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Reviews The UK Film Finance Handbook 2005/06: How to Fund Your Film
By Adam P Davies & Nic Wistreich Published by www.netribution.co.uk & www.ukfilmfinance.com Reviewed by James MacGregor Let me first declare an interest in this book. I wrote Chapter Two, on Low- and Micro-Budget Filmmaking, but never saw the rest of the book before it was launched at Cannes. I came to it with a fresh and hopefully, unbiased eye. f directing films, rather than weighing balance sheets are your thing, this may not at first seem like an ideal title for perusing, but you would be wrong to overlook it. The authors Adam Davies and Nic Wistreich have between them advised 200 films on finance, at all budget levels from Non-Existent to How Much? Nic was, with Tom Fogg, a founder of www.netribution.co.uk, the first and most successful UK indie film website, written by indie filmmakers for indie filmmakers. Later he was Development Director of Shooting People, introducing the filmmaker case study resource Wideshot http://shootingpeople.org/wideshot. Adam is the lawyer behind film finance consortium Investrum www.ukfilmfinance.com They are in the know, these two, on film finance. This is neither a stuffy book, nor a dry one either. The chubby porky-pig money box grinning at you from the cover confirms that, though inevitably, detailed texts on complicated financial issues will never melt in the mouth like chocolate, this one promises to raise a few smiles. There’s the sort of ironic humour displayed that all filmmakers understand because they will have experienced much of it themselves. The handbook for its second, substantially updated and revised, edition (the previous one was a joint publication between Netribution and Shooting People) has been put together in four sections. There’s a main text of five chapters relating to all aspects of film finance, each chapter supported by case studies and interviews with high-level experienced producers, directors, financiers and exec producers. The second section is devoted to funding organisations in the UK, with a full breakdown of their funding criteria and how much funding they are able to provide. The Directory, which follows, is the who’s who of the film finance world and full contact details of all the funding organisations covered in the text so far. Finally, there’s a reference section covering copyright and intellectual property rights, a table of common financing contracts, sample agreement schedules, websites and a further reading list. The case studies and interviews are illuminating on film finance. This edition carries an interview with Nic Powell, co-founder with that Branson chap, of Virgin, but who went on to forge a very successful career as a producer of some very successful British Films. Currently he is head of the National Film and Television School. Head of BBC Films David Thompson talks about broadcaster finance for films; Paul Trijbits of the New Cinema Fund and Jenny Borgars of the Development Fund give the current UK Film Council perspective on film finance; and there are distinguished contributions from a film banker and a film taxation expert all bringing valuable intelligence to ‘fore-arm producers intending to make financial forays in filmmaking. There’s also an excellent and revealing interview with the Open Water team of Kentis and Lau, who give telling insights into how they created their international low-budget feature success on DV. Filmmaking on zero budgets is not overlooked either. Content here includes a 101 of Low Budget Filmmaking garnered from the MacGregor interview dossier and research database, including a lot of valuable help and first-hand experience from the low-budget shooters of Shooting People. It’s light-hearted, much of it, but as well as being entertaining, it makes its serious points too. Profiting from the experience of others is the best form of budget-saving there is! This book should find a place in the film library of any serious UK indie filmmaker.
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