I’ve been there. I used to be the girl reading the trades and pretending to know what was going on. Yeah that was me in the Starbucks with my sunglasses still on and the Hollywood Reporter spread out on the table acting as if I knew what was going on. We all know the truth, I was busy reading about the names I knew. Oh an article about Ben Affleck? Great I love him. I’m not ashamed that it took me some time to understand what an MG payment was and why the most important people in the industry stay up all night negotiating during film festivals. But I see no reason for you to have to take as long as I did to catch up. So here we go.
An MG is a minimum guarantee. It is the minimum amount of money that you are going to get from your distributer when you sell your film to him. If he puts it into the market and you make no money, well don’t worry you will have at least X number of dollars to give to your investors when they are totally pissed at you. You made a movie for 1.5 million? It sucks? Well you are probably going to get a MG of $60,000-that is if you’re lucky. If you’re really really really really lucky and someone that matters happens to love your film..you might catch that break where they are fighting for your film and up the MG to like 4 Million but in this case you are probably Joseph Gordon Levitt and your film is stacked with stars. Stars =Money. Are you paying attention?
What’s a distributor? Oh honey…we have a lot to catch up on. Remember when you thought making movies was awesome? Well it is…in some sense. You are so excited about your project and you think it is SO FUNNY and you know what? It probably is so funny…to some people. However, you borrowed, begged and stole to make this movie. You owe your Grandma $5000.00 ( I am sure knowing Nona she won’t expect to see this money). You owe your parents $10,000 (you’ve got some great parents). The real deal is that you owe these other three investors around $100,000 each which is $300,000. So essentially you need $315,000 just to break even.
Here is what they didn’t tell you when you were in film school. There is a very very large chance that you make a movie and never sell it. I’m not trying to crush your dreams and steer you from making movies. I am trying to give you a chance to actually do this thing well. First of all, don’t shoot a script unless you have had like 10 people read it, critique it and you have taken the time to fix it. I don’t mean your mom and your dad and your sister and your brother I mean actual people that get movies made for a living. Agents, Managers, Directors, Distributors. If you are going to have people invest in your projects, you better be sure it has the chance to do well. Secondly, do not cast this yourself. Do not go around to your local acting classes and pick some girl to be the lead because you have a crush on her. Do your research, find a casting director that has connections. Find talent that has had success. You’re not going to get Ryan Gosling (well maybe..if you play your cards right…and you have enough money, which I think we have decided, you don’t) but you can get someone who is up and coming, who has shown up in the TV world a little or had small success in other films. This still won’t guarantee that you sell your film but it will up the odds. Finally, and this is just a condensed version of things, you need to make sure you save money for post production. I know you think you can edit this yourself, and maybe you can. But honestly…they call it collaboration for a reason. You don’t see Spielberg sitting in front of an avid clicking away, you just see him next to his editor whom he trusts and spends tons of time with helping him navigate the footage. Also, you are going to want music and maybe you wrote some songs and you think they are great and that is again, awesome. However, there might be a song you want and think will make this certain moment just that much better or really drive home this point that you are trying to make, and guess what? You have to have the rights to that music. You have to PAY for that music. And if you think you can get away with just using ten seconds of it for this one really small moment, guess again. Your distributor (when you hope to sell this film) will make you deliver the contracts that say you have the rights to that ten seconds of your favorite song. So get your ducks in a row.
Back to Sundance. We have this film that we made for $315,000 (which is like nothing by the way) and it’s actually kind of a good film. We are proud of it and we send it off to all the festivals and try to get accepted. Suddenly we are accepted into the Sundance festival. Holy Shit. The Weinsteins go to this festival, Sony, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Lionsgate. We have hope! Our film might make it!
Get a lawyer.
You should already have a lawyer actually….hopefully. At this point if you don’t have one you better find one, an entertainment one. If you want to pay your Nona back you better have someone who understands the negotiations and will negotiate on your behalf. It’s not that distributors are the devil it’s just that they want/need to make money. Everyone reports to someone. They will invest the least amount of money in your film so that they essentially will make more money. It’s really sweet that this is your first film and you haven’t slept in 8 months because you’ve been trying to get this made and ready for Sundance, but they don’t care. They want to make money. You could also look into a sales agent to negotiate for you…..but they will get a cut on the deal..so keep that in mind.
Now you are here at Sundance and suddenly people are interested in your film. You start the negotiations and little by little you come to terms you can agree on. You finalize a deal. Let’s say you get an MG of $100,000. Good job. Now you only have to pay back $215,000. BUT you wont see this money until you deliver. No it’s not that you just drop off the film to them in DVD format and say see ya later. You have legal documents, stills, production notes, music licenses. You will deliver this stuff in increments as the dates come around. You will get paid in increments as you deliver these items. See why you need a lawyer? Well if by now you still don’t get it I will just tell you , its to cover your ass.
So you’ve sold your film to Mr. Distributor and you have been given your MG and now it is over. Depending on what is in the acquisition agreement you signed you probably have little rights anymore to the film. They can change the name, market this film however they want and sell it to whomever they want (based again on their rights stated in your agreement). But good job, you are one of very few that made a film, got it into Sundance and got a reasonable MG out of the whole thing.
Moral of the story? Don’t waste your time. Read the trades, pay attention. Understand the market. I know you want to make art and I get it, its super fun to tell the story you’ve always wanted to tell. I don’t think you should quit while you are ahead. HOWEVER find people you can trust, producers, lawyers. Gather as much knowledge as you can about the backend and THEN make your movie. This isn’t child’s play anymore, we aren’t in our back yards with video cameras making home movies, this is the real world and who runs the world? No not girls, the mighty dollar.
Teresa Sabatine 