Structuring Backend Deals: How Crews Can Become Invested In Your Project

‘The Full Monty’ is a great film, and there’s no doubt that audiences and critics equally love it. What made “The Full Monty” different besides winning awards at Oscar and Bafta? To compensate for the lower production fees, crews were invested in the film. With a budget of £3mil and a gross profit of £170mil, 17 years later, crews are still receiving cheques through the post. “Frances Ha”; “Star Wars” and “Scenes from a Marriage” are proofs of how back-end deals have been applied all over the world to optimise cash budgets and incentivise film participants. This model has also been known as crewfunding. 

Shared economy concepts have proved to be very successful with other industries. Just look at companies such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Uber and Airbnb and the real value they create for their users. During the webinar we will explain how crews can become invested in a project and how back-end deals can be structured in a safe and transparent manner, where everyone’s interests are aligned. We believe funding resources can be democratised and empower the people around us to contribute. Who can be a better finance partner than the hard-working crews attached to the project?

We will further discuss how crewfunding is a key financial model for independent films, how carefully crafted back-end deal contracts are enabling the crew in the safest and most transparent manner to become investors in the film and how to build a transparent communication and reporting system with the crew once the film is finalised.

• The purpose and benefits of having crews as profit participants in your film
• What is crewfunding?
• How crewfunding can be of help to get your film off the ground.
• Kind of projects that typically do crewfunding
• Back-end deal options available to producers
• How to structure crewfunding into your finance structure.
• Best practices for positioning crewfunding in your recoupment schedule/waterfall.
• How you, your production partners and your investors benefit of having crewfunding in place for your project.
• The simple process of aligning investors and financiers with crewfunding
• How to successfully recruit crews on back-end deals.
• How to negotiate and communicate the offers with agents.
• How to distribute a pool of profit points among the crew? A simple calculation process to be discussed.
• What are the risks of back-end deals without a clear legal set-up in place.
• Legal aspects to keep in mind for a seamless engagement with the crew
• Integrating crews as Beneficiaries in the Collection Account Management Agreement
• Building a transparent communication and reporting system with the crew once the film is finalised.
• How to leverage crews’ vested interest in the project to further endorse the project.
• Q&A with Irina and Maria

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