This month we had a chance to sit down with Bill Gordon, the head of Media Moghul, a brand new company that's designed to make financing films and other creative works simple and realitisic through a very innovative approach that may revolutionize all aspects of the Independent community.
JH: First off, Bill, I’ve looked at the details of your site and I’m quite impressed with your idea of turning potential creative projects, like films, for example, into a sort of creative stock market. Why don’t you tell our readers a little bit about yourself and what prompted you to start such an interesting business?
BG: Well basically, we’ve been working in the creative sector for a long time, and constantly amazed at the way it works – or doesn’t work. The whole industry seems to revolve around creative people ‘chasing’ deals. In fact, creatives often spend more time, energy and money chasing these elusive deals, than they do being creative! Which is simply ridiculous. Especially as more often than not, the people deciding who to ‘sing up’ are completely clueless! Completely clueless about quality, about what turns the public on, and what’s viable and what is not. And those deals are, basically money. Funding. Budget. Whichever word you use, deal, or funding, it amounts to the same thing. Because to create, manufacture, and market your project, and achieve commercial success, you can beg, borrow and steal favors and equipment and peoples time. But the one thing you still need is finance!
JH: That's a very good point. If you don’t mind, could you break down the main ideas of your plan in basic terms for our readers?
BG: Well, firstly its important to understand what IP is; IP is intellectual property, and most creative projects are based around IP. There are many types of intellectual property, such as various rights in films, music albums, books and hundreds of others. Most creative people know the rights involved in their sector, or they can find out fairly easily. But put simply, it is those rights that actually have the monetary value if a film or album is a commercial success. It is those rights that attract ‘royalties’ for the owners of IP. And it is those rights that have been the ‘currency’ of the entertainment industry for hundreds of years. I.e, whenever you sign a ‘deal’ with a major studio or major record company, and they provide funding for your film or album, in return they take a chunk of the IP or the revenues streams associated with it. That is, in fact, all they take (generally there are no clauses about first born children etc!). But in the past, all of these deals took place ‘behind closed doors’, and involvement was on a strictly ‘invitation only’ basis. Not any more!
OK, so step 1: Creative person with good idea for film, or great music for CD album, or whatever, puts up a description of that idea on the site. They can put up photos, videos, music tracks as well, to give people a really good understanding of it. They need to fill out some paperwork ‘off-line’, so that buyers can have real confidence that what they are buying is real and not a con. (its not like buying an ipod)
The Creative person decides how much money they need, and divides that amount into a number of ‘Points’. They then sell off small percentages of their IP, in return for the money they need to make the film or album. Just like the old system, except that now its all out in the opne, and it’s the public who actually decide what deserves their money! And of course it’s the person listing the project who can set the price they want for their IP, rather than traditionally the major company offering ‘take it or leave it’ type deals.
Once they raise the money, they make the film. And once they make a profit, all the people who supported them profit along with them. If they don’t make enough money to make the film, they have to give all the money back.
Its pretty much as simple as that.
