Recent content by Lucas

Lucas I've watched a few of the filmmaking classes, and what stood out to me wasn't necessarily the technical advice it was hearing how different filmmakers approach the same creative problem. You quickly realize there's no single "correct" way to direct or tell a story. Seeing how people like...

I originally subscribed for the filmmaking classes, but I quickly found myself exploring courses outside the film category as well. What surprised me most was how much I could learn from people working in completely different creative fields. Their approach to storytelling, leadership...

We were somewhere between two and three years from the first treatment until financing was finally closed. The hardest part wasn't finding people who liked the project. It was getting everyone comfortable enough to commit at roughly the same time. We kept running into the classic...

One thing I've always wondered about TIFF is whether most buyers have already committed the majority of their acquisition budget after Cannes, or whether many intentionally leave room for Toronto and even AFM later in the year. I've heard both arguments over the years, so I'd be interested to...

I've just read the sample pages, and one thing immediately stood out to me. It doesn't read like a traditional memoir. It feels much more like scenes from a film. I like the dialogue and the visual style, but projects like this usually take time. Finding the right producer, investor or studio...

Reading through this discussion, I keep coming back to one thought. We spend a lot of time talking about how AI changes filmmaking. I think the bigger shift is that AI is changing negotiation. Ten years ago, actors negotiated for shooting days, residuals and exclusivity. Increasingly...

One thing I rarely see discussed is what happens after you've built a great deck. We spend countless hours improving pitch decks, budgets and business plans, but much less time talking about where producers actually find serious investors. Film markets are obviously one route, and industry...

In my experience, investors rarely say no because of the script or the creative vision itself. More often than not, the hesitation comes down to a fundamental mismatch in the financial structure and the recoupment waterfall. An investor will easily pass on a great project if the budget is...

One thing I've learned over the years at Cannes, AFM, TIFF and other markets is that most major opportunities in this industry don't appear when you're actively looking for them. More often, they happen months or even years later when someone remembers you for a project, a position, or a...

I think churn could end up changing not only the streaming platforms themselves, but also the types of projects they choose to acquire. Over the past couple of years, I've increasingly heard buyers talk less about simply finding good content and more about finding titles with genuine...

I think many buyers today decide very quickly whether a project feels (safe) for their market or not. And interestingly, that decision is often no longer really about the screenplay itself. Different territories are chasing very different genres now. Something that works well in Germany or...

This right here. Preserving the illusion of momentum is practically a survival mechanism in this business. A couple of years ago we were involved in a modest regional co-production. About a week before shooting, it turned out one of the financing partners had completely miscalculated a local...

Spot on, Michael. Reading some older sales agency agreements today honestly feels like opening a time capsule from a completely different industry. I’m reviewing an old international sales boilerplate from around 2015/2016 and some of these clauses would probably terrify producers in today’s...

Man, this hits close to home, it’s that classic "kill your darlings" moment and it never gets any easier. For me, the realization always kicks in during the first rough assembly, because on set you’re riding that adrenaline high, but in the quiet of the edit suite you suddenly notice the pacing...

Why Are So Many Finished Films Still Unsold in 2026? At this year’s Cannes market, I met several producers still trying to sell films that were completed almost two years ago. In some cases, their previous sales agents had not managed to close a single meaningful deal. I watched a few trailers...