Emma May@emmagmay
When I was 30 I was in-house counsel at a film and television production company. I worked for a doggedly determined executive producer who I was CONVINCED was batshit crazy.
She had founded her production company using her own money and had hired a small team of women and one male assistant to get her projects over the line.
We were working on producing a 10 million dollar feature film that starred Chevy Chase. It was a Canadian production and that meant a financing structure that would make your head spin.
In Canada most producers rely on a combination of private funds, government fund and grants, tax credit programs and licensing and distribution deals to cobble together enough money to embark on one of the most complicated creative processes. Mix together the talents of writers, directors, actors and technical talent in the hopes of magically conjuring up a hit. There is no formula for success- it’s just alchemy.
So here we were, a rag tag team pulling together talent from all around the globe to shoot at The Banff Springs Hotel at Christmas Time. A Christmas Movie always has legs.
Cobbling together the funding for this was like the most complex game of JENGA. Everything relied on everything else staying in place. And every piece had its own mini checklist of requirements in order to qualify for the funding.
Was it Canadian enough?
Did it satisfy international co production requirements?
Where was the principal photography?
Was the writer Canadian enough even though he lived in LA.
And every party to the funding had their own lawyers on the file. So my job was to wrangle lawyers together and reach concensus on deal term as people got added to the funding mix-
and as people came away.
There was a 30% funding gap that was meant to be filled by some mysterious creature from the UK. This part of the deal would be constructed as a sale and leaseback transaction and which seemed to be a complicated tax dodge scheme.
My spidey senses were tingling from the minute we heard about this mystery investor.
Of course we needed to him 5k just to get going. For the “paperwork”. The red flags were waving but my boss was so enamoured with the idea of this investor that she did it. Despite my first week on the job protestations.
We chased this guy for nearly a year, spent money on lawyers and in the end nothing would materialize from him.
The problem was we needed to have ALL the money in place before the start of principal photography.
While I was working with this producer I watched her chase bad deals, ignore advice of experts, use her own funds to move projects up the field-
What I never saw her do was quit.
Ever.
I don’t think I fully appreciated her tenacity at the time. I wasn’t used to being around someone who had no regard for the opinions of other or the “right way” to do things.
But her never quit and never take no for an answer attitude resulted in her raising nearly 500k in a weekend and crossing the threshold none of the funders or lawyers thought she could meet.
It meant we got to shoot a film at the Banff Springs Hotel in December.
It meant I got to sit with Chevy Chase in the Presidential Suite waiting for his drunk lawyer to sign off on his contract.
It meant she made her dreams came true and made the fucking movie!
I’m now around the same age she was when I started working for her. I have my own company and it’s my own crazy dream.
When I am facing what seems like unlikely odds I remember my old boss.
I remember how I used to think she was crazy.
I remember that she was.
And I remember that she got shit done.
