Thursday 14 February 2008

Film finance without risk to IP rights?

The Times Online today carries a brighty and cheery feature, '10 essential tasks for making your own movie', by Adam P. Davies and Nicol Wistreich, authors of The Film Finance Handbook – How to Fund Your Film (published by Netribution) and available here for £22.49 & p&p. The tenth essential task is
"Finding appropriate finance

... When your project is fully developed, you will be ready to look for “production finance”.

This comes from all sorts of sources, including banks, film funds, wealthy individuals, distributors, government bodies, cast and crew deferments, product placement, film institutes and your great-uncle Quentin. With the right knowledge and advice, it is immeasurably rewarding obtaining the funds needed to put your dream on the screen.

Of course, you could skip the whole process, shoot on a minimal budget, max-out your credit cards and screen your film online to the world. If you get enough attention, who knows how long before other opportunities present themselves? The most popular YouTubers pick up agents and make thousands of pounds from adverts alone".
The article doesn't mention the words "collateral", "securitisation" or "intellectual property rights". Are any readers of this weblog familiar with The Film Finance Handbook? If so, can they let us know what it says about the mortgaging of IP rights as a means of financing the production-to-distribution process?

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