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PREVIOUS: The Top Sheet Budget Summary The first thing any excutive will look when deciding to finace a film is the top sheet budget. This is the principle breakdown fo the budget summary and is very important.

LESSON

Completion Guarantor Letter of Intent One of the most crucial parts of your project will be the financing instruments. You must have a firm grasp of what each document entails and the ramifications of each and how it will be met upon completion of the project. Failure to understand these full

Lender's Letter of Intent Make sure the Letter of Intent is carefully drawn out and very detailed. If these are poorly written they will not carry any weight and make you look unprofessional.

Letter of Credit The Letter of Credit is as good as cash if you meet and carry out all the terms. Make sure the information on the LoC is accurate and agreed.

Not Worth the Paper they are Written on If your financial documents are not written with enough detail and obligation by your investors they are virtually worthless. make sure anyone who is willing to invest will back that up with the appropriate legal documents.

Distribution Guarantees When working out the final details of investors and distributors you need to knwo in advance what terms your investors need to make the deal work. Sometimes it is best to get your investor and potential distributors together. Once together these two part

Foreign Pre-Buy Guarantees Once the revnue flow begins upon release fo your project, the sales projections should match closely to the original Ask/take Sales Projections. The investors are paid off based on the terms and conditins set forth in the finacial documents agreed upon.

The Ask/Take Sales Projections The Ask/ Take are projections or a sales forecast made for your project. Each Financing entity will have your project submitted to a sales forecast to determine how much revenue it will generate in each sales market world wide.

What Works and What Doesn't You need to take into consideration what will help your film in distribution and what will hurt it. Each international market has different factors that will impact how well your film will do. You will have to weigh those and plan accordingly if you are a

The Next Big Thing The executives and movie goers in todays markets are seeking out the next big thing in film. The standard film formulas are not working to make successful film projects like they used to do. You need to research what works and why and include those elemen

Social Trends and Success You need to pay attention to social trends. These can make your film successful if you factor them in correctly to your project or just as quickly thety can make your project bomb. The population is ever changing and so are the social trends.

Documentaries. You need to apply the same fundamentals you would to a regular feature film as you would with a documentary. You have to research your market and the audience. A well planned package will is a powerful tool to aid you in making your doc.

Documentary Grants and Funding There is a lot of support to make doc's and the audience for them is growing. If you prepare your project package you can appraoch many agencies for grants to create your Doc.

Tax Incentives Shooting a film fuels many economies. To help persuade companies to shoot in their countries many offer huge Tax Incentives and rebates. Canada and Eastern Europe are two areas well known for these practices.

The Top Sheet Budget Summary The first thing any excutive will look when deciding to finace a film is the top sheet budget. This is the principle breakdown fo the budget summary and is very important.

Why This is Important You have to understand the financial side to the film industry if you ever hope to have a project made. You must also understand how it works to best protect your interests.