The Importance of a Film Business Plan

The biggest fallacy in the film industry and in the business world as a whole is that if you write up a business plan, all you have to do is present it to investors and they will write you a check. Even if you have the greatest of all business plans in all of history, that's not going to happen. Business plans tell investors what you are going to do. The meeting and subsequent paperwork tell them how you are going to do it. The reality is that the business plan only gains the investors' interest; it is the presenter, in this case, producer, who gives them the confidence to cut checks. Whether the producers write the plan themselves or hire someone to do it, the greatest selling point is how well they know the material and how they present it.

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Defending Film Incentives

For those who think the film industry and the film incentive doesn't help the states who have them. Let set aside the PR and tourism that film and television brings in to look at the hard numbers.

Film and Television are good paying jobs with benefits. Crews vary in size according to the budget and the individual projects. The bigger the budget the larger the cast and crew.

Never Can Say Good-bye is a low budge film. We still have:

9 person supervisory staff

77 member crew

5 character primary cast

8 character supporting cast

12 day players

200 paid extras

The average crew wage is $20.00 an hour plus fringe, which is the what we pay to the union for medical insurance and their retirement plan. Anything over 40 hours is paid at time and half. Most productions work at least a 50 hour work.

So many people think only those in the industry benefit. That is far from true. We will be paying for

food service for the cast and crew during the work hours as well as a dinner stipend.

hotel rooms for the cast and crew for the five weeks we will be shooting.

renting houses for cast, crew and supervisory staff that will be involved from pre-production to post.

transportation including car rental and gas for the production equipment and to transport personnel

location fees

office space/office equipment/utilities/

equipment rental

Films also hire:

electricians

carpenters

drivers

security

food service

office staff

location scouts

accountants

lawyers

web masters

Promotional and marketing staff, including a publicist

promotional materials-photocopying, organizing, and shipping

travel agent

payroll company

Child welfare

seamstress/costumers

Extras are non union positions that are paid for being part of the set. However, extras with scripted lines are paid union wages and can be eligible to join the unions.

For those think unions are bad; they are the ones who make sure their workers are paid a living wage and have set up the benefit programs for medical insurance and retirement funds that travel with the person from job to job. They also keep the working conditions safe. Union workers find themselves working not only in their home states, but across the country and around the world. Both unions opened their doors to new members in Michigan. They saw it was a way to help their members and expand their ranks. Once a person gets their foot in the door at the entry level, they are more likely to be hired for other projects.

As a low budget film we will not only be pay the salaries and benefits for our cast and crew, but we will also be paying for services and products from local companies, who in tern will being paying salaries and benefits for the people they need to hire. Our cast and crew will no doubt be doing some shopping on their off time, including meals and transportation to explore the state. Again, spreading the film money around to more people and businesses.

None of this includes the people needed for the No Where Else Like it campaign which will have a crew of approximately 31 plus the actors plus the production equipment, vehicles and the resources to travel around the state

Each person, who directly or indirectly receives a paycheck, will be paying taxes and supporting other businesses, who will continue the cycle.

All these salaries have been paid, services and products bought, and taxes paid before the film is released. Shortly before the release, the marketing and promotional campaigns will go into full effect. The advertising budget will be spend with newspapers, radio stations, television stations and Internet marketing companies. All of whom have hired staffs, paid taxes, and all the rest.

Theatres also hire staffs, buy products, and pay taxes. When the film is released on DVD or download, there are also people hired to do the work both at the manufacture level and for retail sales. Pay-per-view and networks also pay wages and taxes.

Big budget or tent pole pictures have larger casts and crews, which require more resources for longer periods of time. They have a wider reach and bigger impact on any area they film in.

As a Michigan company not only will have spread the new money around and started the prosperity cycle, but ass it comes back around, we will be paying taxes on profits from the national and international ticket sales, DVD/download and network leasing.

Film and television are highly mobile. They can quickly move into an area, because they don't have to wait to build huge buildings or wait for bulky equipment to be delivered and set up. But they can also move out just as quickly.

When Snyder came into office and declared he was going to terminate the film incentive, Michigan lost four big budget films in a week. Louisiana really loved him, because most of those jobs, the new money, and the great PR went to them. Sure he kept the incentive. But the damage was done. The lower rate and the cap hurt the talented people and the businesses who set up shop. Many have already left to find work as have many others. The last census proved that the population dropped by 25%.

What few jobs that Snyder and his comrades have created are minimum wage without benefits. Those are so much better than $20.00 an hour plus benefits. For those, who defend the minimum wage jobs as being reliable need to remember that the origin incentive was bringing so many films to the state that there was very little down time between them. Want to tell me again how hurtful the incentive is to the state?

" Instant Karma is going to get you."
                                       John Lennon
Have you ever met someone and suddenly  felt love or hate? Yet for the life of you couldn't remember  them.  Would you want to  remember? Would you want to know if it could save  your life?

Never Can Say Good-bye is a paranormal thriller  feature film with the  logline love and hate survives death

http://tirgana.wix.com/never-can-say-good-bye/home

Please like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Nevercansaygoodbyeparanormalfilm/info Courage isn't the lack of fear, but the ability to set it aside and  focus on what is truly important

Michigan in fight for film jobs

Michigan in fight for film jobs
Infrastructure improvements touted to give state competitive edge
Nathan Hurst / The Detroit News

Manhattan Beach, Calif. -- If there ever were an exemplary home of Tinseltown magic, it's here at Raleigh Studios' hangar-like sound stages.

In one of these 25,000-square-foot behemoths, special effects masters are working on the futuristic set of "Iron Man 2." Nearby, the phony morgue drawers for the CBS drama "CSI: Miami" await cadavers du jour.

But movie-goers and television watchers wouldn't ever know that the worlds created for big and small screen alike are in the studio just off a traffic-jammed freeway southwest of downtown Los Angeles. For all they know, the filming could've been done on location.



Or in Louisiana. Or Missouri. Or New Mexico. And soon, maybe even in Michigan.

While the Great Lakes State has the nation's most aggressive tax break for entertainment producers, it's far from the only suitor vying for attention from a sector that's estimated to generate some $60 billion annually. And it's not the first.

"When producers are looking at where to take their projects, they've got a lot of options," said Michael Moore, chief executive of Raleigh Studios, which has locations in Shreveport, La., Budapest and L.A.

Moore's company is also set to run Motown Motion Picture Studios, the massive moviemaking project slated to take the place of a defunct General Motors Corp. facility in Pontiac.

While every state rolls out the red carpet for production crews, a handful -- especially those looking to diversify their economies or kick-start new growth -- are giving the industry a generous helping hand to bring business within their borders. New Mexico was one of the earliest contenders to steal Hollywood's thunder; there, Gov. Bill Richardson spearheaded the creation of a 25 percent rebate program in 2002.

Since then, thousands of film and television jobs moved from the hazy sprawl of Los Angeles to the deserts around Albuquerque and Santa Fe, where studios and production facilities have sprouted up, helping to draw business away from the Golden State.

In Louisiana, where filmmakers can get tax credits worth up to 35 percent of qualifying expenses, sound stages have sprung up quickly, too. Production is up, and many of the mechanisms of a surrounding support industry -- post-production facilities, special-effects outfits and consulting agencies -- are opening and growing, centered around Shreveport.

But tax credits and rebates aren't enough to move a critical mass of Hollywood to Michigan.

"States have to start thinking long-term," said Jimmy Lifton, founder of Unity Studios, the multimillion dollar studio and production facility slated to open this year on the site of a shut-down Visteon plant in Allen Park. "There needs to be an infrastructure to support year-round production."

Lifton is just one proponent -- and investor -- in the strategy of building out the industry here in Michigan, by creating facilities, a talent pool and support industries that will, should everything go as planned, keep as much work as possible here, instead of farming some back to California or other states with a larger infrastructure already in place.

The state's tax credit program gives a 25 percent credit for building out infrastructure, which will help add to limited facilities already in the state.

Both Lifton's project and the one in Pontiac include noncore components such as training programs to build an in-state work force and post-production facilities that will allow functions such as film editing and processing to be performed here.

"The key is getting the state to the point where it's not a drop-in center," said Lifton. "It's about getting as many moving parts of the business to Michigan as possible.

"It's not building a business. It's building an industry."