The Knowledge - Marian Macgowan
06-May-08
CSB has been working for months on an exciting project with film journalist Andrew Urban of Urbancinefile. We’re interviewing film and television practitioners about their business experiences.
Our aim is to develop a deeper understanding about the history of business decision-making in film and television and to share with our audience the wisdom from the accumulated mistakes, experiments and achievements of the contributors.
Marian Macgowan - biography
Marian Macgowan is an experienced and award-winning producer, with five feature films to her credit. Her past films include Lillian’s Story, Two Hands (winner of an AFI and the Film Critics of Australia award for Best Film, 1999), Risk, and The Rage in Placid Lake (nominated for four AFI Awards in 2003). More recently, Marian produced Death Defying Acts, an Australian/UK co-production directed by Gillian Armstrong and starring Guy Pearce and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Marian founded Macgowan Films in 2000. Prior to this, she managed the production and publishing of the Australian film industry bible, The Production Book, and was Head of Producing at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (where she now works as a consultant). She has also worked in the UK and Australia as a commercials producer and has directed a number of short films.
Macgowan Films is currently financing a number of projects. These include South Solitary, written and to be directed for the screen by Shirley Barrett, and Blessed, written by Andrew Bovell, Melissa Reeves, Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkos and to be directed by Ana Kokkinos.
Audio download
Chapter 1 - Budgets, financing and flexibility - 8 minutes
- Different sizes of budget - all equally hard to finance
- The smaller, $4-5 million, budget is relatively straightforward – limited sources of finance, predominantly Govt sources, plus debt finance
- The trend is now to tighten budgets and make a profit
- Death Defying Acts was $26 million, but felt like $12 million
- Policy - to be transparent with crew
- There is such a thing as the perfect budget – but it’s hard to define
- Must remain flexible, adapting to all changes
Video downloads
Chapter 2 - The producer offset - 12 minutes
- Impact of the Producer Offset on two different projects
- First decision was to make Blessed very low budget – a liberating decision
- Below $4 million – Producer Offset significant as equity
- But with the larger-budget South Solitary, it’s unlikely I can secure that equity
- Trying to get a realistic assessment of the cost of cashflowing the Offset
- A portfolio approach to project production is viable
- Digital rights exploitation – difficult to extract the rights
Video downloads
Chapter 3 - Understanding markets - 12 minutes
- Have to see audience market and distributor market very clearly
- Won’t take on $4-5 million films
- We knew South Solitary was going to be expensive – island setting, weather factors, not contemporary urban like Blessed
- UK fund has equity position, with deal terms that require full recoupment by the time 50% of the budget is recouped
- UK fund sees the Producer Offset as similar to UK tax credit – which they see as a grant; they’re not willing to let us recoup along with them
- Australian banks don’t recognise IP as an asset – but cashflowing the Offset is possible
- In financing, you always look for momentum – and another doorway
- The politics of perception
Video downloads
Chapter 4 - Managing creativity - 16 minutes
- Managing creativity – the film industry is exploitative; the assets are human beings
- Empathetic approach, wrangling process, letting them run with the idea (the producer is like a sheepdog)
- Almost all conflict is triggered by fear
- The producer’s first job is to make people comfortable and trusting
- All directors are different - some want you there, some don’t; many are in-between
- The producer can’t have an ego – you have to see the big picture
- Learn how to best use power of producer
- Must respect pressures on director
- Publicly, the director is always right (have your arguments in private)
- Conflict resolution - director & crew members
- Everyone on set has value – and can provide extra creative input
- Development, casting, editing are the hardest aspects
Video downloads
