US producers think outside the box
Producer Tim Baker shares his experience with an Aus/China co-prod at the Producer’s Guild of America conference in LA.
Inspired by Cannes and other foreign producer’s markets, the PGA decided to launch its own international market so as to generate interest amongst its members in the funding and collaborative possibilities of international co-productions.
The second annual Producer’s Guild of America’s “Produced by Conference” took place June 4-6 at the Twentieth Century Fox studios in Los Angeles.
Photo by Michael Quinn Martin
My producing partner, Jing Jin, and I were there as guests of the PGA, following the selection of our project, The Adventure of Kokochin for the PGA’s International Co-production Showcase, or CoProShow (“welcome to the CoProShow, bro!”).
Five projects were selected for the inaugural CoProShow, with three of the slots reserved by various international film organisations. The Adventure of Kokochin was one of only two projects chosen for the remaining open slots.
The promise that we had received from the chair of the PGA’s international committee, Stu Levy, who organised the CoProShow, was genuine access to potential producing and financing partners, and that was exactly what we got. Much of our success was due to our PGA-delegated handler, producer/writer TJ Mancini (Find Me Guilty, Double Fault), who was able to organise our meetings with an extraordinary combination of tenacity and aggression balanced by elegance, wit and good humour.
The criteria we gave TJ when he arranged our meetings were: access to talent; North American distribution; and partners who would be there for the long haul. Thanks to TJ, we met with 13 producers, seven of whom we had nominated, as well as six financers and one studio VP. Three of the meetings, all with nominated producers, went well over one hour, and we left the event with offers of partnership and various innovative financial packages and North American distribution deals that were proposed to us.
Apart from the scheduled meetings, the CoProShow gave us a unique opportunity to meet and network with dozens of other US producers, as well as actors, writers, composers and musicians. A revelation of the conference was just how many American producers now think outside the box; people like Kurt Yaeger, who’s financing a reality television series about people with disabilities by working as a stuntman on a sci-fi film. The director has no idea that Kurt does his stunts with a prosthetic left leg, the result of a hit and run motorcycle accident. Or someone like Angel Wainwright, who is financing pre-production of a project about the first African-American slave who purchased her freedom in Massachusetts in 1765, by doing a stint in the TV soap, General Hospital.
One thing all of the producers we spoke to mentioned was just how incredibly hard it is to find finance and distribution at the moment. This was echoed by the featured speakers at the conference events we had time to attend (only three: Foreign Affairs – the essentials of international co-production; Where’s The Money? This year’s guide to independent financing; and Prep For Your Rep – Finding and working with agents, managers, and lawyers).
The dire financial and distribution situation facing all US producers was underlined time and time again. It was a depressing if consistent line: drama is dead, and forget North American distribution when financing your films.
Cathy Schulman (Crash, The Illusionist) has had to put together a Broadway-like alliance of over 30 individual equity investors for her next film, Salvation Boulevard, that has a budget of less than $7 million and stars Pierce Brosnan, Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris. Her message? Innovate with finance and don’t expect North American distribution – treat it like the icing on the cake. Rena Ronson, co-head of the Independent Film Group at UTA made the same points, but also offered up a ray of hope: producers still get passionate about projects and where there’s passion, there’s always possibility.
If that’s the case, there is a huge amount of possibility coming out of the PGA.
