By Elliot V. Kotek (October/November 2006) As the trade group and brains trust behind the biggest movie marketplace in North America, the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) continues its growth and year-round relevance as an international representative for independent producers. IFTA President & CEO Jean Prewitt took time out to consider the issues facing indie producers in a global economy where constructs of commerce necessitate strategic caution. Lobbying, Legislation and Locations
IFTA not only stands as an effective watchdog for underdogs but as a participant in the producer's planning process, bringing practical answers and contacts to its membership community. Prewitt provides, by example, "If you want to go film in Bulgaria, here are three companies who have already been there. You might want to talk to them about their experiences and how to find good crews. In some circumstances, we would also lobby on behalf of our members. We met with the government in the UK when they were revising their tax structure, and we certainly have lobbied actively in the United States." Despite the flurry of filmmaking in Eastern Europe over the past few years, and other less-traditional locations making their bids for the movie buck, "the majority of questions we've received recently have been about the United States. It is only within the last 18 to 24 months that individual states have been really active in enacting production incentives... There was one week this summer when five states either enacted brand new incentives or extended the ones they offered in a very significant way." Prewitt warns, however, "What is not coming through clearly from the headlines in the newspaper is that an incentive that looks generous on its face might not, for example, be well funded at a state budgetary level. Let's say the incentive gives you back 20 percent of your budget or your labor spend but there's only $50 million available annually for the entire state - they run through that very quickly. And so some of the information that we try to push out to our members is: Is the promise of the money secure? If you go in and file your materials, is it a bankable promise at that moment or are you in a queue from where you may ultimately be turned away? There's a lot of undercover information that we try to help our members with." One message that IFTA has had to perennially address through its lobbying activities is the mass misconception that piracy's sole pitfall is lost profits. "For IFTA's member companies, the effect of piracy is that you can't make the film in the first place." Prewitt explains, "Regardless of what's being pirated, whether it's your film or someone else's, if the distributor is losing money he has less to put forward towards your next film. And even if he has the money, he's less predisposed to make that investment because he's not confident he'll be able to recoup it because of what's going on in the territory." Collections, Contracts and Box Office Cash As an organization with a truly international reach, IFTA maintains a representative office in the UK and works beyond that through other coalitions. While the MPAA represents the major studios exclusively, a big percentage of IFTA's members are small to medium-sized companies, "so we provide services that don't make sense for companies to do internally. One big example is collections: We manage collections for cable retransmissions and private copying levies and all those types of secondary royalties. We process north of $5 million per year in payments...and push that out to the member companies." Prewitt adds, with a laugh, "It's nice, as a trade association, to be paying the members rather than the other way around." To keep a lid on the not-so-petty cash box, IFTA "collects the day-to-day box office information for every film in release from 18 different countries." This service is offered for free despite its cost to the organization. Prewitt notes, "There's also a search function where, if you're thinking about contracting with a certain star or director, you can plug that name in and see how their product performed over the past five years in specific territories." Horizon Wireless With an annual conference each June that reflects on the impact of new developments in technology, distribution and licensing, and with more content being bought, sold, licensed and viewed over more media delivery systems than ever before, IFTA's legal department remains on alert, issuing guides and contractual riders for members dealing with unchartered territories and technologies, and maintaining a bank of standard form agreements to ensure members enter that independent world well advised. Most recently, IFTA inked a guide with contractual advice and consideration of issues surrounding wireless technology. Prewitt notes that "people haven't yet figured out whether mobile phones are going to get bigger to allow them to show more substantial video content or whether video content is going to get repurposed and repackaged so that mobile devices are a better window to watch them." With this new content creation, and repurposing of existing content for this new distribution system, the guide is an essential addition to IFTA's briefcase. With the technological horizon as far away as ever, IFTA's work under Prewitt's tenure is far from done. "You have to assume these days that if you have a library of product, there's a marketplace for that product somewhere sometime... And, as people's business models change, our services change." | 
