Bogus producers and film financiers

Ever since I have started in the business I have encountered bogus producers.

There are legions of them out there with their fancy business cards, company names and well rehearsed patter but what is their game ?

An acquaintance, a young actor and would be screenwriter/ director, came to me recently and said someone I knew, Mr xx had messed him around for the last year or so, having expressed great interest in a project of my acquaintances and said he was sure he could raise the funding. However nothing much had happened. 

I wished he had approached me earlier. Mr xx is a fantasist. He used to work in the City and so is comfortably off in his early retirement, but in the 10 years I have known him, and I only ever see him in Cannes he has not actually produced anything.

Actually, that’s not strictly true. He has a number of credits to his name, but they are all on crowdfunded films where he has bought that credit by donating to that film. Sadly, this has given him a credibility. He has never once been on a film set.

He will in my view actually produce a film. He attends all the film markets, is wined and dined by those who don’t know, and says this and says that but he gets his kicks from the “glamour” not the work. I doubt he thought no more of my acquaintances film once he left their few meetings. A charlatan. 

He is a wonderfully pleasant, very well dressed and an affable chap but he is also a menace, for he does not understand that when he professes interest in an eager emerging filmmakers project, he is giving false hope. 

Some of them genuinely believe what they say and think that one day they will find the right project and easily raise the finance. The trouble is that they just don't know how to do that essential task they just think they do.  

So many times in my 20’s and 30’s I was messed around by these Walter Mitty types who just caused havoc. On two occasions I went all the way and I really fell for this patter and spent money because I believed it when, on both occasions, they said as the executive producers they were 99% there with the finance. One was the nephew of a very famous film director so it gave him a certain standing. 

I later found out that both these men were liars and lived in some kind of alternative universe where they believed the bollocks they talked. This was over 25 years ago and both men never produced or financed anything. Ever.

Why do they do it ?

This maybe an answer. There was a man I used to meet every year in Cannes. He went to all the parties, shagged loads of women and hung around with the Brit crowd in the old UKFC pavilion. After a number of years I finally got him to admit that he had nothing to do with the film industry. Cannes was just a wonderful 10 day holiday for him and he wined and dined the whole time for almost nothing. He was very presentable and people, including myself at first, believed he was a genuine film producer/ financier. This was before imdb took off. Now this sort of person needs to buy the credit if they are not to be found out in the short term.

Of course established producer/ film financiers take on projects that they are unable to move along. This is normal. But rarely do they lead people up the garden path will false claims. Taking a film from development to opening night in an Everest of a task and so many of us fail at different stages. 

The worst type are those who say they can get you the money but they want a retainer up front. I have heard of hundreds of them over the last 40 years, and do you know what ? I have not heard of any of them raising the money. Now there is a surprise. 

Therefore, when one of these characters approaches you, and they will, with a fancy card really check them out. When they say they produced or executive/ co-produced/ associate produced a film find someone who actually worked on that film and ask them to verify this. Ask as many people as you can. Research costs nothing. 

I know as eggs are eggs that some of them will be reading this because its so easy to join a Facebook page related to film and I have posted this on some of them. If you are one of these people STOP IT !!  

You are helping no one, least of all yourself. 

It’s hard enough in this industry without some person, no matter how charming and hail fellow well met they are, playing with your life and wasting the most important thing you possess – your time.