Independent Producing

Indie producers are on a relentless quest to find the elusive "final 20%" of their budgets. They've raised the equity, made the presales, maxed the gap, and still they come up 20% short. Even with a whopping 40% cash rebate! So why then are they still stumbling around trying to fill that final 20% of their budgets?! Because producers can't get out of their own way.

The Czech Republic now has a 20% production incentive for films that spend more than CZK15mm (apx. USD $700,000) in the country.

Last week I moderated Variety's panel on “How to Make Crowd-Funding Work for Filmmakers” and it marks a seminal moment in the convergence of filmmaking and technology. Hear me out...

Hedging currency for a film production is one of the toughest decisions a producer makes. It’s the practice of managing losses, as opposed to capturing gains...

A finance plan is the best indicator of a producer’s financial I.Q. -- it helps you see the forest through the trees. If you're financing your project with something other than friends' and family's money, or for less than a million bucks, then you can probably go without one. For anything beyond that, you're going to need one, and if it doesn't look like this......then you don't have a finance plan.

It seems you don’t have to swing a dead cat very far to find a project that has Chinese money attached. What’s the lowdown on this foreign dough and is it for real?

SECTION 181 is back! Everybody's favorite on-again, off-again federal film funding incentive is back.

Transformers 3 continues to top the chart for the second consecutive week, while Mr. Popper's Penguins and Screwed both make their debuts.

We are fast approaching the end of the year and that means you have two weeks left to grandfather your Section-181 benefit.

A lack of funding options is creating opportunities for new funds to enter the indie market; understanding their funding criteria is Job #1 for producers...