EQUITY ACCOUNT

The monies raised during development of Unnamed Movie will be held in escrow by the producers’ law firm Herman, Shay & Sons. See investment document instructions for details.

Once the company is officially capitalized, pre-production can begin. The minimum capitalization for Unnamed Movie, LLC is $4.0 million dollars. If the producers fail to raise the money required to officially capitalize the company and begin shooting the film, all monies will be returned to the investors plus interest.

Below is a guide of how investors will be paid revenue from Unnamed Movie, LLC. Investment documents should be read carefully and, as with any investment, you may want to consult with an attorney or tax advisor:

Financing ^● 31

Figure 3–2 Business Plan (continued) Pre-Production

Crewing, Location Scouting, Scheduling

6 weeks

Unnamed Movie

LLC Managers: Will Gieger (Writer/Director) Eden Wurmfeld (Producer), Nicole LaLoggia (Producer)

($4,000,000)

Investor Group

Equity contribution to capitalize LLC ($4,000,000)

Shooting Period

Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina 6 weeks

Festival Circuit

Gain exposure, secure acquisition 9 months

Advance Against Sale ($)

Investor Group

First monies in are distributed to Investors until they have recouped 120 percent of their initial investment.

Deferrals

Second monies in are distributed to cover deferrals not to exceed $200,000.

Investors

Net Profits are split 50/50 between the Investors and the Producers.

Pre-Pre-Production

Casting,Fundraising, Scouting, Budgeting, Script Development

5 Months

Writers/Producers

Net Profits are split 50/50 between the Investors and the Producers.

Post-Production

Editing, Music, Sound 16 weeks

(continued)

P R E S S C L I P P I N G S

KISSING JESSICA STEIN

This page would serve as a cover sheet to your press clippings.

Pages to follow would be press clippings from Kissing Jessica Stein. Then another cover sheet for Swingers press clippings would follow. If you have no previous films to draw press from, consider using other relevant press – for example, if you’ve won an award, or done theater or run a business previously that got some press attention.

Figure 3–2 Business Plan (continued)

application and be accepted in order to attend. The appli-cation may require supporting materials you have included in your development kit.

The benefit of attending a film financing conference is that it affords you the opportunity to meet industry professionals and to pitch your project. If you are new to the business, your learning curve at a financing conference will be huge. In addition to private meetings, there are seminars about various aspects of the film business, and in the evening there are social gatherings that are useful for networking. The fee for participating in a conference can range from $350 to $500.

By and large, deals are rarely signed at these confer-ences. Do not go expecting to come home with a suitcase full of production money. We have, however, had meetings and made contacts at these conferences that have resulted in fruitful business relationships. For example, following a conference that took place in January of 1996 we signed a deal with an Alliance Atlantis in September of that year. Much of the time in those interim months was spent in meetings, forwarding supporting materials on the project, and then, finally, negotiating the contract.

AFM

Founded in 1981, the American Film Market (AFM) is currently the largest motion picture trade event in the

world. Unlike a film festival, the AFM is a marketplace where leaders in motion picture production and distri-bution, directors, agents, writers, lawyers, bankers, and trade groups convene to network and make deals. The AFM is an annual Hollywood gathering for the motion picture industry and has become a pivotal destination for independent filmmakers and business people from all over the world. Participants may view more than 600 screenings of approximately 400 films—the major-ity of them world or U.S. premieres. Titles range from big budget blockbusters that will be released by the major studios in the United States to lower budget art and genre films recognized at international film fes-tivals. Many say that Sundance, while technically not a market, is the best marketplace for American independ-ent films.

WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY

Don’t give up. If you continually hit the same barriers in the film financing process, try to glean something positive from this negative. Why isn’t anyone interested? Why are you getting negative feedback? Part of what allows inde-pendent filmmaking to continue to flourish is the will and the passion we all have for the films we make. You will find the resources to make your first film—and your second and your third. Remember, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Financing ^● 33

The first step to scheduling and budgeting a film is breaking down the script. This must occur before engaging in pre-production. Breaking down the script will enable you to account for all of the film’s needs (props, characters, locations, picture vehicles, extras, special effects, and so on), and the breakdown will serve as the framework for both your schedule and your budget. If you have a detailed breakdown to refer to, you will be able to budget the film accurately and target any potential budgetary concerns.

Your breakdown will also be helpful to your department heads later on.

This chapter explains how to break down a script using Movie Magic Scheduling. We use this computer program ourselves and recommend it highly, but you can accurately break down a film without it. The program is costly, but the time, money, and frustration it will save you are well worth the cost. Whether you purchase Movie Magic Scheduling or not, Ralph Singleton’s manual Film Scheduling (Los Angeles, Lone Eagle Publishing, 1984) is an extremely useful reference if you are new to the process.

Before you begin, make a copy of the script, and find a ruler and a highlighter or a blue pen. You can also color-code your breakdown by element: characters, locations, costumes, extras, and so on. Begin by going through the script page by page. Identify the elements required in each scene. Highlight or underline the props, characters, loca-tions, extras, vehicles, stunts, and other elements you will need to shoot the scene. Also note the time of day and whether the location is an interior or exterior. Movies are usually not shot sequentially for budget, cast, and location scheduling reasons. Because scenes are almost always shot out of order, it is important to identify the needs of each scene individually.

Next, mark each scene’s length in the right-hand mar-gin. Scene length is indicated in eighths of a page. An eighth of a page equals approximately 1 inch of type. Any scene that is less than 1 inch of type is considered 1/8 of a page. In Figure 4–1, for example, scene 11 is counted as

1/8 of a page. Any scene that is one page long is counted as “1 page,” not “8/8.” For scenes longer than one page, mark them “1 2/8,” not “10/8.” This is important for scheduling purposes. It will help you calculate the amount of time required to shoot each scene and the amount of time you will need for each cast member, location, and piece of equipment.

You may be able to shoot only one or two scenes a day, depending on the length and complexity of the scene.

In an average day, you may be able to shoot four to five pages. Each film has specialized needs and, depending on those needs, the number of pages shot per day will vary.

For example, a dialogue-driven scene usually takes less time to shoot than an action-driven scene.

To illustrate the process, we broke down a few pages from Jon Favreau’s screenplay for Swingers so that you can see what to look for (see Figure 4–1). We entered all of the elements we marked from each scene in the script into Movie Magic Scheduling’s breakdown sheets (see Figure 4–2). The software program can then easily trans-late this breakdown into your schedule. You will also be able to strip-board the film with the assistant director and compile your day-out-of-days sheets for the charac-ters and any other elements, all of which are addressed in Chapter 5.

Let’s look at the marked-up script pages from Swingers (see Figure 4–1) and note what has been identi-fied in each scene. In scene 11, we marked that it is an exterior (EXT) night shot of the Vegas strip (location).

There is a detail shot of the dice (props) on the character Trent’s car tire (picture vehicle). The car settles into a casino driveway (set). The car, dice, tire, Vegas strip, and casino driveway must all be provided before we can film this scene, so they have been underlined in the script. No actors are required for this particular scene. The audience will assume that the characters are in the car, but the shot does not require their presence. (The director may want them to be present during filming, however.) The scene length is approximately 1/8 of a page.

35