| One point hammered was the importance of having a business
plan and the necessity of 'skin in the game'. "Financiers like
to see how much of 'own skin' has the producer put into the project"
remarked ICB's Adrian Ward. "When a producer highlights how profitable
investing in his project can be, we expect him to put in some of his
own too," he added.
Other important criteria included association of known salable
big names. "A big name or a reputed experienced professional
attached to a project will definitely get us interested," stated
Ingenious Media's Judith Chan.
Equally important was pre-sales and the reputation of the sales
agent. "We don't expect the producer who has the entire production
and creation responsibilities to focus on the sales. What we look
for is strong sales partners and agents across regions so as to
exploit the territories and bring in returns" remarked RGM's
Rodney Payne.
Local hero Jonathan Foo, MD of Singapore based Mega Media shared
some wonderful insights. Mega Media recently made a big splash with
its $20 million tie up with Cablevision's Rainbow Media. Mega Media's
hi-def factual programming will now be aired to 11 million homes
in the US.
"There are a lot more people looking for money, then those
that are offering it," remarked Foo. "In such a scenario,
one has to differentiate oneself and try and attract the finance.
And while pitching it is important to remember that things like
quality cant be a selling point as that is an expected feature in
any case. You need to put some money where your mouth is and have
a global plan, especially for producers coming from places like
Singapore where there is not a substantial enough local market."
Amongst the most common glitches that the financiers observed was
the lack of a proper and rational business plan in most cases.
The panelists also enlightened the audience on the various kinds
of finance available. Institutional funding involved a model where
an entity such as bank lent money. The fees are generally upfront
for such funding and there is no share in the backend.
Equity or co productions are an emerging trend now and involve
investment of finance and resource by multiple partners and are
a great way of spreading the risk and increasing the potential market
size.
The panelists had a word of caution for those seeking soft money
and grants as well as for producers who got in with high net worth
individual 'Emotional' investors as these sometimes would end up
in the producer having to sacrifice creative integrity.
The last line of advice as the day ended was - "Get your skin
in and play the game. Make a business plan, try and hitch in big
names and get the best sales agents. Completion bonds and a good
lawyer add to the whole package."
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