Independent film producers Hunter Gray, Tyler Brodie and others are banding together to form Cinema Conservancy, a new organization dedicated to be a one-stop shop for information-sharing about legal, union, copyright, delivery and other production-related contract and paperwork issues — all for free — according to Variety.
“Our main concern is that a lot of films get distributed and someone makes money, but a lot never comes back to filmmakers,” Brodie told Variety. “The goal is to make everything much more transparent, allowing filmmakers to see where the money goes so they can get money back and continue making films.”
A centralized website will also include networking features for filmmakers, and is expected to launch in six months to a year, according to the article.
The move is a good one for indie filmmakers, in order to protect them against well-heeled and lawyered-up financiers and distributors. It’s a longtime coming, frankly, and should come as an embarrassment to IFP and Film Independent, the established nonprofit indie film support orgs, which should have mobilized such an effort years ago.
Prolific indie producer Jan Van Hoy (“The Loneliest Planet”), who will join the board of the new entity, described the Cinema Conservancy site as “a ‘wiki'” “informed by knowledgeable filmmakers, producers and artisans who are self-checking, or being checked for any potential risks it could create.”
“Producers and investors’ interests are never aligned,” added Gray, who together with Brodie, recently produced “Another Earth,” which sold to Fox Searchlight for $3 million. “It’s hard enough to get the films made. We should have a system in place. Having an organization (like ours) can actually get this done.”
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