Chapter 149 of the main text volume project plan

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Ask for commuter passes and recommended tickets!

This is the actual situation, and Murphy is not exaggerating at all, compared to the investment in making a film, Stanton Studios really does not have much money.

"Chainsaw" is not a one-time sale like "Hard Candy", it takes time to recover the funds, the North American box office alone will not be paid until February next year, and the follow-up TV rights fees and DVD tapes are long-term income, even if it is a sell-out of the distribution rights in overseas markets, according to Hollywood practice, this money will not be in place in one step.

Even the most optimistic estimate is that after the film is released overseas, it may be a year or even a year later.

As we all know, the speed of recoup of funds in the film industry is not fast, and most films take a long time to achieve profitability.

Murphy himself is not in a hurry, the past two investments, it can be said that he is in a difficult situation to create a zào opportunity for himself, otherwise how many companies are willing to invest in a director like him without qualifications?

The North American box office success of "Chainsaw" has made this qiē fundamentally reversed, and the $60 million box office in North America is enough to make many companies willing to invest in Murphy's next project.

Business performance is always the best qualification and evidence in this circle, and it is also the greatest source of confidence for investors.

"Leave it to me." Bill Rothes is confident, "That's what CAA does best." ”

Although he has not actually operated a one-stop packaging service, he has the support of the company, and these are not problems.

Murphy nodded as well, and that was exactly what he meant.

He is a director, not a full-time producer, and he is already unable to take care of both aspects of filming "Chainsaw", and a good director needs to focus instead of being distracted by messy chores, and CAA's packaging service can help him solve these problems.

It is true that CAA's one-stop service commission is a headache, but Murphy has insufficient funds in his hands and is not ready to invest on his own, and CAA's commission does not directly conflict with his interests.

Most importantly, this kind of service can effectively help a director like him in the beginning.

Since the last film, Bill Rothes provided a wide range of services for the crew, Murphy has studied this business strategy of CAA, and found that as long as the conditions are right, its disadvantages are far less than the benefits he can obtain.

As we all know, many projects of production companies rely on stars, but stars need good works, and good works need to be carefully discovered.

Since the early 80s, CAA has formed a partnership with the New York agent, and the other party helps to find a good story, and then CAA hires famous screenwriters to write the story into a script, so as to find stars and directors, etc.; Then use this bundle to negotiate with the studio.

Hollywood studios, especially medium-sized production companies, liked the time-saving and labor-saving operation model, so they paid a lot of money for the package.

CAA thus represents all the star actors and behind-the-scenes crew in this bag at once, rather than a single person.

In addition, the old habit of entertainment brokerage circles is person-to-person, and the CAA's approach is to serve one person as a team, just like the service provided to Murphy.

In this regard, the core logic of CAA is that when there are enough customers, you can reverse your identity and change from the buyer to the seller.

Like the original media industry, the entry threshold can be said to be very, very high, if there is no relationship, there is no way to do things, when there are enough customers in hand, you can package and combine in different forms, so as to force those who control the threshold node.

After studying these, Murphy also has to admit that this is a very clever and genius business strategy that has changed the entire entertainment brokerage industry.

Of course, the development of nothing is smooth sailing, not even the CAA.

CAA could only focus on the field of television for 5 years, without movies, music, etc., and later switched from television to movies, also starting from scratch.

They bring ideas and information together, introduce customers to each other, and introduce customers to people who are not customers. Originally, they shouldn't have signed artists who belong to the same attribute, such as CAA's Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, but CAA thinks it's better for these people to get together and know what they're doing.

In addition, CAA has created a department dedicated to finding ideas, such as digging stories from news headlines.

In addition, every agent at CAA has to do things outside the company, such as going to the school community to find inspiration, and creating Zào products for customers all the time.

It is no coincidence that the company has developed into a hegemon in the entertainment brokerage industry, and many of its strategies are well suited to the needs of the market.

For example, the current Murphy, if he fights alone, even if he has the box office number of "Chainsaw" as a qualification, if he wants to attract enough investment, he still needs to run one company after another, to explain his crew ideas, explain the possible market potential, and even make great efforts to build a good relationship with investors......

These will consume a lot of energy and affect his work as a director.

After talking to Bill Rothes about this, Murphy looked at the time and prepared to leave.

"Murphy," Bill Rothes finally reminded, "don't forget, when you're done with the script, you need to have a plan. ”

"I know." Murphy nodded.

Scripts and project plans are indispensable, and CAA can't be allowed to run to a manufacturing company and tell them in the vernacular that its director has a project being prepared, and then pull investment, right?

Legend has it that the agent of CAA went to the six major companies and said that if I had a project, the other party would have a head cramp like a treasure, and obediently set up a project to invest...... Well, that's the kind of thing Murphy is to listen to.

Think about it on your toes and know how brain-dead do the executives of the six major companies have to be to do such a thing?

Leaving the Death Star Building, where CAA is located, Murphy first went to a car sales company in West Hollywood, and the black Cadillac that he had ordered some time ago had arrived.

That's right, he was ready to change the car, and although the dilapidated second-hand Ford had no major failures, there were many minor faults, and he couldn't continue to drive.

Murphy also did not choose a luxury car, and temporarily bought a regular black Cadillac sedan.

Also, after Carey Mulligan met the conditions, she applied for a probationary driver's license, which is a car kingdom and being able to drive is a must.

After the signing of the contract with CAA, the idea of other agencies digging into the wall was temporarily eliminated, and without the frequent interruption of the agent, Murphy returned to the pre-vacation work state, and began to prepare more important project plans after completing the first draft of the script before.

The script is the basis for the project, and the budget is the basic condition for it to be realized.

Although the investment in the new project far exceeds that of "Saw", it is not as good as Hollywood's mainstream commercial system, and in a big way, it is still not out of the category of independent films.

Budgeting is not just a list of all possible expenses, and it takes some skill to impress investors.

It's not that hard for Murphy.

When making an independent film in Hollywood, there is never a "right budget", but there is a "correct way to calculate the budget".

Before using this method, Murphy needed to think about writing a movie budget as independently as if he were seriously writing a screenplay, and his former mentor told him his trick for judging whether a movie scene was complete: if he removed a word from the description of the scene, the whole scene would not be filmed.

The same rule applies to the original budget of the film, which needs to start with the lowest budget on the premise that the film can be made.

With this budget, you may not be able to make a movie even if you don't have a dollar.

But Murphy would hide the amount and not mention it to anyone, not even Bill Rothes, and this so-called "anemic budget" was his little secret, and it should be hidden in the back of the closet at home, or somewhere else that anyone would not find for months, rather than spreading it everywhere.

Unless Murphy is forced to the point where he has no way out, he will never take this budget lightly to make a movie.

The actual budget quoted is several times this number, this kind of film investment is impossible to plan how much, the intended investor will give as much, no one is so stupid, there must be a certain amount of room for bargaining.

With the script and budget in hand, Murphy had to think about how to impress the investors.

It is true that he has a certain amount of qualifications, but when it comes to millions of dollars, who will throw it out lightly? To make investors willing to pay money, it is necessary to let them see the expected returns.

This can be said to be the most critical part of the project plan, Hollywood investors do not invest in a movie because of art or other lofty goals, the purpose of their investment is very simple!

The estimated initial profit is also directly related to the actual cost to Murphy.

Murphy can assume that a perfect world film would cost to shoot a movie, and then estimate the likely benefits for the investor based on market estimates.

After getting this figure, intending investors will inevitably cut costs based on this figure as much as possible, and then subtract the estimated income from sales in overseas film markets, and the estimation of sales in overseas markets should take into account the actual political and economic conditions, for example, in the current market environment, the benefits of China, Russia and India are basically worthless.

After deducting the cost of overseas earnings, plus the tax rebate for film shooting based on the location of the filming, it is roughly the actual investment of an independent film.

This will also determine where the film will actually be filmed.

If the budget is less than $1 million after deducting overseas earnings, it will be sold in Los Angeles, California; If the budget is less than $5 million, shoot in New Orleans, Louisiana; If your budget is more than $10 million, you can consider buying a copy of "Romanian for Dummies" and applying for a passport, and go to Bucharest to shoot. (To be continued.) )