maintain strict controls over the quality of the community Slated incorporates a “social proof” mechanism that requires any new applicant to be approved by two existing members they already know. This ensures that the community has a sense of control and responsibility for maintaining a high standard of quality.

Slated’s co-founder and Chairman Stephan Paternot said: “The acute economic downturn has resulted in a severe shortage of investment capital across all industry sectors, including film, making financing independent films increasingly challenging. To a limited extent online “crowd-funding” has begun filling the void for micro budget projects, using donations from fans, however, we decided from the get go to be an equity investment platform only, catering to established filmmakers and financiers looking to raise tens of millions for their films. As such all our investors are accredited investors, about 50% of our investor community represent institutions, distributors and sales companies.”

Slated’s co-founder and CEO Duncan Cork said: “Through Slated’s range of initiatives being developed in its first years of operations and in partnership with the industry, we know that we can strengthen the chances for high-end film material to be more efficiently financed and produced. Slated is about building a sustainable community of trusted film financiers and filmmakers by being the ideal blend of community, commerce and convenience. We supplement existing fundraising efforts by aggregating and educating a ‘new’ investor, and increase fundraising efficiencies through standardization and transparency. This will expand reach beyond what any individual is capable of doing by being on the phone, attending festivals and knocking on the same doors.”

Developed over the course of the last year, Slated has been privately financed by a number of notable technology investors including Barry Silbert, Founder and CEO of SecondMarket, Daniel Borel, Founder of Logitech, and by Stephan Paternot, General Partner of the Actarus Funds (and co-founder of theglobe.com).

Functions available for filmmakers and investors

• List projects for a growing network of high net worth investors interested in financing film.
• Facilitate introductions in order to raise capital from accredited investors, film funds and distributors.
• Maintain the buzz and promote momentum for a growing community of distributors, sales agents, talent agents and other industry professionals.
• Track members of the community to get alerts on cast and crew attachments and to be the first to know when they’re raising funds for their next films.
• Use a tagging system to get films in front of the right investors allowing investors to manage their own deal flow. 
• Update existing investors on your project's progress to demonstrate momentum and generate more interest from the investment community. 

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Read The Hollywood Reporter's exclusive article.

As an addition to this fantastic piece by THR, I'd like to add that this would not have been possible without the collaboration of co-founders William Mapother, Gavan Gravesen and Stephan Paternot, or all the hard work and dedication of Jennifer Anderson, Mark Chackerian, Matt Semanyshyn, Susan Wrubel, Christin Roman and the guys at Type/Code. 

We will continue to strive to increase efficiency and capital in independent film. See you online.

Duncan Cork, CEO

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Over the past few weeks, we've been working closely with all filmmakers on how to improve Slated and help your film look the best it can for the community.

The feature that was requested most was to add additional verification methods for the attached cast.

Slated requires that all attachments are verified independently to ensure a high level of integrity and help build trust in the community. 

So we designed the system to send an automated email to the addresses of the cast and crew being attached.

We learned quickly that filmmakers are comfortable with sending verification emails to the principal crew (e.g. Directors, Writers, Producers), but cast is different due to the sensitivity around the manner by which independent films are packaged. 

Some filmmakers don't have cast emails and would like to verify through their representatives. Some filmmakers have Letters Of Intent and can verify directly with Slated. And some filmmakers simply didn't want to enter a high-profile actor's email address (even though we don't ever disclose email addresses or contact them for any other reason). 

WELL...WE HEARD YOU LOUD AND CLEAR

1. We have added two additional verification methods which are now available for you to use. so now you can Verify with the Actor, their Representative or with Slated directly. 

2. We'd like to assure you that we never contact the attachments you add (cast, crew or financiers) other than to verify their involvement in your film. Verification is done through a simple automated email that is written as if it comes from you, the filmmaker.

3. We offer full confidentiality for both cast and investors should you be in the middle of packaging your film and don't want to share names with the community just yet. This can be changed at any time.

NEW FEATURE: Additional verification methods

Verify your cast in three different ways. Selecting one of these options sends an automated email on your behalf to the Actor, their representative or us at Team Slated.

NEW FEATURE: Resend verification

Don't forget to get your team to fill out their profiles. Investors will want to know who's behind the project and the more information that is presented, the more confidence an investor will have before reaching out. So get your team to help. If they've lost their verification email and you need to send it again, click EDIT and RESEND VERIFICATION next to their names on the film page.

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Stephan Paternot discusses crowd-funding and crowd-investing with Scarlet Fu on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack"...Slated came up too. Click here to watch the interview.

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You may be familiar with the term crowdsourcing, which refers to an organization or individual reaching out to a community through social media tools for help in solving a problem collaboratively. Now, there is crowdfunding, a practice that works in a similar way to connect donors and investors with a cause or project. Thanks to the rise of online investment marketplaces, it’s never been easier for great ideas to meet capital.

Companies such as AngelList have enabled angel investors or seed capital funds worldwide to find and invest in the newest and hottest Internet startups, an asset class traditionally reserved for well-connected institutions and venture capital firms.

Equally transformative are companies such as IndieGoGo and Kickstarter that have made it easier than ever for family, friends and fans to donate to any project. Today, countless asset classes are tradable online, allowing big and small players to invest and trade seamlessly and efficiently.

One particularly large asset class on the brink of an investment model upgrade is film.

The film industry is alive and well. In 2009, according to Screen Digest, more than $22 billion was invested in film production financing for 5,360 films worldwide, with a near- record box office total of $29.4 billion. As India and China build thousands of multiplexes and add hundreds of millions of users to online video streaming, there’s no slowdown in sight for filmed content consumption and for the additional billions in production capital necessary to create and distribute it.

Unfortunately, Hollywood remains inefficient, insular and opaque, always acting as an agent between investors and the projects that need their capital and collecting its “fees” on the backs of investors. Combine this gatekeeper mentality with the closed communication silos of the agencies and studios, and the results are massive inefficiencies across all levels of the industry, especially in the movement of capital.

Crowdfunding may be the 21st century method for film investment and will become the business model for new companies such as Slated, an online funding platform that connects a global network of investors with filmmakers offering investment opportunities.

Initially, Slated will serve as a film tracking and introduction network between investors and filmmakers. Much like technology investing through AngelList, investors using Slated will be able to invest directly in individual films in the form of debt or equity, and can expect the same type of returns, ranging from 1.1 to 1.25 times for debt, and the potential of 10 times returns for the luckier equity investors who find hit films.

These types of “open” marketplaces will also provide a greater degree of financial transparency, making it easier for investors to compare deals and value their return potential appropriately. Another benefit of connecting investors to each other through a marketplace will be their ability to trade out of a position through a secondary market.

Stephan Paternot is a Founding Partner and Chairman of Slated and co-founder and Chairman of PalmStar Entertainment, a film production company specializing in literary adaptations and true stories.

(Barry E. Silbert, the CEO of the parent company of SecondMarket Ecosystem LLC, Alchemy’s publisher, is an investor in Slated Inc.)

Originally published on Alchemy.

http://alchemy.secondmarket.com/offtheexchange/hollywood-2-0-film-finance-meets-crowdfunding/

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Stephan Paternot, Slated's chairman was recently featured on CNBC speaking about his experience with a billion dollar IPO, online investment markets, and of course...Slated.

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After many sleepless nights and working on weekends, all of us at Team Slated are all excited to finally have you here. This is our first blog, our initial opening, our genesis...so I'd like to take the chance to let you know what's been happening at Slated HQ.

Over the summer, we sent out a mailing to those that may have wanted a Private Beta invitation. Our initial outreach resulted in an overwhelming response, and we've been inundated with thousands of requests for invitations from investors and filmmakers.

For those of you that made it...welcome. For those that didn't, we do apologize. We had very limited availability but we will be opening up the site in the coming months and will let you know when that happens.

As a company, we are very mindful of the importance of meaningful business relationships. Right now, we are very focused on helping our community to increase network reach, manage dealflow, and get in front of quality vetted films and a trusted network of filmmakers, investors, distributors and sales agents.

We have a lot more in store for you and will continue to grow and improve this site as rapidly as we can. And if you are one of the pioneers to use Slated, your opinions are invaluable, so please do not hesitate to send your comments to us through our feedback system found on the bottom right corner of the site. We'd love to hear from you.

That's all for now. I look forward to seeing you online. 

From now till then

Duncan Cork, CEO

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