Beginning Filmmaker's Business Guide: Financial, Legal, Marketing, and Distribution Basics of Making Movies

From Book News, Inc.
A guide for the ambitious novice filmmaker, offering detailed advice ranging from pitching a project to forming a production company. Discusses the purpose and importance of letters of intent, completion bonds, cost-profit scenarios, and other contractual and financial tools relating to the industry. Appendices list film festivals, associations, and labor organizations. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by FGP
Film can be a great vehicle for getting your ideas out to a wide audience; however, between the production, advertising and distribution, it can be confusing for a novice, as well as quite expensive. How are you going to finance your film? Should you solicit investors, or should you try to interest one of the studios? Are there grants available? What part of the promotional material are you responsible for? How should your approach differ for a low-budget film, an art film or a documentary? Renee Harmon answers these questions and more, as she outlines the business end of getting your project to the silver screen, from acquiring story rights to negotiating with a distributor. While her focus is more on entertainment films, her advice is applicable to other genres as well.

Excerpted from The Beginning Filmmaker's Business Guide by Renee Harmon (as appears in The WomanSource Catalog & Review). Copyright(c) 1994. Reprinted by permission, all rights reserved
Share of profits. It is mandatory that you inform your prospective investors that profits are not to be shared until after the costs of the film have been paid back to the investors. The traditional profit participation is 50/50, that is to say, 50 percent of the profits go to the investors and 50 percent of the profits go to the producer. Investors share their profits based on the percentage level of investment. Profits will be shared on net profits only. (Later, we will discuss the delicate balance between net profit and gross profit, since accounting concepts do vary from distributor to distributor and studio to studio.)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This book provides an orientation in four key areas essential to the business of making films: financial, legal, marketing, and distribution. With Renee Harmon by your side, you will learn how to prepare a professional prospectus for your film, the importance of "high concept" and "hook," how to develop a theatrical release plan, and what should go into an electronic press kit. Here are facts you need to know about letters of intent, presales, completion bonds, sell-through, theatrical windows, cost-profit scenarios, pick-up deals, and saturation - plus many other issues you need to understand to succeed in the film industry. Whether you want to market a single video or launch an entire film company, this is the book to read first.

FROM THE CRITICS

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