Film Finance Plans For Film and Television Production
A professional film finance plan is a highly valuable asset for obtaining funding for your film or tv production. Film finance plans inform and advise investors about your film or tv series, the elements involved (story, team, cast, crew) and the detailed financials backing and substantiating the investment.
What Is a Film Finance Plan?
A film finance plan is a professional financing strategy that outlines how a feature film, television series, documentary, or streaming production will be funded. A comprehensive film finance plan identifies the sources of capital required to produce the project and explains how investors, lenders, distributors, and financial partners may recoup their investment.
Professional film finance plans commonly include equity financing, film tax incentives, pre-sales, distribution advances, gap financing, debt financing, cashflow projections, revenue forecasts, recoupment waterfalls, and risk analysis. A film finance plan works together with a professional film budget and production schedule to determine whether a project is financially viable and attractive to potential investors.
Without a clear finance plan, investors have no roadmap showing how a production intends to raise capital, manage production costs, distribute the completed film, and generate returns. A professional film finance plan provides that roadmap.
FilmBudget.com creates professional finance plans by 25 year veteran Major Hollywood Studio, indie film, and tv Producer Jack Binder ‘First Reformed’ Ethan Hawke, A24, ‘The Upside of Anger’ Kevin Costner, New Line Cinema, ‘Reign Over Me’ Adam Sandler, Columbia Pictures. A highly detailed film finance business plan custom created for you, for investors, film finance, distributors, international sales agents, completion bond, and film tax credits, for your film or tv production.
FilmBudget.com creates custom finance plans designed for investment in your feature film or tv series production. Using 25 years in the film and television industry as a Major Hollywood Studio and Independent Film Producer as well as a financier and investor ourselves, we understand the requirements of film financiers, distribution, banks, financial institutions and investors.
Who Needs Film Finance Plans?
Investors, banks and distributors require investor-ready film budgets and accurate production finance projections. Filmmakers need a film finance plans to enable investment in their productions. Proper financial planning documents allow potential investors to understand your business model, and how they will recoup their investment.
Also known as a film finance business plan, or a film business plan, a business plan is a document that investors are accustomed to reviewing. Film financiers expect a filmmaker to have a roadmap for the finance, the production, distribution, and recoupment of investment.
Common Sources of Film Financing
Every film finance plan is unique. The financing structure depends on budget level, genre, cast, distribution strategy, target audience, and market conditions. Professional film finance plans often combine multiple funding sources to reduce risk and maximize production value.
- Private Equity Investment
- Film Tax Credits and Production Incentives
- Domestic and International Pre-Sales
- Gap Financing
- Distributor Advances and Minimum Guarantees
- Debt Financing and Production Loans
- Co-Productions
- Soft Money Programs and Regional Incentives
- Producer Capital Contributions
- Strategic Investment Partnerships
A successful finance plan demonstrates how these funding sources work together to fully finance production while creating a realistic path toward investor recoupment and profitability.
What Information is Included in a Film Finance Plan?
Film finance planning created by Jack Binder contain a detailed and well organized description of all the important elements involved in the business model for the execution of a film production. Investors are very accustomed to reading business plans and know what to look for as indicators of a solid model in which their investment would be worthy of their funding.
Professional film finance and budgeting helps producers properly structure equity, tax incentives, pre-sales and gap financing.
The Key Elements of a Film Finance Plan:
- An introduction to the premise of the production
- Table of Contents
- Executive Summary:
- The Company which will be responsible for the production
- The Production which requires the funding
- The Team which will execute the plan
- The Cast that will be involved in the movie
- Plan of Distribution for the completed film
- How the investors will recoup their investment
- What is the current status of the market?
- Details of the industry
- Revenue projections to substantiate the financing
- Recoupment Plan & Recoupment Schedule
- Financial information relevant to the business plan
- Additional supporting documentation utilized in the projections
- Disclaimers as necessary
What is the FilmBudget.com Advantage
All movie business plans created by Film Budget Inc. contain highly detailed creative and financial analysis of your film production. All finance business plans are created by the founder of FilmBudget.com, Producer Jack Binder. Binder is a seasoned veteran financier, executive producer, producer, line producer and Directors Guild of America Unit Production Manager (DGA UPM). Jack’s Credits can be found here.
Detailed production budget breakdowns are essential for lenders, completion bond companies and international co-productions.
Example Film Finance Plan Structure
A professional film finance plan demonstrates exactly how a production intends to secure the capital required to complete the project. While every production is unique, an independent feature film may utilize several financing sources working together.
For example, a hypothetical $5 million feature film might be financed through:
- $1.5 million Private Equity Investment
- $1.5 million Film Tax Incentives
- $1.0 million Foreign Pre-Sales
- $1.0 million Gap Financing
The role of the film finance plan is to explain how these funding sources interact, how production costs will be controlled through a professional film budget and schedule, and how investors may recoup their investment through distribution revenues and other income streams.
Investors, lenders, distributors, sales agents and completion bond companies often require a clear understanding of the proposed financing structure before committing to a project.
How Do I Begin?
Get in contact with us via our Contact Page
We provide a free consultation to discuss your movie or television production. In conjunction with our core film budget services we can create a custom film budget and schedule package for you, or use one that you have already created. Our film budgets are detailed, accurate and proven with 25 years producing for the major studios, mini-major and indie film companies, worldwide. All of our budgeting services are finance and camera ready, meaning they are of exceptional detail and accuracy.
Please visit our Services page for full details and information on what our film budget and schedule packages contain. Click Here
We look forward to assisting you with an exceptionally well detailed film finance business plan which will allow your investors to understand the financials and intentions of your film production as relates to their financing and return of investment.
Visit our Home Page for additional information on our services which we provide to fellow filmmakers.
For more information on film financing have a look at the attached article:
“Producers, distributors and financiers are the primary players in US film finance”
Thank you and Good luck with your filmmaking goals!