美国独立电影制片人融资方式实务操作指引

现在您对美国电影制片产业现金流结构如何运作已有所了解，编者在此想讨论，一个独立制片人是如何为电影制作获取融资的。现如今，一部典型的独立电影，其融资计划由三种类型组成。

首先，就是债务融资。这通常采取银行或其他出借人的贷款形式，再将电影所有相关权利及其开发获得的收入设定优先留置权来作为担保。如果制片人想要获取电影制作贷款，其必须在电影制作前先卖掉部分或全部发行权利，并将从中获得的应收款项抵押给出借人。虽然这是一种典型的低成本的融资形式（取决于担保物大小），但制片人更喜欢将债务融资成分降得越低越好，因为预售市场形势艰难，而且传统观点认为，一部完成拍摄的电影在国际市场上比一部还未拍摄的电影将获取更多利润。

其次，制片人会尽可能多地获得不同的制片激励。制片激励是指由当地、州或联邦政府为鼓励当地电影制作发展而提供的资金支持。制片激励措施将采取税务抵免、税务返利或现金补偿的形式。制片人特别喜爱这种制片激励的融资方式，因为这是完全“免费”、不需要偿还的资金。如果一个制片人选择了合适的地区，并且对电影进行结构调整，使其尽可能多地符合所在地区的政策内容，制片人很可能可以用激励收入覆盖40%左右的制片成本。制片激励的一大问题是，它们通常需要在电影制作完成后得以支付。因此，一般来说，制片人需要第三方进行出借或垫付资金，以偿付制作成本，然后在获得制片激励后将这部分资金归还给第三方。

最后，如果制片人无法通过贷款（或不选择贷款方式）以及制片激励完整支撑一部电影的拍摄，则制片人会寻求股权投资者为电影制作预算的剩余部分提供资金。电影股权投资比其他现成投资的风险都要高。很多情况下，股权投资者将失去大部分或全部投资。但是，如果一部电影票房良好，则他们的收益会非常可观。(www.xing528.com)

Now that you understand a bit about how the cash flow structure works，Iwant to discuss how an independent producer assembles the production financing.These days，the components that comprise the financing plan for a typical independent film fall into three categories.First there is debt financing.This would take the form of a loan made by a bank or other lender，which is typically secured by a first priority lien in all of the rights related to the film and all of the revenues derived from its exploitation.If a producer wants to obtain a film production loan，it will either have to sell some or all of the distribution rights prior to production and pledge the receivables from those sales to the lender.While this is typically a lower cost form of financing（depending on the security），producers prefer to keep the debt financing component as low as possible，because the pre-salemarket is particularly tough and the conventional wisdom is that a comp leted film will earn more in international sales than one which has not yet been filmed.Iwill not go into a lot of detail here about secured production loans，in that they are almost a whole separate article by themselves.

Next a producer will attempt to piece together as many different production incentives as possible.Production incentives are financing provided by a local，state or federal government to encourage film production in their locale.Production incentives can take the form of tax credits，rebates or outright grants.Producers particularly like production incentives because this is“free”money in that it does not need to be repaid.If a producer chooses the right jurisdiction and can structure the film so that it complies with asmany of the jurisdiction’s content rules as possible，it is possible that a producermay cover asmuch as40% of its production costswith incentive revenues.The one wrinkle when it comes to incentives is that they are usually not paid until after the production is completed.So，usually the producer will need to have a third party lend or advance money to fund that portion of the costs and then recoup that amount out of the incentives when they are paid.

Finally，if a producer cannot fully finance a film through debt（or chooses not to）and incentives，then the producer will look to equity investors to fund the remaining portion of the film’s budget.Equity investments in film are among the more riskier investments one can make.More often than not，an equity investor will lose all or a large portion of the investment.However，when a film does well，then they can be quite lucrative.