Craftsman Films ••• An independent film studio
Invest where Hollywood won’t.
We make blockbuster indies: whole-family films about love and faith, made with the communities they’re about, and built to find their audience from the very first day.
1.0
Films
Blockbuster indies
Brotherhood
A movie musical about two neighboring families, one American and one Mexican immigrant, and what it means to truly love your neighbor.
Brotherhood is our proof of concept. Before a single theater posted a showtime, 835 people had already bought tickets and 464 people had asked for it in their town by name. That’s what happens when you build the audience alongside the film.
↓ (Details)
- Written and directed by Ross Boothe
- A movie musical for the whole family
- Made in Utah
- In theaters October 2026
2.0
Invest
Independent film has an architecture problem
Every year about 200,000 screenplays get written. A few thousand get made, about 500 reach theaters, and maybe 50 turn a profit. That’s not because the films are bad. It’s because nobody connected the script to an investable package, to a distributable movie, to an audience that’s ready to pay for it.
200,000Screenplays written
3,000+Films made
500Reach theaters
50Turn a profit
In that model, investors show up last, take the most protective terms they can, and still get capped upside. We think that’s backwards, so we built ours the other way around.
- 1
The audience comes first
We grow it during development, not after the edit. And we own it: the Brotherhood list comes with us to every film after it.
- 2
Disciplined budgets
Big enough to look like a movie, small enough to pay investors back.
- 3
A distribution plan before the camera rolls
We know how a film will reach people before we ask anyone to fund it.
- 4
The truth, every quarter
Our investor updates tell you what worked and what didn’t, in plain English.
Producer Fund I
Financed Brotherhood.
Producer Fund II ••• Opens early 2027
A growing slate of values-based family films and musicals.
Producer Fund investments are offered only to verified accredited investors.
3.0
Filmmakers
Architect the outcome, protect the artist
If you’re making films on your own right now, you’re probably tired. You’ve done a lot of things right and it still hasn’t added up. That’s not a talent problem. It’s a model problem, and you don’t have to solve it by yourself.
Craftsman is where independent filmmakers and producers learn to build films that get made, get seen, and pay everyone back. We use the same framework we used on Brotherhood.
Most film studios guard what they know. We’d rather teach it.
Filmmaking has always been passed down from one craftsman to the next, on set and in the edit bay, and we think that apprenticeship is worth protecting. So we open up how we make our films and help other filmmakers learn a model that’s more sustainable and more profitable, for them and for the people who back them.
Craftsman Fellowship
For filmmakers and companies of one who want to get their film made.
Craftsman Guild
For film company owners ready to grow, in a small cohort that meets all year.
Producer Retreat
A few days in the mountains with a small group of producers, working on your next film.
Not sure where you fit? Take the 5-minute scorecard and we’ll point you to the right place.
Take the scorecard4.0
What we stand for
We’re for
- Films that leave families better than they found them
- Making a film with the community it’s about
- Every craft on the call sheet. A film is built by many hands, which is why our mark is the dots from the end credits.
- Investors who know where their money is and when it comes back
- Owning the relationship with our audience
- Telling the truth, especially when the news isn’t good
- Independent filmmakers working together
We’re against
- Mistreating or taking advantage of a crew
- Taking advantage of investors
- Fixed fees and waterfalls nobody can explain
- Skipping development, or never developing the script into a movie that works
- Making a movie with no plan for how it goes to market
- The myth of the lone auteur
- Counting on hope as a business plan
- Audiences getting the same few kinds of movies over and over
Honor the craft. Respect the creatives. Make films that matter.
Craftsman Films
5.0
Writing
A producer’s path
Daren Smith, founder. Daren has produced 5 feature films, four of which have been released in theaters. IMDb
I write about how independent films actually get made, financed, and seen. Some of it runs as a column in IndieWire, and some of it goes in letters to the people building this with us.
Get the letter.
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