Building International Co-Productions
Co-production structures fail on rights and recoupment long before they fail on the floor. The work is front-loaded, or it is not done.
The attractive part of a co-production is the money. The demanding part is the paperwork that determines who owns what, in which territory, and in what order anyone is repaid.
Agreeing that sequence at the point of enthusiasm, rather than at the point of dispute, is the whole discipline.
One schedule, not two
Two territories will produce two instincts about how to shoot. The production that survives is the one that resolves them into a single schedule with a single art department and a single reporting rhythm.
Weekly cost reporting shared with every partner is not bureaucracy. It is the mechanism that keeps creative decisions available later in the shoot.
Delivery is a design problem
Versioning, subtitling and territory-specific compliance should be planned in the edit, not retrofitted in the last fortnight. Retrofitting is where co-production margins disappear.