Do you do commercials and narrative work under the same production company?

[Robert Bentley]

Do you do commercials and narrative work under the same production company? Or do you have two production companies, one for narrative and one for commercials.

I have a production company but I do some edgier comedy work that involves hookers, cursing, etc. Not very family friendly.

I've been really debating if I should keep my commercial business under the same production company or create a new company just for commercial work.

Some of the benefits are you could reduce your liability. A lot of narrative stuff may not make money, and your commercial business could make lots of money causing investors of a feature to come after you for a stake in your commercial business. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I got to figure it out soon and decide.

 

[Robert Bentley]

I'm guessing most of you guys keep it under the same one since you own a Red and shoot for anything. I guess it depends on who your client is. If it's other filmmakers as a DP, then keeping them together makes sense. But if you are specifically targeting businesses, they may not care to see your reel on someone getting knifed in your latest action movie.

 

[Scott Miller]

Not that I have that much experience compared to almost anyone on this board though..

But like a resume', I see many shooter/companies who have multiple reels tailored to the segment they think the client is looking for. As long as it is your work, you are truthful and honest.

 

[Christopher Mills]

To quote a favorite poster and colleague on a sound board...
"It Depends"
But in the most basic business model for narrative in the USA..

Each narrative project is its own business venture and corporation (LLC, usually).
You do this because if you have either great gain or great liability from any one project, you need to isolate it from the co-participants in your other projects.
For example.. you make 5 SAG projects, as the same company. One of them is a huge hit. You owe each of the 4 unsuccessful projects a share of the profits of your company.

OR.. You have and incident which leads to a lawsuit on one of your projects. The other 4 projects held by same company have their revenues attached as assets of the overall company. This may still be attempted even if each one is its own LLC, but it is less likely.. and if you have an equipment holding company, your camera, lights, and post gear are not assets of the narrative company.

AND.. yes, many clients do indeed care what kind of projects their vendor does.

At the very least you want discrete websites showcasing different kinds of work. If you get the sense that a prospect may like your narratives, feel free to tell them how to view that site.


Lastly, Commercial Companies and Narrative companies sign different kinds of contracts. So.. yeah.. different companies for each purpose.. and possibly an equipment owning co and a loan out for your personal services.

 

[Björn Benckert]

To quote a favorite poster and colleague on a sound board...
"It Depends"
But in the most basic business model for narrative in the USA..

Each narrative project is its own business venture and corporation (LLC, usually).
You do this because if you have either great gain or great liability from any one project, you need to isolate it from the co-participants in your other projects.
For example.. you make 5 SAG projects, as the same company. One of them is a huge hit. You owe each of the 4 unsuccessful projects a share of the profits of your company.

OR.. You have and incident which leads to a lawsuit on one of your projects. The other 4 projects held by same company have their revenues attached as assets of the overall company. This may still be attempted even if each one is its own LLC, but it is less likely.. and if you have an equipment holding company, your camera, lights, and post gear are not assets of the narrative company.

AND.. yes, many clients do indeed care what kind of projects their vendor does.

At the very least you want discrete websites showcasing different kinds of work. If you get the sense that a prospect may like your narratives, feel free to tell them how to view that site.


Lastly, Commercial Companies and Narrative companies sign different kinds of contracts. So.. yeah.. different companies for each purpose.. and possibly an equipment owning co and a loan out for your personal services.

Yes, most importantly one of the main reason for doing big projects as a company is that usually a feature or so has multiple investors... And they all want to keep books clean, so there is no other little project that goes into the same books. Just so it's cristal clear what income, cost etc is related to that specific project.

Usually even for commercials you keep one "book per project" at least here in Sweden it usually works so that the executive producer gives the producer a given budget. within this budget the producer needs to keep so and so much as overhead, the rest goes into production and usually according to the same old budget, so and so many procent for casting, shoot, post, music etc, then they give and take between those different posts. But in the end the producer needs to beat the given budget or he/she will not get to do so many more productions for the given production company. Some executive producers follows their work and interact while the shit goes down. But more and more they give the producers free hands and a bit of a loose leach and then keep the guys that can deliver with a reasonable over head and ditch the other once. Pretty much all of these producers work as freelance in the adverticing / filmproduction world.... but for features it all work differently.