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Hi all,

I'm going to be starting at a V10 firm in NYC next year. I am undecided what practice group I want to join, but I really enjoyed the EC/VC, Funds and PE work I did last year. I have a lot of experience with Entertainment Law from prior internships, but I didn't get a chance to engage with any of that type of work this summer.

Based on what I've heard about film financing, it seems to me to be a blend of Entertainment law as well as Banking work. Can anybody here give me some insight into what this type of work is like and what potential career paths in this field look like?

The exits for film finance are, predictably, companies in the film industry. It's niche so if that's not where you want to end up, I'd practice something else (or at least make film financing a subset of your practice, and not the whole thing, to the extent your firm allows it). Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but are you trying to end up anywhere else if you're considering this practice?

I've only done one film financing deal, so I'm no expert, but you typically need someone to front the costs of producing the movie up front before anyone's started filming/etc. Like a Sony, a Fox, whomever. This is actually where star power comes in - it's easier to predict a movie will gross at least X amount if Y celebrity is involved. If you hire Jackie Chan or Adam Sandler or whomever, you'd feel more comfortable that your film might gross at least $50 million (fake number) based on the last few movies they've done, so you're fine fronting the film team $40 million up front.

The other contentious part of film financing is the waterfall, at least in my (extremely limited) experience. The waterfall specifies who gets paid out first once revenue from the film starts coming in. You'll negotiate heavily who deserves to get recouped first and who gets what share of the upside.

The rest is more similar to regular financings, albeit with a few more interested parties than just a lender and a borrower.