Finding financing for your documentary | One Stop Business
welcome everyone to the one-stop business workshop I'm Robin mirskiy on am the executive director of the Rogers group of funds and I am your moderator for today we wish to acknowledge those indigenous nations on whose land we live and work we are gathering virtually with people from across the country since the land acknowledgments are specific to each region we urge each of you to visit the native land digital website to identify the First Nations territories on which you are located so today well you'll be hearing from Heidi Thao yang who is acting industry program director for hot dogs and rod Butler who is director programs and policies at CMS they'll talk about the various programs offered by hot dogs and the CMF so it's a 30-minute session and we're strict strictly trying to state - on that time there'll be about 20 minutes of content and ten minutes for questions I'll ask you to provide questions to an email address and any questions you have during the session I hope I will get to and be able to answer I think that's it so Heidi do you want to start yeah absolutely Thank You Robin thanks everybody so um let me tell you a little bit about our funds but before we get there I just want to clarify that there's so many different ways that you can fund your documentary you know there's so so many different types of funds and grants and licenses and equity all sorts of stuff that is really really difficult to get into the nitty-gritty but well I really want to tell you about one of the funds that we have a hot dogs and we have a portfolio of a multi-million dollar portfolio funds that are dedicated to certain regions or certain topics but one that is I think really potentially relevant to our audience today of emerging filmmakers is called our crosscurrents documentary fund specifically the one for for Canadians so this fund we have were focusing on the priority groups of if you're a francophone deaf or have a disability your racialize or a person of color indigenous if you self-identify with any of these priority groups you should think about applying for the crosscurrents documentary fund it's meant as a fund for emerging filmmakers or sophomore filmmakers meaning if you're making three films if you've directed three films or less you can apply for it it's one of our most versatile funds so we will fly into feature films as well as short films either in development or production or if you're looking for completion funds any of them so for our feature stream we will find up to $30,000 for a development grant for production it's up to 50,000 and for shorts for development it's up to $10,000 and up to $30,000 for production so really really flexible the key things that we're kind of looking for is you know what that you kind of own your project so we're it's we don't quite like the art council grants because it's specific to the project and eventually you would have to incorporate and show that you own it but the important thing for us is that you as the you know author of the project own prime the primary copyright of this work so that's something that we really encourage you to do and this is actually under the umbrella of the Canadian storytellers project hot dogs where it's tied with a program called documentary seller aider where not only do we fund your project but you know we help develop you and your career and you know then you'd be part of the alumni at hot dogs and those are separate programs but all under this umbrella and there's a lot of information that I'd love to get into but now I will pass it over to Robin or rod thank you very much Heidi rod I leave it to you sure hi okay so I'm gonna talk again very high-level I think there's a lot of information that's gonna get thrown at all of you today so the best approach I think is to really talk as broadly as possible to give all of you at least the broad strokes and the foundation and I think once you get more comfortable we can answer questions and again you know I'll say it at nauseam today please call and reach out if there are questions or issues so while I may talk a lot today the key messages I want to impart to all of you today is do your homework one these funds are competitive and the demand is always going to exceed the supply so do your homework it's competitive make sure that it's impossible for us to say no secondly as part of doing your homework please read the guidelines I know they can be very hairy and opaque and it's challenging but those are the rules of engagement we have to be as transparent as possible when we give out these funds so you have to know every rule and deadline that's applicable for your project 3 and this is specific to the CMF there are many boxes that need to eat that need to be checked but the biggest gatekeeping function at the CMF is something called the broadcaster trigger so this is basically you need a commitment from an eligible Canadian broadcaster to effectively unlock the CMS funds so those are the three if you take nothing else away today those are the three things that you should be writing down right right now so who is the CMS we are a big pile of money that we get from the public side and the private side so we get money from the Government of Canada and the distributors of cable and satellite and IPTV we support for genres kids drama variety performing arts and doc so you can apply to any of our programs as a documentary project we do have one program specifically that if you want to note down it's called the English POV program and that's specifically for a certain type of documentary production the deadline has now passed but again if you're an emerging dog producer that's something that you want to take take note of now the english POV pro program eligibility as I said the guidelines are your best friend there are many rules many boxes that have to get checked but you need to be a for-profit company and can't be you know John or Jane Doe as an individual I mention off the top the eligible license fee so it must be of a certain threshold a certain tier you can't just get a dollar from a broadcaster and unlock a million dollars of CMS money the type of money there we can go down a rabbit hole and perhaps you know we can handle this when the question period starts but we give money as form of a license fee top-up at times and equity at times both of them have very different rules in terms of how the government treats them with regards to tax credit grind I'm trying to think in English POV there are two exceptions that we grant so oftentimes you have to have a license fee thresholds from a Canadian broadcaster we do allow an exception in our POV program to have for a conventional brought broadcaster that is international but this does not include a Netflix or a Hulu or an Amazon it's only for let's call them bricks and mortar conventional old-school broadcasters we are trying to change that and we can probably talk about that a little bit more the other exception is in the POV program only you do not have to have your full financing application you can come in with a broadcaster I think this year the dates that we picked is January 8th 20:21 so you can come in a bit later financing we can get into a bit more it is a patchwork quilt of financing oftentimes producer have to cobble it together from a variety of sources we can talk about in terms of best practices and applications again do your homework be prepared call and ask questions the cmf has something called a pre-application consultation where you can call and troubleshoot some aspects of your file with an analyst at the CMS administrator a telefilm again we're going down the rabbit hole pretty quick but that is the kind of 30,000 foot view on the options that the CMS has for the doc community okay rod Thanks so I'm going to go right into the questions the first one relates to co-productions is financing an international co-productions doc with another country much different is there anything that you should keep in mind when financing a co Pro that's a that's a big question that's a big question I can jump in so it is different the cmf does allow for Coke Pro it has to be with a true tea country this is covered in our guidelines and all of our guide our guidelines in terms of the way the sausages get made you have to get an initial screen from the telefilm co-production office just to say this is an alignment this is with the treaty country the financing that the CMF will grant oftentimes has to be in line with the proportion of the Canadian budget in terms of I think you'll hear maybe today you know all cmf projects have to be Cab Co ten out of ten we are the last group that enforces that with regards to co-production though the the kind of wrinkle is or the exception that's allowed would would be your foreign international partner would count towards being a Canadian position so if usually you have to have all the key spots held by Canadians if you're in a situation where there's a co Pro let's say with Ireland the Irish position will count towards your 10 out of 10 and you will be above board and that won't affect your your your funding oftentimes we're seeing this happened more and more as money is getting scarce I think everyone needs to be able to leverage strategic money and and we see this kind of cooperation all the time in addition to co-productions the cmf has international incentives some of which cover dok2 so outside of just looking at treaties try and look at our international incentives they usually deal more with projects at the development stage but that could also be an option - and there's it's a lot more differences than that but just to give all of you kind of there's many give differences but that just to kind of start everyone off to have your spider sense saying you need to approach it very differently if you're involving an international partner yeah thanks rod yeah cope roads are very complicated to say the least I did you go pros qualify for the crosscurrents bond I would say that Co pros in general maybe but we haven't seen it further crosscurrents fund has really it's meant for you know Canadian emerging film makers especially creators creating their work for the very first time so it's very rare that we see it but in theory if you owned the majority of the rights and you retain creative control that absolutely we do have a fund called the hot dogs Ted Rogers fund and I would say that that's a fund that is you know if you're looking at sort of graduating that would be the next step because we would require a market partner on board similar as the IMF and in those cases we follow similar rules as well where we do need to see that it's an official Co Pro treaty and you would go through the steps that rod had mentioned to go about it I will also mention that there's a lot of things you need to think about as mentioned already and we do have resources on our website for filmmakers that are emerging or maybe you know mid-level that's never gone through it in our publications which I you know we'll share and we'll put into the resources for this great how do you you touched on something so for the crosscurrents fund you don't require any market support or market trigger that's right so the barriers of entry are not as high in terms of requiring a market partner which is one of the benefits of this fund it's it's great because even if you do have one that's okay but you do need to show that you have that you are the primary copyright holder so other than that no market partner require it's very helpful okay is there and I'm not even sure of the answer this is there a database or a list of funds and grants available for documentary filmmakers how do you just mentioned the hot Doc's website do you have a comprehensive list on your website of all the funds available for documentary that is something we currently don't have on our website because it keeps growing and growing but you do have links that we frequently send out to emerging filmmakers which is an international link that you can find and I would also just assume that the documentary organization of Canada also would be a the best resource for funding sources certainly Canadian funding sources that's a great point yeah raw do you have anything no I just kind of piggyback on what you said so the cmf obviously has such a range and diversity of programs that we then don't have the bandwidth or resources to update a list that we don't oversee in terms of funds and so I think in terms of specific resources for the document in Canada what Robin says is exactly it and I think it's a good less and you know I I think all these resources are available it does take a lot of work on behalf of the producer that there's you know if there was a one-stop shop that would be ideal but I think to knock on on Doc's door in terms of being a resource for that community is the smartest way and I think it would you know make sense for them to have that list of these are all the coordinating organizations and agencies that we know of to help you fund your your project thank you that's a very good point okay rod there's questions for you with the popularity of podcast since the pandemic is there any seam of funding for podcast currently or in the near future it's a great question so in this can kind of turn so the cmf in terms of I mentioned off the top we get money from the Government of Canada and so we have a contribution agreement that is basically the parameters of how we're allowed to give out money and so while we love the Government of Canada and we have a great relationship with them we're constantly going back and forth and trying to to to push and modernize our rules as much as possible within the spirit and intent of their mandate for us so with that said we allow podcasts so our two streams for funding kind of the big two branches are the convergent stream and the experimental stream in the convergent stream that is our linear television slime but the another one of the rules I mentioned is your your content must be multi-platform so a podcast as a promotional tool to market or help in discoverability of your documentary linear television project is allowed in the experimental stream outside of dog a podcast is the loud if it's kind of this again because we're dealing with digital media and software and innovative tech if you have a podcast that is an auditory sensory experience and not just Bill Simmons Marc Maron you know a serial you know as you're walking to to to and to and from work that would qualify but in terms of a podcast as the means we would give you money to just find a podcast no we do not have that ability at this time thank you questions for the crosscurrents fund do to s lgbtq+ qualify we have a stream called the cross currents international stream and that is dedicated to filmmakers that are telling stories from within their underrepresented community and that's self-identified so absolutely you can apply for that stream great I will also mention that the deadlines have passed for this year but check us out next year we're gonna open likely in the spring and close in the summer just like this year oh great thank you okay rod this one's for you the broadcast sugar seems to be the most limiting or biased factor to access funding and/or seeing diverse content on broadcast television how can c MF assist diverse producers in connecting with broadcasters and having our content actually picked up it's a great question and it's something that we're working on and that's cold comfort I totally recognize but it's something we've been working on for a while so I think there's two parts of that question the broadcaster trigger and who is at the broadcaster with regards to selecting programs as a market test that is something that's baked into our contribution agreement right now and so there's not a lot of wiggle room there while we've opened the door slightly in 2019 2020 we allowed for the online services of broadcaster so CBC's gem or bells crave they're still connected to the same power brokers in the in the actual broadcaster so that is going to remain at least for this year 2020 2021 again there was the release of the Yale report I believe at the end of January this past year so a lot of movement is afoot with regards to the broadcasting act and legislation I believe the minister spoke today at the virtual Banff series about that legislation is being planned to be tabled for the which i think means october so all that being said change may be coming it looks like for the first time in years that there could be some flexibility there so the broadcaster trigger which has been our market test for a long time I think there is an acceptance that that has to evolves beyond the current market test with regards to diversity this is something that we're planning on holding a consultation in the coming weeks with certain members of the production community in terms of what we've introduced to date last year the cmf introduced its sector development program as a means to help organizations conduct training you know again the contribution agreement only allows us to fund projects not give out money for training so this was a big give on the part of the Government of Canada so this is with regards to helping underserved areas improve access to training on cameras to directors apprenticeships making sure that the representation of women on sets is improved with regards to our programs outside of sector dev I know that we've had a gender initiative for the past three years where brought broadcasters had to increase the number of women in key positions we're continuing with that initiative and then most recently something that we realize is just a start but in our early stage development program excuse me there is now a diversity of voices earmarked carve-out which means indigenous writers and visible minority writers are guaranteed a certain portion of that fund the goal is this we need to change who's in the pipeline now we need to make sure that writers rooms are filled with people that don't necessarily look like me and so by doing this at the development in writing stage we want to give more opportunities to people that the start of that process you know the cmf talks about diversity and I think we have to also separate and put aside that it's a good thing to do or as leaders we should assure everyone that's been kept out in I think we also have to think about it from an industrial point of view and if Canada is gonna compete on the world stage we've been fighting with one hand tied behind our back and there are more stories and there are more story tellers that could actually help our industry and grow Canada as a television and Beyond brand so it's something that again we think is imperative just out of leaders in the industry but I think there's an industrial argument that has to be made to where we have to turn over more stones to be as competitive as possible great thank you next question and this is I guess for both of you what's the biggest mistake that emerging producers can make and they're fun in financing their projects Stark no so the biggest there are there are many and it usually stems from I think sometimes the rules can be overwhelming for someone who is starting and they just want the gist or they just want the short the short cut to getting money and it's tedious and there's a lot to read and there's a lot of forms to to to fill out so I would just say the mistake is not doing your homework and not reading all the guidelines and having your application in in order if this is competitive people to your left and people to your to your right will do the work so you have to do the work and if you don't understand anything please ask questions call us and say I got tripped up on line 85 or I got tripped up on form you know B so just I think read and ask questions is such simple advice but you'd be shocked at how many times we receive things where you know the chain of title is not in order because they didn't they had to do that or there's just something that's deficient in their application that would be my best tip yeah I would agree just with the Rogers group of funds that's the biggest problem is people just don't read thoroughly enough and they end up with applications it quite frankly don't qualify Heidi do you have anything to add yeah no it would be very similar it would be very similar advice and feedback you know a lot of for the crosscurrents fund specifically is where we see the most emerging filmmakers filling out the application in this case a lot of the filmmakers filling it out are the directors and producers so I would say you know get someone to have another look at it because certainly we see we use the ID a core application which is an application that a lot of funders internationally use so we see a lot of copy and pasting and that could be okay sometimes but you really have to look at what the fund is actually looking for as both Robin and rod mentioned and I would say the key thing for us because you know you're emerging and part of the learning is that we can also help with but really just focus on your story and you know how to tell that well because at this point we don't expect you to have all the money or any money for our particular fund and we're here to help you know help you strategize especially if you're accepted into the fund but certainly please have a look at the questions ahead of time we post ours ahead of time so that you can work on it that would be my best tip and has someone to look at it great thanks honey next question what financial range would constitute an eligible license fee that's for rod and that's that's complicated so again like we're all gonna read the guidelines and we're gonna find out but it depends on the language market in dog so let me just I have some cheat sheets because there are many programs at the CMF but in terms of eligibility in our performance envelope program you know the LFT it varies but in feature Docs it's ten cent of your eligible costs in the POV fund that I mentioned it's 15% of your eligible cost which is your accepted budget and it's 10% for feature-length over 750k I believe so yeah I would again check your guidelines because it can really get tricky and you want to make sure that you get that that minimum and again once you get that minimum your options start to really multiply and I think again it's a collaboration with your broadcaster and I think you know just as you know this is not what what the actual question was but I would say this is a good point just to realize it's such a collaboration between your broadcaster and you good producer that obviously if they've triggered in the cmf they're gonna know what they're comfortable with too so I would just say use the CMS and use of things that we're asking for to really think of the collaborative process between you and the market test because they obviously are interested in you and your project if they're taking this meeting and they're willing to commit a certain threshold of their funds but I think it really kind of changes the dynamic if you go into it thinking it's less what I need to extract some of the broadcaster it's more about how do I complete my financing picture how do they factor in what other funds or tax credits or financing are in or in play and so really kind of rethink your relationship with the market trigger great thank you so this next question is for you Heidi are women considered underrepresented for the crosscurrents fund I would say for the crosscurrents Canada fund it's not within the priority groups that are identified however as I mentioned the crosscurrents International Fund it's self identified in how you are directly from within an underrepresented community and you get to tell as why and I mean we get to learn why why you feel that is the case so there there is a section that you fill in in the application but we we don't say yes or no you tell us why great thank you so I think that's all the time we have for questions so what does it say here so thank you both rod and Heidi for joining us today it's extremely helpful we hope you as our audience found this session useful and that you'll be able to join us for another one-stop business workshop session sessions continue each afternoon at 2 p.m. until July 3rd questions asked during was know that we're good I'm reading from the script it's not working I think yeah is it uh that's it thank you everybody I hope you're doing it and everybody take care thank you
2021-01-30 19:26
