Film Finance Method #1

I moved to a smaller town in regards to motion picture centers like LA, NY, Vancouver and Toronto. The town is growing very quickly and is very excited about growing an indigenous film sector here. Distributors all want to see what can come from this town but are afraid to put the MG up to fund the project we have picked as a pilot as we are trying to use as many locals for key crew as possible.

The challenge was to create a vehicle for people to to invest into. hmmmmmm......

1. I joined the board of directors of the local film festival that has a charity status.
2. I then vended in the script to the charity so that the charity owns the copyright of the project.
3. I then set up deal with business development vendors to supply services to the film at rate card price for a full tax receipt on the donation of goods to the film.
4. Now I am raising the equity through donations to the film for hard costs.

As the films budget is based on a 3 week prep, 2 week production and TBA post period, I know that with community volunteers the films hard budget will cost around 125K.

The deal I am making with the charity for doing this is a split with them and a new foundation I have created that will use the accrued annuity to provide outside producers with experience to come to our town and use our crew for an additional non recoupable grant to their film. This of course increases the economy here in our town and the skills of people who have the desire to grow in this industry.

As for the film itself...if it receives well it will provide the ongoing capital to do this 3-4 more times before the local government says enough (this is what we discussed) and that our fair city should be seasoned enough to stand on their own to fund additional projects with regular distributors.