Movie Money Confidential
No two films, not even sequels, are really alike and real comparison between them is almost impossible. That’s at least in part because any the unique and irreplicable path they each take to the big screen. The one element which does always repeat, however, is how difficult that journey is. Scratch any given film and find a story of years of development hell, of quests for funds, of doors slammed and no’s given. No one ever seems to believe in a film (until they do) and the path to getting them financed and made is a treacherous as any adventure film.
No part of the filmmaking process -- not the ephemeral inspiration behind stories, not the idiosyncratic nature of the acting process – is as important and shrouded in mystery as the financing that pays for them. Intrinsically investments, films are products that can be designed to certain market needs but also artistic creations that may or may not be for many people with no ability to realistically forecast what they will do. Facing that sort of risk why on earth would anyone ever put money into the creation of one? At least beyond getting the opportunity to say they are a film producer. No one seems to know and those who do know don’t say much least their own options become swarmed with other needy filmmakers and their projects.
Into that comes Rick Pamplin’s deep dive into film finance and production which is both timely and interesting but more importantly proof that within the world of movie making “no one really knows anything.” Based on long-time film finance executive Louise Levison’s own book on film finance, Movie Money Confidential reduces the arcane elements behind funding a new creation to straight forward pieces starting with Levison’s own work creating the business plan and arranging financing for the popular horror film The Blair Witch Projects. Breaking apart what a film business plan needs (and realistically how high budgets can go) and how much of it is currently available, Movie Money explains the essential piece of the most mysterious part of film finance … asking strangers to just give you money.
The portions coming from the words of Levison herself are the reason to watch Movie Money as she explains her view of raising film budgets without mystery or metaphor. A film entirely of Levison’s views would be both more interesting (and probably shorter) than Movie Money but the bit available in the film, almost entirely in the opening minutes, are worth the price of admission. Everything after that is a confused mishmash of conflicting advice – have a business plan, don’t have a business plan, cut to the chase, do a song and dance – which if nothing else prepares the potential film producer for how chaotic the reality of raising financing will be and that there is no easy way to do it. The only other consistent piece of information from everyone from actress Salma Hayek to local Floridian producers is how painful raising funds is and the need to just gut it out.
Hayek’s appearance is one of the interesting extra elements added to the straightforward view on film financing (which at its core reduces to “ask everyone you know for money and be prepared for a lot of no’s”) which eventually reduces to a lot of philosophizing from director Pamplin and his friends and colleagues. The includes the last recorded interview with Burt Reynolds, who hosted an annual film symposium with students in Florida, and a particularly strange digression around the ethics of including commercials within a film in order to fund a film which could add to the full subject Pamplin is investigating but instead frequently becomes a commercial for its interviewees instead.
That said, there is a lot of truly interesting and useful information about film financing within Movie Money, mostly within the first thirty minutes. It takes some doing to fish it all out and could use some more expansion but even what is there is must viewing for anyone interested in making their own film one day or just how the films that do get made get made. Make time to see it.