The UK Film Council has released a new funding policy for the next three years until March 2010. The policy includes the creation of five new funding projects that are designed to increase public access to films through the increased funding of film festivals and more access to the country’s film history.

For example, the equivalent of $3 million dollars per year will be granted to the UK Film Festivals Fund with the aim to not only increase the number of film festivals, but also improve upon the already existing festivals to provide greater access to a diversity of worldwide cinema.

The UK Digital Film Archives Fund will grant $2 million dollars per year while the Partnership Challenge Fund will also be granted $2 million dollars per year in order to increase funding partnerships to provide more public awareness about film funding. Specifically, the Partnership Challenge Fund targets the promotion of media literacy, film access, cinema capital funding, and London 2012 Olympics film-related initiatives.

In addition, the Digitization and Marketing Fund will receive $4 million dollars per year; this money will go to boosting marketing expenditures in order to increase theatrical and online film distribution.

This new funding policy has the hopes of smoothly transitioning the UK film industry into the Digital Age.

Get more information about these new film promotional policies from the following link:
http://northernfilmnetwork.wordpress.com/2007/05/11/uk-film-council-sets-out-funding-plans-to-2010/

Contributed by Christina Chen,
UC Berkeley student

The Boston Motion Picture Awards (BMPA) is a competition that started three years ago with the goal of helping independent filmmakers jumpstart their film careers. The awards are tied to several means of film funding. Winners of the competition not only receive money and resources, they also benefit from a variety of other perks, ranging from free screenwriting software to free subscriptions to industry magazines.

With categories such as “International Short-Film Competition” and “International Spoof-Writing Competition”, winners can receive up to thousands of dollars in cash and/or a distribution agreement. The application date starts on July 2nd and goes until September 15th.

The competition also includes judges whose industry backgrounds range from actors in Office Space, Gilmore Girls and directors and producers from The Albino Code, and a film critic from “The Boston Globe”.

The idea behind the BMPAs is the acknowledgement of the fundamental issue behind amateur filmmaking: money. While musicians can create hundreds of songs in their garage or authors can write a variety of short stories, filmmaking is an artistic medium that simply cannot exist without a significant amount of funding. Thus after winning a BMPA prize, filmmakers have a foot up in their future film ventures.

Get more general information about this competition from its main website:
http://www.bostonawards.com/

Contributed by Christina Chen,
UC Berkeley student

The Annual Film Florida Meeting took place June 6th through June 8th at the Italian Club in Tampa, Florida. Film Florida is an organization based in Florida that acts as the prominent hub of the entertainment industry in Florida.

The first day of the event included Funding 101, a panel that discussed how feature films are funded. The panelists scheduled to appear included representatives from Ring Productions, Fresh Produce Films, Fingerman and Macke, and Skyway Capital Investments. Other sessions that day included events discussing the ways to pitch film plans and how to gain the resources needed to fund film projects.

The host of the event, the Film Florida organization, is a non profit that supports local film production in the state. They work closely with the Florida Film Office, a branch of the state government. The Florida Film Office’s website is www.filminflorida.com. That site offers a number of great resources such as information on Florida state production incentives and shooting locations.

Get more information on Florida’s film industry:
http://tampafilmfan.com/blog/2007/05/22/film-florida-annual-meeting-and-more-june-6-8/
http://www.filmflorida.org
http://www.filminflorida.com

Contributed by Christina Chen,
UC Berkeley student

Have foreign films, user-generated content, and the video game industry sent the major U.S. film studios into a death spiral?

Kirstin Thompson, writing from her homebase at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, nicely summarizes and critiques two recent articles that explore the demise of Hollywood.

Read her article on David Bordwell’s Website on Cinema. The full post is here.

Photo from davidbordwell.net

Pirates (not the Caribbean ones) are sending shockwaves through the motion picture industry. Hacker sites are reporting cracking the encryption on both formats of high definition DVD. This is a tremendously negative development for consumers. Already skittish about making high definition programming available due to piracy concerns, this news confirms the entertainment industry’s worst fears. I think we can look forward to even more stringent digital rights management (DRM) that limits available content and decreases consumer enjoyment of the latest movies and entertainment programming.

Here is a summary of the hack:

HD DVD and Blu-ray Now Completely Hacked, Cracked, Sacked

Gizmodo , February 13, 2007 Tuesday 11:15 AM EST

Feb. 13, 2007 ( delivered by Newstex) –

The guys at the Doom 9 forum are marking February 11, 2007 as the day when digital rights management was defeated on Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. It turns out that cracking the high definition disc formats was much easier than was originally thought. The processing key that can unravel the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-ray discs has been found by a clever encryption fighter named arnezami.

It gets better:

The first-reported and Blu-ray discs were not completely effective, because each individual title had secret codes that were needed to unravel the rest of the encryption on that disc. But now this newly-found processing key is apparently the holy grail that unlocks the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-ray discs released so far. The guy found it by simply watching his computer memory, where the secret code–which we won’t publish here for fear of doing jail time–simply appeared. Incredible. Let the free downloads begin! — Charlie White

[Doom9 Forum]

http://www.contentagenda.com/articleXml/LN570885857.html?industryid=45180

You can also check out this post on Boing Boing:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/13/bluray_and_hddvd_bro.html

“Notwithstanding last year’s disparaging headlines regarding declining box office and DVD sales, 2006 ticket sales and DVD purchases proved that the public actively enjoys movie-going and the in-home DVD experience, despite the proliferation of other entertainment alternatives,” Genius Products CEO Trevor Drinkwater said.

Much of the cheery-eyed optimism floating around the studio DVD divisions stems from the fact that the industry has just come off an exceptionally strong fourth quarter. Things got off to a good start when 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: The Last Stand and Buena Vista’s The Little Mermaid Platinum Edition generated $80 million in consumer spending in a single day. Further triumphs came as the quarter progressed, culminating this month when Buena Vista’sPirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest sold 10.5 million DVDs its first week in stores, putting it on track to become the top-selling live-action DVD ever.

“A couple of interesting things happened in the fourth quarter,” Warner Home Video president Ron Sanders said. “You had some very strong theatricals that performed very well across the board, and you also had the additional benefit of TV-DVD continuing to have a huge upside, year-over-year. All of this pointed to a very healthy category.”

Visit BrandWeek for more information:

http://www.brandweek.com/bw/news/sportsent/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003525962

Came across an excellent article on the role of the director in helping to raise funding for a film project.

If Reitman’s story proves just how hard a director has to fight to get his film made today, it also is indicative of something else: the blurring of the lines between what might once have been considered a director’s role and that of a producer. “As an independent director, you can’t simply wait for a job to come to you,” Reitman says. “You have to create the work yourself. I see producing and directing as one and the same.”

Today, directors like Reitman are key players in almost every aspect of getting their films made — from sweet-talking actors and developing business strategies to wooing financiers and even overseeing marketing campaigns.

“It is so hard to get a movie made that the idea of sitting back and waiting for somebody to put it together for you is just a pipe dream,” says Neil Burger, the director of Yari Film Group Releasing’s “The Illusionist.” “Nobody is going to believe in something as much as you do or have the real passion to push it through — which isn’t to say there aren’t good producers who work really hard. But it is naive to think anybody is going to do it all for you.”

http://tinyurl.com/w7gmn

ITVS IS LOOKING FOR

• programs that will bring new audiences, topics and voices to public television
• television programs in any genre, including drama, documentary, docudrama, animation, experimental works or innovative combinations
• single programs of standard broadcast length (56:40 or 26:40). In rare cases when a maker’s skills, subject and story structure warrant it, ITVS will consider programs at feature lengths through the Open Call and DDF initiatives.

ITVS IS NOT LOOKING FOR PROGRAMS THAT ARE

• completed and only seeking distribution
• series proposals
• projects intended solely for theatrical release

HOW IS ITVS FUNDING DIFFERENT FROM A GRANT?
Accepted applicants will receive funding in the form of a “Production License Agreement” for production (Open Call or LInCS) or a “Development/Option Agreement” for development (DDF). Both of these contracts assign ITVS certain important rights over the production. Please read carefully the “ITVS License Agreement”.

http://www.itvs.org/producers/funding_guidelines.html

http://www.itvs.org/producers/funding.html

A recent article on BusinessWeek.com offers this advice:

An Investor In the Biz

When looking for investors in the film industry, it’s helpful to reach out to the talent agencies, says Jeff Fishman, a Los Angeles-based financial adviser who works with many entertainment clients. “Agents have relationships with many movie financiers. If you’re looking to meet people at the agencies, try to attend film festivals or even enter your film in a festival. This is usually a great venue to meet varied people from throughout the entertainment industry.”

Your ideal investor will be someone from the industry who knows you well and can help you not only financially, but also strategically. “Such an investor will help you tactically take things to the next level,” says Channing Chen, a venture consultant with the San Francisco Small Business Development Center. “These people…understand what it takes to make this movie successful from a financial standpoint.”

Read more:
http://tinyurl.com/wqub5

I think Business Week missed the boat on this one. While talent agencies do play a critical role in financing, if you do not have an established set of relationships this path is not going to be helpful.

Likewise the advice about seeking investors with experience in film is probably just plain wrong. If you are just beginning your fund raising activities, you need to tap into people who can make an investment of $25,000 or greater. These people are business owners, doctors, perhaps people with family wealth. If they are already in the film business, I think you will find it particularly difficult to recruit them as an investor in your project.

Report: Financing Mobile Video Projects Not an Easy Task

11/06/2006

The market for mobile TV and video is growing rapidly, but content providers are finding it difficult to finance new projects, according to a new report by Informa Telecoms and Media in partnership with peacefulfish.

Informa forecasts worldwide revenue from mobile TV and video services will rise from $2.46 billion in 2006 to $8.35 billion in 2011, but content providers vying for a share of this market face challenges.

“While mobile TV and video content is less expensive to produce than film or broadcast TV content, it still requires upfront production costs that typically run several thousand dollars per minute,” said Chris Coffman, senior research analyst at Informa and author of the report. “Revenue shares don’t fund the initial creation of content. The mobile TV and video sector would benefit from distributors, such as broadcasters, mobile operators and content aggregators, sharing in more of the risk.”

The report said companies from both the mobile and media industries are using minimum guarantees and licensing payments to help finance projects. Content providers also rely on outside investments.

The report also suggested producers take advantage of mobile video users’ desire to watch short clips and create new formats and programs designed specifically for that format.

Informa Telecoms and Media www.informatm.com

peacefulfish www.peacefulfish.com

http://www.xchangemag.com/articles/537/6bh612512990066.html

Filmmakers should keep up-to-date on developments regarding content creation for mobile platforms. While licensing is in its early stages, there is a tremendous potential for creativity, and evenutally, meaningful revenues.