FJI correspondent Doris Toumarkine reports on a new web series with a mission to share expert knowledge about film financing.
Finance advisors Vinca Jarrett and Steven Adams are film market and conference regulars who have seen investors and producers anguish over ever-evolving complex matters of global film financing. To ease their pain, the duo are launching “Show Me the F#©king Money” (SMTFM), a cross-platform project to ease the pain.
With the focus now very much on producing the web series component, they are aiming to help film people worldwide—especially investors intent on recoupment—better understand where the money is, how it functions and what it takes to get films made and investments back. Birthing this baby over the past few years, the Boston-based Jarrett and L.A.-based Adams already have about 60 two- to 30-minute webisodes in the can. These are the fruit of interviews done with a variety of industry professionals at Cannes and Toronto.
Jarrett, a longtime finance consultant and conference executive, is president of FilmPro Finance and has consulted on dozens of film projects and film slates, both at the independent and studio level since 2002. She launched FilmPro Finance Events & Conferences in 2006 with partner Adams as president of that division and remains chair of the Bloomberg Financing Summit.
Adams is president of Alta Entertainment and a Peabody Award-winning producer who has worked on both independent and studio features. He began his career at the Paradigm Talent and Literary Agency and has an extensive background in artist management.
The two met at Cannes in 2005 through a filmmaker with whom Adams had previously worked. Adams recounts the inspiration for their partnership and the SMTFM co-venture: “As both of us had experienced so many conferences, I thought this might be something we could do ourselves.” And so their webisodes function as a kind of virtual iteration of a financing conference.
Jarrett and Adams took first steps into creating their SMTFM content by leveraging their vast connections with top-tiered film business professionals who, like them, float through the important global film tests and markets. Among those film-finance players already “canned” at markets are Cassian Elwes, Jay Cohen, lawyer Schuyler Moore and Mark Urman, names familiar to the independent film world. (Adams says these webisodes, among others, are still in the editing stage.) Available webisodes can be found at
showmethefkingmoney.tv, currently at no charge.
“Right now there are six webisodes available and about two are coming up every week,” notes Adams. These were captured at the last two Cannes sessions and last fall’s Toronto Fest. Adams emphasizes that “certain conversations and participants require more time” to prepare and admits that the process of refining the webisodes “has given me a whole new level of respect for the editing process.”
As interviewers in four webisodes made available for viewing, charmers Jarrett and Adams sling a mix of softball and hardball questions but certainly prove their skill at luring subjects away for a few minutes from cocktails and deal-making. With Cannes 2014 behind them, next up this year are Toronto and the AFM.
As part of Adam’s introductory words in the webisodes viewed, he emphasizes: “We like the word ‘recoup.’” Well, f#©k yeah! But SMTFM covers other topics, including investing in film, the seven phases of funding, the investor’s team, film-funding sources and why investment in the film business is unique.
In the four webisodes sampled, some nuggets of interesting and potentially useful information emerged. One executive, Robert Aarts, who runs a Netherlands-based accounting and entertainment asset management firm, explains how his company, having found a solid niche, sets up and manages collection accounts for films so that the producers and others can focus on the production chores. The firm keeps track of the producers’ money through their CAM (Capital Asset Management) agreement. As its fee, his company, which does the collecting and dividing of the money, has a piece of the film fund’s capital.
Like some other webisode participants, Aarts shares that the independent world is growing because the studios are making fewer films and notes that wealthy people continue to be seduced by the film business. And there is a lot of capital around. His advice to investors is to really think hard about the project that’s tempting them and hire the right people (lawyers, especially) for their team. “Everything can go wrong, so go with real professionals.”
Charlene Paling, a film-finance executive with the National Bank of Canada, talks about the Canadian government’s many co-production deals and treaties with dozens of countries. There’s also the government’s tax-credit program for producers, which allows them to ask the bank for money which it will get back when they get that tax credit. Producers need to support their money requests with pre-sale contracts and distribution guarantees for the projects they’re borrowing for. Paling too has observed there’s a lot more private equity around from groups and individuals venturing back into the market. Spurring this is the fact that more independent films are successful.
Additionally, she says, the Canadian Bank also provides some gap financing for productions that come up a little short on their budgets. She too underscores the importance of great legal representation. Investors also need to be aware that when money starts flowing back to a production, it’s the banks that get paid back first.
Beijing-based Ronan Wong, an executive with China’s Galloping Horse Group (which acquired major effects house Digital Domain a few years ago), tells Adams in his SMTFM episode that his best advice for foreign producers who want to access China and attract money there is to get to know the culture and do that by coming to China, feeling the market and tasting the audience. “It’s really about knowing China and its people.”
But some softball questions (“When did you first come to Cannes?” “How did you get into the business?”) and one interview subject—a self-described “auteur” with a multitude of unfamiliar credits—don’t exactly deposit in the global film-financing knowledge bank or provide any takeaway.
But good SMTFM webisode information flows in other ways, as Jarrett and Adams have devised a clever add-on by way of short “Fun Fact” text inserts (sort of like pop-up stickies) that provide additional tidbits. Depending on a viewer’s capacity for intake, these can be either useful or distracting as they pop up while subjects are talking. At least webisodes can be paused and the shards of extra information can be e-mailed.
The idea to try to untangle the world of global film financing is a good one, especially where there’s so much cross-border business, digital impact and growth in the sheer quantity of independent films produced.
Some SMTFM spring press releases, no doubt designed to raise the project’s profile at Cannes, touted the project as “the ultimate guide to insider secrets in film finance and distribution in the global marketplace…the go-to resource guide on green-lighting films, team building and navigating the ever-changing terrain of film finance.”
It’s a tall order, but Jarrett and Adams’ plans for their project are ambitious. The team envisions SMTFM available across other platforms. Down the road, possibly in early 2015, there may be an SMTFM companion book about how to invest, raise and recoup money in film. Jarrett has been working on this and although it was what inspired Adams to realize the potential for the web series, it is not at all the focus now. “It’s too early,” says Adams, “to specify a publisher or format, e-book or otherwise.”
Right now, the SMTFM webisodes have their full attention. Jarrett and Adams describe their mission as “simple. It’s an effort to provide insider techniques and introductions to top professionals in the film-financing field to all those with an interest in investing. The mandate is to demystify the business of film.” Emphasis is on the business, whose core is that, uh, f#©king money.
Adams concedes that there’s been a steep learning curve in getting things the way he and Jarrett envision. “We’re a work-in-progress, so there are plenty of challenges.” Marketing is part of that challenge. “Finding our audience is so critical,” he notes, “and we’ve already laid the groundwork for this by bringing on board a social-media team.” They, of course, are storming the usual suspects (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) on behalf of SMTFM.
Besides marketing, arguably the biggest challenge Jarrett and Adams face and maybe key to making the project a must-visit destination is getting so much material well-organized. The consumers are out there, as the film business is awash with people needing money and those with money who are willing to gamble. And for so many, film inexorably remains a sexy and irresistible corner of entertainment they want to be a part of.
Choices abound in ways for them to organize (by kind of investment, investor, film, problems needed solutions, country, or stage where project finds itself in need of money, etc.). SMTFM is according some valuable raw material and good assets, but investment-minded consumers/viewers need an easy way in to so much information.
Says Adams, “There will be lots of organization, as we’re taking this challenge very seriously. So when we hit a certain critical mass of content, we’ll organize on multiple fronts. With lots of content, multiple categories will become more obvious. We’ll be organizing from A to Z, but right now we’re at an early phase.”
Adams also understands the complexity and unpredictability of the business. “Things are forever changing and tomorrow is history.” Beyond the usual costs, productions can hit many brick walls and soft shoulders where further investment is required (overruns, P&A, delays, etc.) and this reality must be addressed. Maybe SMTFM will one day come to the rescue.
As Adams and Jarrett build SMTFM, Adams says he’s been enjoying the ride on the learning curve. “What’s struck me is the interconnectedness of everything and the acceleration of change in the business as it tries to keep pace with the digital age. I’m also learning the extent of digital’s impact and not just the fact that it’s practically killed home entertainment the way we knew it. I go into film markets and I realize that not everyone is at all ready for what’s happening.”
Adams has also been impressed with how the incentives game that lures and rewards filmmakers—whether offered by states or countries—is becoming more competitive. He’s hoping California will up their game but says the overall competition is very good for filmmakers.
Adams also has an idea of what investors and filmmakers need most to learn. “One of the things we emphasize, and I hear it constantly, is that film is the only business people enter with a lot of dreams and so little planning.”
For now, Jarrett and Adams are having a ball going to the markets that count and schmoozing in front of the camera with so many players in the money game. As a producer, Adams says, “I love Cannes,” and the webisodes suggest that he shares this love of tests and markets with Jarrett, who also conducts some of the SMTFM interviews.
The real work lies ahead: nailing the organization, refining the webisodes, filling the pipeline by attracting more top-tier players in the finance world to share their insights, getting the word out via social media and otherwise, creating a successful marketing campaign that makes the brand stick and resonate. In other words, establishing SMTFM’s reputation as a must-visit and revisit tool for wise investing and recoupment in an increasingly exciting but challenging business.
Adams says he and Jarrett are well aware of all this and are roaring forward accordingly. If they get it right, “everyone wins.” Well, f#©k, yeah!
