How to Start & Run a Film Production Company

Video Transcript

"All right. In this clip, we're going to talk about how to start and run a production company. All right. First step is to get your business license. So to do this, you have to go down to city hall and fill out a application for either a sole proprietorship or a partnership. The sole proprietorship is if it's just you, as an individual, starting the company. And then a partnership is obviously you and one, two other people -- however many people are involved in the founding of your company. Once this is done, the only other thing you have to do to make your business legal is to register your name, which you can also do at city hall. And then it would be wise to register your business name as a production company name, rather, as a dot-com. You might not need a website right away, but you're going to eventually, and it'd be smart to get that locked down as soon as you possibly can. So now you have the company, so you can officially now start shepherding those projects that you have waiting in the wings into production. And the reason that you formed a company to do this is basically you're saying now that you want to play on a more professional level. You have, you know, done probably the whole student film thing. You've, you know, bought a camera, you've edited some videos, but you really want to step your game up to a level that the professionals are in, even as an independent filmmaker. That is basically what starting a production company means: You're ready to play. So you're going to want to hire a good attorney. Hopefully, they'll be someone that you have familiarity with either through family or friends. Someone that you trust. You're going to want to hire people to work with you that obviously share your creative ideals and have a good work ethic as well. These decisions are really the key to running a production company. The projects will come and go. They'll start and finish, and you'll be at various stages of production at any given time. But surrounding yourself with quality individuals who can carry their weight and, you know, give you their A game at each and every time you ask them for it, that is the key to establishing and running a successful production company."