sales-options UK screenwriting selling to the US and Canada. Logistics?

[kjwills]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the forum, after DDP sold out I googled the top 10 screenwriting forums and Indietalk was second behind the screenwriting Reddit (but that place is awful, everyone here seems much nicer).

I'm UK-based and shopping my scripts in the US and Canada. My latest two specs have had about 7 read requests so far. I'm wondering if anyone here has been in the same boat. Are there any stumbling blocks with tax or Visas etc for selling to a US/Canadian market and being based across the pond?

I did get this response from a Canadian management company which has made me think Canada is out...

'I quite like the sound of TRICK. However, my difficulty is how production tax credits are set up here in Canada. Most production companies must take full advantage of the tax credits available to maximize their budgets; ensuring that the writer of a project is a Canadian citizen (or permanent resident) is key to obtaining the tax credit.

Although I'm very curious about your script, your residency/citizenship will pose a difficulty for me to get it considered. I'm sorry for the news.'

Sorry if this thread is in the wrong section....

 

[indietalk]

You could always work out a deal with the tax credit amount as a discount on the sale. So your negotiated price is then discounted by what they would receive as a credit.

 

[directorik]

Those tax credits are a way to encourage producers to hire local. However if
a producer really wants to option (or purchase) a script they will find a way. So
that response is a bit of a dodge.

US productions don't have that restriction to funding. Each state has their tax
credits and that usually pertains to production - a way to encourage producers
to shoot in their state. Who they buy the screenplay from doesn't count against
any production tax credit.

 

[Aspiring Mogul]

You got interest! Wow, that's impressive.

 

[The Lone Banana]

Canadian here. Gotta disagree with Indietalk and Directorik. The latter's suggestion that "that response is a bit of a dodge" reflects an ignorance of the Canadian movie-funding environment. Without government funding, the Canadian market is too small (and too dominated by "domestic" USAnian companies) to fund movies. To access Canadian funding, the project must qualify as Canadian content (Writer, Director, Producer, and stars have to be Canadian, according to a points system) or that it qualify as an international co-production. Thus, the former's proposal to discount the price of the script by the value of the tax breaks is unlikely to be enticing.

Canada is not a good market for foreigners to sell screenplays. We don't have much of a movie-making industry (the "Canadian movie-making business" is really the "Hollywood support services and B-list actors business), and what there is tends to be very Director driven, with most writing their own scripts.

I also surprised someone by disabusing them of the notion that Canada works with Hollywood-level budgets. The highest-budgeted Canadian movie ever was "Passchendaele" at about $20 million (CDN); the average budget for a feature-length movie is anywhere from three to seven million. We're called "Hollywood North" because lots of Hollywood projects shoot here, not because we play on Hollywood's level.

As always, best of luck!

 

[Aspiring Mogul]

@The Lone Banana, I'm also a Canadian, and I agree - a Director of the Stargate series said that we're like a factory, doing the work, but the deals are made in Hollywood.

 

[Drongo Bum]

Canadian here. Gotta disagree with Indietalk and Directorik. The latter's suggestion that "that response is a bit of a dodge" reflects an ignorance of the Canadian movie-funding environment. Without government funding, the Canadian market is too small (and too dominated by "domestic" USAnian companies) to fund movies. To access Canadian funding, the project must qualify as Canadian content (Writer, Director, Producer, and stars have to be Canadian, according to a points system) or that it qualify as an international co-production. Thus, the former's proposal to discount the price of the script by the value of the tax breaks is unlikely to be enticing.

Canada is not a good market for foreigners to sell screenplays. We don't have much of a movie-making industry (the "Canadian movie-making business" is really the "Hollywood support services and B-list actors business), and what there is tends to be very Director driven, with most writing their own scripts.

I also surprised someone by disabusing them of the notion that Canada works with Hollywood-level budgets. The highest-budgeted Canadian movie ever was "Passchendaele" at about $20 million (CDN); the average budget for a feature-length movie is anywhere from three to seven million. We're called "Hollywood North" because lots of Hollywood projects shoot here, not because we play on Hollywood's level.

As always, best of luck!

A long time ago, I worked on a big foreign production shooting in New Zealand, and the New Zealand film scene was exactly like this.

New Zealand's movie business was 99 percent foreign productions shooting on New Zealand soil to exploit cheap non union labor and big tax breaks. The remaining 1 percent was micro budget "local content" with local talent, and no one cared if there was a market for it or not, because it was all taxpayer-funded anyhow, and nobody on the local Film Board ever lost their job when a local film bombed.