Research, Funding and Distrubution

Funding and Distribution

Film finance is an aspect of film production that occurs before pre-production, and is concerned with determining the potential value of a proposed film. Film finance is a subset of project finance, meaning the film project's generated cash flows are used to repay investors, and generally not from external sources. This however has been met with new ways to protect principal, and insure against loss of investor's assets.

Government grants

A number of governments run programs to subsidize the cost of producing films. For instance, in the United Kingdom the UK Film Council provides funding to producers provided certain conditions are met. Governments are willing to provide these subsidies as they hope it will attract creative individuals to their territory and stimulate employment. Also, a film shot in a particular location can have the benefit of advertising that location to an international audience. Government subsidies are often pure grants, where the government expects no financial return.

Tax schemes

A number of countries have introduced legislation that has the effect of generating enhanced tax deductions for producers or owners of films. Schemes are created which effectively sell the enhanced tax deductions to wealthy individuals with large tax liabilities. The individuals pay the producer a fee in order to obtain the tax deductions. The individual will often become the legal owner of the film or certain rights relating to the film, but the producer will in substance continue as the real owner of the economic rights to exploit the film. Governments are beginning to recognize that enhanced tax deductions are an inefficient way of supporting the film industry.

Elements

• Story rights: The right to produce a film based on a play, novel, video game or as a remake or sequel can cost anything from a couple of thousand to over £10 million. An original screenplay by a
• Screenplay: An A-list screenwriter can be paid £1 million to write the first three drafts of a script, with a further £1 to £12 million sole credit bonus. Once the story has been agreed upon and the script locked. Typically the development of a script consumes 5 percent of a film's budget.
• Producers: Film producers and executive producers are often well-paid, with a top producer earning a seven-figure salary upfront as well as bonuses and a share of the profits.
• Director: The DGA minimum is about £14,000 a week, for a minimum of ten weeks' work. An A-list director can command £5 to £10 million a film.
• Cast: An A-list actor can ask for anything from £10 million to £30 million, plus £3 million in perks (trailer, entourage, etc.) and 10-20 percent of the gross profits. Sometimes an actor will accept a minimal fee in exchange for a more lucrative share of the profits. Union extras are paid around £130 per day (plus extra for overtime or if they provide their own wardrobe) but on a low-budget film non-union extras are paid less, sometimes nothing at all.
• Production costs: The cost of actually shooting the film including sets, wardrobe, location filming, hotels and transportation. Shooting costs could easily amount to £500,000 a day for 100 days.
• Visual effects: Employing a hundred employees of Industrial Light and Magic for over a year can turn a big-budget film into a mega-budget film. Computer-generated imagery (CGI) work in post-production can be expensive.
• Music: The top film composers can ask for a seven-figure salary to compose an hour or so of original music. (In addition, the artist may wish to see a screening of the film to see if it meets their approval.). Sometimes a film will turn to unknown or little-known artists willing to sell the rights to their song for a small fee in exchange for the publicity. Typically, the music budget of a major motion picture is about 8 percent of the final total.

Film distribution

The distribution of a film is the process through which a movie is made available to watch for an audience. This task may be accomplished in a variety of ways; for example, with a theatrical release, a home entertainment release (in which the movie is made available on DVD-video or Blu-Ray disc) or a TV broadcast.

Standard release

The standard release routine for a movie is regulated by a business model called "release windows". The release windows system was first conceived in the early '80s, on the brink of the home entertainment market, as a strategy to keep different instances of a movie from competing with each other, allowing the movie to take advantage of different markets (cinema, home video, TV, etc.) at different times.
In the standard drill, a movie is first released through movie theaters (theatrical window), then, after approximately 16 and a half week, it is released to DVD (entering its video window).

Simultaneous release

A simultaneous release takes place when a movie is made available on many media (cinema, DVD, internet...) at the same time or with very little difference in timing.
Simultaneous releases bear great advantages to both consumers, who can chose the medium that most suits their needs, and production studios that only have to run marketing campaign for all releases.

Our Thriller

Our thriller is a british film therefore its independent and the funding we get to produce the film comes from the government and some of the money we have saved up.