Film Finance Fundamentals
How to produce and fund a film, from someone who funds films. Film school taught you craft. This course teaches you capital, in 10 modules, with zero fluff.
How to produce and fund a film, from someone who funds films. Film school taught you craft. This course teaches you capital, in 10 modules, with zero fluff.
You know how to make a film. You don’t know how to fund one. Crowdfunding exhaustion, investor ghosting, $12K legal quotes — the clock is ticking on your project and nobody taught you the financial side.
This self-paced course gives you the exact financial frameworks, deal structures, and investor communication strategies used by Act One Media to structure and close tax-advantaged film deals.
Most people teaching film finance are producers explaining how they raised money for their own movie. Carmelo Chimera funds films.
He co-founded Act One Media, a film finance company that structures tax-advantaged deals for independent films, using Section 168(k), Reg D offerings and carefully built financing plans. He’s a University of Chicago Law School graduate and a securities and private equity attorney, and he also makes films, so he knows both sides. In this course you learn what the money side looks for, from the money side.
Featured in TIME, WGN, ABC, NBC and SYFY. Act One Media projects have been covered by Deadline and Variety.
Why most filmmakers fail at fundraising — and what the funded ones do differently.
How to write with production and market viability in mind — so your script attracts capital, not just compliments.
Equity, tax credits, senior lending — how the three layers work together to fund your film.
Start with market data, work backwards. Build a budget that investors can verify.
Section 168(k), Section 181, state tax credits, and how tax-advantaged structures change the investor conversation.
What investors actually want to hear. The financial presentation, not the sizzle reel.
Reg D, PPM outlines, entity structure, chain of title — the legal foundation investors require.
How money flows back. Priority of payments, profit participation, and the numbers that close deals.
How to find investors, run the meeting, handle objections, and move from interest to commitment.
From term sheet to signed documents. The step-by-step process for getting to close.
Founding Member Price — Through Black Friday
All 10 modules. Complete toolkit.
Opens to founding members October 30. Founding spots are limited to the first 250 enrollments; the price goes to $997 after that or after Black Friday, whichever comes first.
Start with the free Film Finance Blueprint if you’re not ready to enroll yet.