Take a chance on 'Miss June' and get involved in Irish movie business for €60

Seeking investors via the internet to finance a movie may be rather unorthodox, but the producers claim it will help raise the required funds and create a ready-made audience base, writes Una McCaffrey

If there were prizes for outrageous business ideas, then the makers of Irish movie Miss June would have a pretty good chance of reaching the winner's podium. This is, without a doubt, a madcap project, taking in everything from raising money on the internet to prison life and the world of horse-racing. Even producer Mr Glyn Carragher describes it as "a punt", and he's the guy who's meant to be making the movie.

The basic idea is that the $2 million (€2.27 million) required to make Miss June, a full-length feature movie about a prisoners' racehorse syndicate, would be raised, at least in part, through building a "cyber-syndicate" of investors. In practice, this has seen the makers of the movie try to attract as many people as possible to their website (www.makingmissjune.com) and, where feasible, persuading them to part with some investment cash while they're there.

The amounts involved are relatively small - from €60 to €600 - and the returns in the offing are equally modest. A €60 outlay, for example, will provide an investor with complete access to the film's comprehensive website, three frames of celluloid footage to represent the value of the investment, an invitation to be an extra in a Galway Races scene (a role that usually attracts a daily wage) and a credit at the end of the movie. This is in addition to the repayment of the initial investment, and a commitment to pay investors 30 per cent of the movie's net profits, should it make any.

While Mr Carragher is confident that the completed product will be highly marketable, he is not choosy as to how it makes its money back. Even if it's a matter of going "straight to cable", he will be happy as long as everyone gets their money back and the numbers add up. In fact, he says, "you have a better chance of making your money back on cable".

The Miss June website was set up last July, and the film is due to begin shooting in September. So far, the website has about 250,000 registered users (far beyond an initial target of 30,000), of whom 700 have parted with amounts from €60 to €600.

This injection has provided all of the €180,000 that the movie has cost so far, covering expenditure such as wages and the cost of the website. Other, more substantial investors have also committed to the project at this stage, with the result that the film will definitely be made, even if not another cent comes in through the website.

With thrice-daily advertisements for the "cyber-syndicate" running on national radio station Today FM, however, the chances of the money feed falling off seem slim.

Mr Carragher says the Miss June makers, himself and business partner Mr Sam Roch Perks, decided to take the labour-intensive route to funding because they wanted to raise all-important awareness about the film at the same time as raising money. There was also the small matter of applying for and being refused funding at the Irish Film Board.

"One of the main reasons that we've done it this way is that we've always held a belief that there was nothing wrong with film production in this country," says Mr Carragher.

"The problem we've always had is that it's very hard to get money back from your investment.

"And it's not that there's no demand - it's that it's very hard to get good distribution. I'm 15 years in this business and have always been up against the same old story - you just don't fit into this or that distribution circuit."

The website, according to Mr Carragher, helps to address this catch-22 situation by providing a ready-made fan-base when the film's producers visit distribution companies.

"The way that distribution companies work is that they calculate your fan-base and then multiply it in order to estimate an audience.We've gone out and got the audience first."

This method of raising support and interest for a movie before it has been made is unconventional, but not unknown. A Korean producer, Kim Dong Joo, financed a highly successful movie in this way just last year, and the idea has been around in one form or another for decades. Miss June is, however, the first Irish spin on the notion.

Mr Carragher's co-producer, Mr Roch Perks, has some experience in raising syndicate finance, having part-financed an Irish bar in Hong Kong through member contributions. He admits, however, that neither was sure of how the model would transfer to the silver screen via the internet. They have been more than pleasantly surprised, despite a short-lived setback following September's US terrorist attacks.

At the moment the syndicate has members come from as far afield as Beijing and Ohio - putting paid to the notion that all internet-related ventures would suffer in the wake of last year's meltdown in the technology sector.

Mr Carragher believes that the relative smallness of the amounts to be invested has worked in the project's favour, with people thinking along the lines of "if it works, it'll be great. I'll put in 50 bucks and I might get 10 back".

The danger of the whole notion being labelled a scam has been high on the producers' list of concerns, however. This spectre has led them to go out of their way to attend film festivals and "press the flesh" with potential investors as far as possible.

"We can't give any guarantee that it's going to work but we can say that we're at the other end of a telephone," says Mr Carragher. "We're not asking for anyone's life savings and I wouldn't recommend putting your life savings on a movie. This is about taking a punt."

The legitimacy issue has also been addressed to an extent by the presence of well-known actor Mr Patrick Bergin on the board of the Miss June production company, Sunnyside Films.

"We also have reputable auditors," says Mr Carragher, adding that he wants to make more movies in a similar fashion and, therefore, will gain no long-term benefit from fleecing any of the Miss June members. When the project has been completed, investors will be asked to "roll over" their money into Sunnyside's next movie.

"In five years' time, I want to have a viable business that doesn't rely on any one individual in a distribution company," he says.

The majority of the online investors are US-based, but the producers are keen to increase the Irish membership, a desire that led to an advertising deal with Today FM last month.

Since the advertisements started to run, the Irish membership has grown by 120 per cent.

"We'd like to include an Irish base a bit more," he says.

"If you're taking a punt on an Irish product, you're helping an Irish film to get off the ground. We're just asking people to give us a chance. It's not our movie, it's your movie."