Financing Film with Internet Advertising

If you are trying to finance an independent film, there are two places to go for money: Hollywood or your next door neighbor. We are trying something a little different. In the effort to finance our independent feature Valley of the Sun we are asking companies to sponsor our film by purchasing ad space on our website www.valleyofthesunthemovie.com. All we need is ten thousand sponsors (at the most). Seems like a lot but if you combine the $1.04 billion spent on sponsorships last year and the $27 billion1 spent on Internet advertising, we only need to grab 0.00535% of those dollars to fully finance our feature. At $150 per sponsorship, it's not a big deal for brands to get involved. So far, so good for our current sponsors. Since January 1, 2008, 410 unique visitors have visited the website and clicked on our sponsors' links 2393 times. On average, each sponsor has received 27 clicks per month and each unique visitor clicked on 5 different sponsor links. We've only just begun. In the end, it's great to see that our sponsors' belief in this advertising model is already working for them. 

Stokes McIntyre talks about Valley of the Sun and Hotbed's approach to financing.