Dawn Kirchner will contact you, if you are a film or tv producer and claim to be able to get all of your media projects funded. She will sell you hard on 1 to 3 calls. After her 2nd or 3rd sales call she will pretty much tell you to take it or leave because she is so busy funding other producers films that she doesn't have time to haggle. A good way to know if its her, she has a New York accent, smokers voice and cough and will refer to her assistant "Sandy."
DON'T take the bait!
She will not be able to provide any references stating its client privacy is something she holds and regards highly. You will get some fairly official looking documents emailed to you that you will have to sign to move forward. The documents are boiler plates copied off legal websites. These documents are basically saying that she is not responsible for any commitment, but if she does find you funding you owe her 50% of your net profits. This is complete BS. This is not the way entertainment financing works.
As soon as you raise any concerns, she basically hard balls you into either giving up all the work you've done with her by telling you she's days away from getting you ALL the money in the world for your project. Don't buy it. Bail ASAP. Eventually after months of providing random 1 piece at a time documentation, and hearing that catastrophe after catastrophe has coincidentally befallen the investor, (I heard everything from the VP of the supposed investment firm died to they had relatives that were just involved in the... List the current natural catastrophe here) you will eventually be asked to put up 10% of your budget into a Swiss or Cayman island bank account.
This MAY seem on the up and up, but if you call the confirming escrow company, you will find out that the escrow account is set up so that the "supposed" investor can pull from this account immediately without further documentation. This means she can take your money and walk away.
Our production team spent months, wasting our time with this person. We were told 6 times the money would be in our account that Friday. When Friday 5pm PST passed and no money was there, everytime, without fail, she would be unavailable to talk for at least a week; out of town or to busy working with other clients. This happened 6 times! After she guaranteed us funding, in writing!
I had 1 face to face with her. She is 5'5, blond highlights, gapped teeth, wares to much jewelry and makeup and has a distinct NY accent. From my other research after almost being taken, I understand she has set up shop in central CA. Lookout for this one. She cons innocent, business professionals to work for free as her staff as well as production teams and then bails on all of them and moves.
After hiring an investigator, I found out she previously lived in a small trailor in upstate NY, has no office, is divorced and has 2 children. I hope people reading this dont waste as much time as I did on this. Please feel free to post or respond because this woman has to be stopped.
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