5 posts tagged “iiff”
Sandra Shulberg requested I add the following information to my blog entry of Feb. 13, International Film Market for Beginners:
4) Berlin - this market ramps up to another level of complexity but is an extremely valuable world market and is indie-friendly compared to Cannes. The IFP provides a meeting hub and networking support.
5) Cannes - difficult to navigate until you get the hang of it, but the IFP provides a meeting hub and networking support there too.
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com
I went to the film financing workshop offered through IIFF featuring IFP founder Sandra Schulberg last weekend. Heavy stuff -- combining grants with private money, international financing, financial offerings, foreign pre-sales, development loans and tons of other things that I'm still digesting. I'll post tidbits here and there because it was an intense 9 hour seminar and it's way too much to summarize in one shot. I'll start with an easy one.
If you make a feature, you'll want to try to sell your foreign rights. Remember that Margaret Tritch, president of Maitland Primrose Distribution says that foreign sales are more than 50% of your revenues. Also, if you've had a successful movie, you can presell your next movie to a foreign distributor to help you with your financing of your next film. So how do you reach these foreign distributors?
Ms. Schulberg says that foreign sales agents are a great idea if you can afford them. They will have standing relationships with foreign distributors and will go to the various markets and sell your film for you. But they charge 10-40% commission plus costs which can be significant. If you can't afford them, she says it's a great experience to sell foreign rights yourself. How do you do that? You go to international film markets and try to sell your film. Here's a list of international markets she recommends you go to in this order:
1) IFP market in the fall - friendly.
2) Toronto - right after IFP
3) Rotterdam - very focused on indie films
4) Berlin - this market ramps up to another level of complexity but is easy compared to Cannes.
5) Cannes - difficult to navigate
NOTE: Sandra Shulberg requested additions to #s 4 and 5 which can be found in my Feb 22 post.
Continuing with my highlights of the IIFF meeting last week, here are my notes from Daniel Rivera, an entertainment attorney regarding funding a film.
Rule of thumb -- money gets 1/2 (meaning the investors get 1/2 of the profits). Producers get about 5-10%, directors get about 5%.
Seed money usually gets preferred returns. Seed money is the first chunk of money which lets you get rolling on your project so you can fund the rest of it. Examples of preferred returns include getting 2X or 125% back; or they get their seed money back when the rest of the money is funded; or they get their money under the same terms as the rest of the investors but they later get a little more. Seed money is often in the ballpark of $15k-$25k. You can expect to pay a ballpark of $500-$750 for a basic seed agreement.
If you have someone else drum up the funding for you, you may need a "finder's agreement." A finder can't legally find money more than once so they're usually called consulting/producers agreements. These finders usually take 3-5% (not sure if this % is of the money they bring to the table or of the entire budget or they own 3-5% of the project?).
You should create an entity that's dedicated to the film such as a limited liability company (LLC). California charges about $800/yr for these. Your LLC would produce the film and own all the rights. You need an operating agreement for your new company. This will cost a ballpark of $3,500 for a basic one and as more people come into the project/company, it'll cost more to add their bit.
A private placement memorandum will cost in the ballpark of $3,500. Usually don't do these if there are only 2-3 investors.
A deal memo is used if the investors are sophisticated. These can be binding, depending on the language used.
Completion bonds are unusual unless there's a presale of your movie. An example of when a completion bond is required is when you manage to presell your movie to a foreign distributor. They will give you a piece of paper saying they will buy it for X amount -- they won't give you a check for the amount. You take the piece of paper and get a loan from the bank using the presale as collateral. The bank will then require you to get a completion bond, ensuring that you finish the film so you can get the money from the foreign distributor so you can pay back the bank. (I have in my notes that a completion bond is usually 2 1/2 - 3% of the budget. I don't know what that means -- it costs a % of the budget? Or it pays out a % of the budget?)
Whew! Got all that? That's it for now.
(note: these are my notes of what I got out of it, not necessarily what the presenter said) (also note: Mr. Rivera made it clear that this is not legal advice and that you should seek out your own legal counsel)
I went to another IIFF meeting. It was great, just like the last one I attended. Here's a summary of what I learned (note: these are my notes of what I got out of it, not necessarily exactly what the presenter said):
Margaret Tritch, president of Maitland Primrose Distribution Co spoke at the meeting. They currently work with family, kids, faith, art house movies. She said there are many distribution models -- her company does a 10 year license rather than purchasing the movie from the filmmaker. So the filmmaker does not make acquisition money. They guarantee a certain amount of marketing dollars will be put toward your movie. They do platform releases (cherry picked cities rather than a nation wide release). They don't start with LA or NY because there's too much competition and you can't recover if you bomb in those cities first. They go to places like Dallas, Chicago, Phoenix, etc before hitting LA and NY.
She suggested going HD unless you have a guaranteed theatrical release. The hardest thing to sell is a "no name drama." Comedy is the next hardest. Foreign sales is usually more than 50% of a film's revenue. Types of movies that sell well overseas are children's, family, action, thrillers, sci-fi and horror (Yes!).
Re cast: distributors have a saying: "better to have a bad film with a known cast than a good film with an unknown cast." (BUMMER!!!) She suggested at least trying for a smaller role for a known actor (SIGH! This means SAG of course -- see my warning on SAG's low budget contracts. BTW, if you go SAG on a small role, you may need to go SAG on ALL your speaking roles). She said kids, family and faith stories can go without named talent. (She didn't mention horror which was surprising to me but since she doesn't sell horror, maybe she wasn't thinking about it?)
If you go to a film market, do not pitch distributors until the end of the market -- they're busy at the beginning. Have a one sheet on your film, postcard and trailer ready.
Running time for a feature should be 90-120 minutes. 90 minutes is ideal for TV in a 2 hour movie slot.
That's it for the distributor tidbits. I'll write more on some of the other speakers later.
The IIFF panel was great. The speakers were fantastic and the crowd was small. Here are some interesting tidbits:
For indie films, theatrical release is mostly marketing for your DVD and Internet releases but worth it to the point of paying for it out of pocket if you need to. Try for the digital theatres if you can because you don't have to convert your movie into film which would be very expensive. There are about 150 digital theatres in the US.
If you're trying to raise money via a business plan, show interest in the financials because the investors want to know if you're the one who can mitigate their risks.
Your chances of making money through a distribution deal is very, very, very small because not only do you have to share revenues with everyone along the chain, you get charged for all the costs along the chain. For example, your distributor pays for marketing but when your movie starts generating revenues, all marketing costs get taken out of the filmmaker's share. One small distriubtor said they typically spend $150k on P&A (film print and advertising). The distributor basically fronts the money for you and you have to pay them back out of revenues before you see a penny. But as one speaker put it, no filmmaker makes money... except for the ones who DO. No one was clear on the odds of being one of the lucky ones.
By 2010, the IPTV market is projected to be a $1.8 trillion market, video on demand a $204 billion market. This may be where indie filmmakers want to be because the space hasn't been claimed yet.
When scheduling a shoot, keep in mind that a typical Hollywood shoot does 15-30 setups per day; a typical indie shoot does 20-30 setups per day; Roger Corman does 45-60 setups per day. Don't schedule more than a 12 hour day, otherwise, you risk having your cast and crew fall apart before you can finish the movie.
