Brian Oliver: New Wave Film Financing
IFQ recently had a chance to speak with producer Brian Oliver to discuss his new role in Cross Creek Pictures, a brand-new production company and equity fund started in collaboration with the Lousiana-based Thompson family as well as Bryan Nearn III and Steven Prince. Oliver’s past experience as Vice President of Production and Development at Propaganda Films, former principal at Arthaus Pictures easily qualifies him as a man who knows how to smartly put money to work in making worthwhile product. In addition to their initial development slate, Cross Creek will co-produce director Darren Aronofsky’s next film, Black Swan, with Fox Searchlight. Oliver is set to co-produce the film along with Scott Franklin (The Wrestler, Requiem For A Dream)
IFQ: Could you briefly detail the circumstances that led you to partner with Cross Creek Pictures & what your specific role at the company is?
Brian Oliver: Sure, I had my own production company, where we’ve been developing our own slate of films, and ended up meeting the Thompsons along with (Bryan) Nearn and Steve Prince in more of an advisory role as they wanted to setup a bond. I kind of helped them structure what I thought would be the most beneficial equity-type fund, so that they could participate in the business in a meaningful way. As we started talking more and more, we all came to the realization that maybe it would be a good partnership to marry (the fund) with a producer to come in and produce the product they’re doing, instead of just coming in, being a bank, and funding others’ projects. So it started out over a few months with a period of just talking and helping them structure their deal to ending up where I’m now basically running the fund with Nearn, handling the production side of all the projects the fund is going to do. So it’s been a kind of evolution from where we began to where it is now.
IFQ: In terms of the kinds of projects the company is out to produce, what criterion do you use when presented with a new property that you then have the power to decide whether or not to pursue it into production?
BO: As far as financing, what we’re producing and putting together as is a wide diverse range, from broad comedies, dark thrillers, all different kinds of stuff. But when it comes down to financing, we setup a business model where certain elements need to be in place before we can greenlight it; and in that scenario we need to cover a certain percentage of the budget through either foreign presales, tax credits, stop money, or advances from other sources before we can greenlight a movie. So our typical role is we want to be 30-40% of participating equity and then piece the rest of the movie together.
IFQ: Given the current economic difficulties as well as the market shifts in the film business beforehand, i.e. specialty arms like Picturehouse closing up & companies like THINKFilm folding, how was the process of getting together the funding for this new venture and were there any specific strategies you employed that made the process easier at all?
BO: Yeah, I mean the foreign presale market and foreign distribution market is a little loose right now so we’ve been approached by numerous companies for partnering and doing co-financing deals, especially in the foreign sector. We don’t know if we’re going to take one of these deals yet, but there’s a high possibility that we’ll partner on the foreign component of our films. Because the market is what it is, we may partner with a foreign sales/equity player to get an advance obviously, a discounted advance, out of foreign which allows us to move forward knowing that they will be able to sell it at a festival later or what have you. Just getting presales and being completely dependent on getting them is a tough business right now, so because of that we’ve been talking with some foreign partners on doing maybe an overall deal or just a one-off basis; we’re not sure which one we really want to do just yet.
IFQ: To take a step back for a second and provide a bit more context about you specifically, what was the overall journey you went through in terms of entering the film business and surviving it long enough to reach this specific point in your career?
BO: I started out moving to LA to go to law school. While I was still in law school, I went to work at Paramount during the day and went to class at night. After I graduated, the next Monday I started in the mail room at William Morris (Agency); while at William Morris I worked my way up into the feature film division there, and ultimately after a couple of years at I was offered a job to go work with Rick Hess at Propaganda Films. I left William Morris, went with Rick, and worked at Propaganda for three years and ended up being the Vice President of Production and Development there.
IFQ: And just to provide some context for readers who may be unaware, Propaganda Films was a production company that a lot of current directors like Spike Jonze and David Fincher came up through the ranks in, where they did a lot of music videos and commercial work correct?
BO: Exactly, we did music videos, commercials, and feature films with our directors; we represented 57 film directors and we did, whether they were doing a commercial or music video, short, or some of them were feature films, we were kind of the one stop shop for them.
IFQ: I remember the Film Society of Lincoln Center held a retrospective recently on the company, given the amount of talent that came through that particular shop and what they went on to make afterwards.
BO: Yeah it was a great company and I was lucky enough to be able to get my first real production job working through there.
IFQ: So you get the gig at Propaganda and spent your time working and advancing there, from after your tenure at Propaganda to where you are now, what happened?
BO: Once Propaganda shut down, Rick Hess went to be the head of CAA and I got some offers to go back into the agent sector. Ultimately knowing that I wanted to stay in production, I decided that I would try and put together a film slate and then partner with an equity source to strategically finance that film slate. So over the last five years I’ve been putting together some of the projects from Propaganda, some of the projects that I have a passion for, and am developing them independently knowing that I wanted to partner with an equity source and not just be a one-off producer on every one of the projects. So in that, I was talking to a couple of other funds and it ended up that these guys were kind of discussing the business model I wanted to do; so it just made good sense to partner with them.
IFQ: As we all know, the past few years have been a period of uncertainty in the film business; the old apparatus seems to be breaking down with the onslaught of digital technology influencing distribution as well as ancillary markets like DVD leveling off. So while other avenues like VOD and legal digital downloads appear to finally be cementing their positions and growing fiscally, I’m curious to know what your opinions of where the industry currently stands in this paradigm shift and how it can recover and hopefully grow again in the coming years?
BO: Well I think the film business is very cyclical, in the 80’s there was a very similar crash with both a credit and market crunch like we’re having now. I think that as one (funding) source goes away; a new one somehow always appears. I’m not going to be the one to tell you who fills in those gaps but someone will step up. I think that in the situation that we’re in it benefits those of us who have some equity, some funding to help fill those gaps and the reason we feel that the timing is good for the bond right now is because as equity is at a shortfall, to provide some yourself allows you to do a lot more. The fact that we’re going to be able to provide it ourselves on our films allows us to get a step further than people who need to go out and find it. So we’re starting with that equity piece already and building the movie around that as opposed to building a movie and then having to go out and look for the equity, which is kind of the typical process. So we’re starting out with what I call the hard money, the start money and put all the other sources together.