美国电影制作与发行概述

本章中，编者将讨论投资者在美国投资电影的各种机会与模式。但是，在开篇讨论这些不同类型的投资模式之前，编者认为先阐述美国电影制作和发行的整体经济形态将有益于读者对本章的理解。

美国制作的影视作品（或者由美国电影制作公司或制片人制作但在国外拍摄完成的电影）通常分为两大类。一类是由美国主流电影制片公司之一（即20世纪福克斯电影公司、派拉蒙影业、华纳兄弟、环球影业、索尼影业和迪士尼电影公司）制作或联合制作的电影，另一类是由相对较小的电影工作室或独立制片人（即来自非主流电影公司或与之关联的制片人）制作的电影。由主流电影公司制作的电影及由独立制片人制作的影视作品，其融资及盈利模式大不相同。主流的几大电影制片公司一般不会根据电影项目逐一安排融资，这些公司也很少利用自身以外的资源对电影进行融资。相反，它们通常会依赖对冲基金、已建立的私募电影基金和其他的企业类融资渠道为它们的影视项目提供融资。因此，个人投资者很少有机会能投资这些大型电影制片公司的电影。有鉴于此，本章的重点将是对独立制作的电影的投资展开论述。

电影制作和发行所产生的两项主要成本是实际的制作成本和与影片首次发行相关的发行成本费用。募集资金以支付制片成本是制片人的首要责任，而制片人必须极具创造性才能募集到这些资金。通常来说，电影发行人将负责承担发行成本费用。发行成本费用分为两大类：一类是电影首次发行所需的宣传推广费用，另一类是提供给电影放映机构的物料成本（如35mm电影底片）。有意思的是，这两类电影的发行成本费用在近几年正在往相反方向发展。媒体市场的爆发式发展使宣传推广需求增大，宣传推广费用在过去10—20年间正以几何倍数增加。与之相反，新技术的发展（如将影片通过数字传输至影院的传输方式，流媒体服务的兴起以及DVD流行度的降低）反而大大降低了制作大量电影母带副本的需求。尽管如此，目前一部电影如在美国院线发行，其发行公司的发行成本费用可以轻松与电影的制作费用持平甚至超越制作费用。

In this article，Iwill discuss the various opportunities investors have to invest in motion pictures in the United States.However，before I discuss the specific types of investments that are available，I think it would be useful to provide a general overview of the econom ics of film production and distribution.(www.xing528.com)

Motion pictures that are produced in the United States（or which are produced by US based producers，but filmed abroad）typically fall into one of two categories.There are those that are produced by，or under the auspices，of one of themajor US film studios（20 th Century Fox，Paramount，Warner Bros.，Universal，Sony and Disney）and those that are produced by less prominent film studios and by independent producers（i.e.，producers who are not affiliated with a major studio）.The financing and revenue models for films produced by major studios and those produced by independent producers are different.Major studios typically do not arrange for financing on a film-by-film basis and，to the extent they do not finance their films out of their own resources，they will often rely on hedge funds，established private film funds and other corporate financing ventures to provide the financing for their projects.As a result，there are very few opportunities for an individual investor to invest in major studio films.Because of this，the primary focus of this article will be investments in independently produced films.

The twomain items of cost that are incurred in producing and distributing films are the actual cost of production and the distribution expenses incurred in connection with the film’s initial release.Raising the money to fund the production cost is the producer’s primary responsibility and a producer often has to be quite creative in order to raise these funds.Typically a film’s distributors are responsible for funding the distribution expenses.Distribution expenses fall into two primary categories；the advertising costs for the film’s initial release and the cost to manufacture the physical materials（such as 35mm prints）that have to be delivered to the film’s exhibitors.Interestingly，these two types of costs have been moving in opposite directions over the last several years.Advertising costs have increased exponentially over the past ten to twenty years as the exp losion ofmedia markets has necessitated purchasing evermore advertising.Conversely，the development of new technology（such as digital delivery to theatres，the rise of streaming services and the diminished popularity of DVDs）has drastically reduced the need to make numerous physical copies of a film.Nonetheless，for a film that is being released theatrically in the US，the distribution expenses the distributor incurs can easily equal or exceed the film’s production costs.