Hollywood Road

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After getting the guarantee for the film’s completion, Murphy returned to his job, made the shooting schedule, drawn the sub-shot artwork and scene drawing board, communicated with the photography director Philip Raschel and the art director Helena Espola. The four actors identified were Robert Downey Jr., Jessica Alba, Dawn Johnson, and Gina Carano to analyze the roles and coordinate the action scene design with Chen Hu who instructed them to train.

These tasks have made Murphy extremely busy. The importance of preliminary preparations is self-evident. The director and the producer are both at the core.

So far, the crew has a total of US$5 million invested by Murphy’s Stanton’s work and US$10 million invested by 20th Century Fox itself. Although these funds are only a quarter of the total production cost, they are enough to guarantee. The preparatory work of the crew started smoothly.

And after pulling in the American International Assurance Company to serve as the completion guarantee for the project, the financing work that was stalled before the 20th century Fox immediately made a breakthrough. Two private equity funds and a bank have agreed to inject 20 million US dollars into the crew. Three other funds are under negotiation.

Since 20th Century Fox has broad distribution channels in North America and overseas, most of the overseas distribution of the film will be handled by various overseas branches of 20th Century Fox. The overseas copyright pre-sale of the film can only be said to be better than nothing. , The production funds of the crew are more from various financing.

Large-scale film companies, especially companies with distribution capabilities, are undoubtedly more secure for investors.

The so-called channel is king, and the production company with this element undoubtedly has the biggest competitive advantage. Under the controllable market, the risk of film investment is also greatly reduced.

Companies with strong distribution capabilities like Twentieth Century Fox have inherent advantages when penetrating the upper end of the industry chain. They have cultivated keen judgment in a large number of actual battles facing the market and facing the production company. For companies, whether private or institutional, the issue of issuance is the hemp of the entire industrial chain and the middle part of the dumbbell.

With this guarantee, the market-oriented channels of movies are undoubtedly the most open.

There are many ways to finance movies, the most common is undoubtedly a bank loan, which is not much different from ordinary commercial loans, and does not involve the copyright issue of the film.

The most complicated financing methods for a film are the other two-private equity funds and tax financing.

Just like Murphy's Stanton Studios, private equity funds invest in a film, not for interest. Film private equity investment funds are usually raised by private equity funds using different types of financial products such as high-yield bonds, low-yield bonds, and preferred stocks. The completion of attracting investors with different risk tolerance is burdened with huge interest pressure, and it is definitely necessary to pursue more returns.

The purpose of their investment is to request to share the profits of the film and also to enjoy the copyright income of the film.

However, the copyright of the film is forbidden by major Hollywood companies. They generally do not share the long-term income of a film with private equity investors. They generally agree with the investor to repurchase the financier’s shares within a certain period of time, thus preserving the copyright of the film. It also guarantees a good exit channel for investors.

With sufficient financing channels, the follow-up investment in "Deadpool" will also be guaranteed. After Paul Wilson passed on many location materials suitable for shooting from Australia, Murphy brought Philip Raschel, Helena Espola, David Robbie and several filmmakers rushed directly to Australia to investigate and determine the location that was really suitable for filming.

Originally, he wanted to hand over the affairs of the crew in Los Angeles to Carla Firth. Carla Firth also went to Australia to handle the business and chose to travel with him. Murphy had to audition for some of the unimportant roles in progress. The job was temporarily handed over to Seth Rogen, who served as his assistant director this time.

"I'm going to Australia to deal with tax incentives."

In the first class of the plane, Carla Faith unbuckled his seat belt and said to Murphy sitting next to him, "This is also part of the investment."

"Tax incentives are considered investments?" Murphy was puzzled. "You brought so many materials to do this?"

When he went to the airport together before, he saw Carla Fes carrying a lot of documents and contract texts.

"Before filing tax incentives, I must prepare a sufficiently attractive business plan and project description, director's statement, a list of the main creative team, as well as a candidate list, script, summary of the plot, and a list of leading actors or leading actors."

Kara Feith replied, "With these materials, we can really get preferential funds from the Australian government."

Murphy nodded. Actually, since the film project was established, Carla Fess didn’t care about the film crew directly involved in the preparation of the film, and basically left it to him. More importantly, he was doing guarantee work for the film crew, such as raising money. funds.

Films can have multiple financing methods, and each crew needs to find several financing methods that are most suitable for their projects.

The situation is okay. North America is gradually recovering from the trauma of 9/11. The federal government has vigorously promoted the real estate industry and adopted the strategy of using real estate to drive the economy. House prices across the United States are rising steadily, and bank-related loan businesses are also booming. A piece of prosperity.

With the guarantee of the general environment, financing in Hollywood is relatively easy.

However, Murphy knows that this situation will change in a few years. When the economy is down, financing will be a frustrating thing. Investors will definitely talk about risk aversion in the industry. This will also mean that less and less money is willing to invest in filming.

"Carla, if there is an economic crisis," Murphy asked out of her doubts, "Do you think film financing is as easy as it is now?"

"The economic downturn will definitely affect investors' decision-making."

Compared to Murphy, who is basically ignorant of the economy, Carla Faith seems to have studied, "I think even in the face of an economic crisis, Hollywood can still attract funds. The most important thing is to do two things."

Seeing Carla Faith holding up the water glass in a stance of selling it off, Murphy urged him to make a please gesture.

"First, whether it is an economic crisis or not, a great project and a marketing strategy will always make your project stand out." Carla Fess took a sip of water and put down the glass. "The second point depends on you. You are the object of investors' dealings. You are the executor who helps them get profit. As long as you can impress them, investment is not a problem."

Upon arriving in Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, Murphy and Carla Faith were divided into two routes. He led his team to inspect the shooting location, and Carla Faith took a lawyer and accountant to negotiate with relevant Australian government departments.

After staying in the hotel for one night, after simply passing the jet lag, Murphy, the director of photography Philip Raschel, and the art director Helena Espola first went to the Fox Studios to inspect the studio here, and then the next paragraph. During the time, the set, props and art director team of the crew will first come to Sydney and arrange the scenes shot in the studio according to Murphy's needs.

As we all know, Australia is one of Hollywood's extremely important overseas filming bases. In order to attract investment from Hollywood crews and stimulate local employment, the Australian government has also formulated many policies such as tax rebates.

The Fox Studios in Sydney is an important project for the Australian government to attract investment from Hollywood.

To be precise, it should be called Australia Fox Studios. It is a major film studio in Sydney, Australia, located in Moore Estate in the former Sydney Exhibition Grounds.

This studio is of course owned by News Corporation. It opened in May 1998 and is one of Australia's three major film studios.

The reason why Murphy chose to shoot here is not only because he is one of the investors and can get corresponding tax rebates, but also because of the many advanced equipment that can be provided here.

There is one thing that cannot be denied. Due to the length of construction, most of the studios and studios in Hollywood and Burbank are a bit dilapidated, and the equipment is very old. However, the Fox studio in Sydney has not been built for a few years and can provide ideal Advanced production facilities for screens, televisions, commercials, music videos and other related works, and this studio has been responsible for providing the main TV program recording studios for Twentieth Century Fox. The shooting is also conducive to the promotion of the film.

Fox Studios has a dedicated office area. In the 20th century, Fox has reserved more than a dozen offices for Murphy. Among the many studios, Murphy also chose a large studio and a small photography studio. The shed is used as an indoor shooting location.

Of course, similar to Hollywood studios, there is also a tourist area where you can see huge posters of many films shot at Fox Studios, including many famous works, such as "The Matrix" and "Red "The Mill", "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones", and "Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith", which has already begun preparations, and so on.

At Fox Studios, Murphy and Paul Wilson met with the head of an entertainment agency. In the future, the filming of "Deadpool" will use a large number of Australian extras and staff.

This is mainly based on two considerations. The first is to use people to increase costs. With your toes, you also know that the labor cost of the film industry in Los Angeles far exceeds that of Sydney, and a large number of extras and staff are transported from North America to Australia. It is only air tickets and accommodation. , That is, expensive expenses.

On the other hand, the Australian government's tax rebate preferential policies are mandatory. Since they give a large amount of tax rebates to films, of course it is not to please Hollywood, but to benefit Australians.

In the office area, he reached an agreement with the person in charge of this entertainment agency. When Murphy went out, he unexpectedly met a person he saw when he went to Warner Bros. last time in front of the office building.