Please note: This class has reached its registration capacity.

Film Independent’s Toolkit classes help you quickly learn the basics of a particular craft or aspect of filmmaking, or brush up your particular skill set.

The creative producer wears many hats. More than just a deal maker, you’re expected to have a great sense of story, instinctive sales skills, a grasp of indie financing models and, above all, tenacity.

Taught by Spirit Award-nominated producer Tatiana Kelly (The Catcher Was a Spy, Wristcutters: A Love Story), this intensive online workshop focuses on today’s best practices for the independent creative producer, with a particular focus on projects below $1M.

Over the course of four 3-hour sessions, we’ll cover the creative producer’s mindset and philosophy; building creative partnerships; finding and developing material; options and agreements; the elements of a good pitch, including lookbooks and pitch decks; budgeting, including creating different budgets for the same project; current independent financing structures; crowdfunding and fiscal sponsorship; sales and distribution, including navigating deal terms and deliverables; and much more.

The class will also feature an in-depth case study of a recent independent film.

Class takes place Wednesdays and Thursdays, July 27-28 and August 3-4. All sessions are live online via Zoom. This class is not offered On Demand.

About the speaker

Tatiana Kelly recently produced Reddit’s first show, PS Battles Live, with host Patti Harrison, and guests including Trixie Mattel, Maz Jobrani, Michael Ian Black, Kal Penn, Kate Flannery and Will Sasso. She also recently made her directorial debut with the documentary The People vs. Vegas Dave, chronicling the rise and fall (and rise again) of the outrageous sports bettor “Vegas Dave.” Previous productions include Cut Throat City, directed by RZA and starring Shameik Moore, T.I., Eiza Gonzalez, Wesley Snipes, Ethan Hawke, and Terrence Howard, which premiered at SXSW; and The Catcher Was a Spy, starring Paul Rudd, Sienna Miller, Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson, which premiered at Sundance, and was directed by Ben Lewin (The Sessions) and written by Academy Award nominee Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan).

Her other films include The Words, which was the Closing Night film at Sundance, starring Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons, Dennis Quaid, Zoë Saldana and Olivia Wilde; The Procession, written and directed by Academy Award nominee Robert Festinger (In The Bedroom), starring Lily Tomlin and Jesse Tyler Ferguson; Sunset Stories, which premiered at SXSW, starring Monique Curnen, Sung Kang, Zosia Mamet, Jim Parsons and Kevin Bacon; and Life of a King, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., which premiered at the LA Film Festival.

Kelly’s first film Wristcutters: A Love Story stars Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Will Arnett, John Hawkes, Shea Whigham and Tom Waits, and premiered at Sundance. It played at over 30 film festivals, won eight Best Feature festival awards, was released by Lionsgate, and earned two Film Independent Spirit Award nominations.

Please note: This event is non-refundable – no credit or exchanges.

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