Chapter 5: Pre-Planning

Sunny went inside the screenwriter's union and paid 200 dollars money to join the union and register his script. Now he became a trainee writer in the union and only after his film is published, he can qualify for regular membership.

For the time being, he is not qualified to join the Producer's guild or any other guild.

After the last meeting with Sofia, his life trajectory changed way faster than he expected.

The script was finally registered, and he hurriedly called his financial advisor for a meeting. Before noon, he was sitting in one of the offices of Merril Lynch.

"Hello, Mr Sunny. I am Matthews Fort. I will be your advisor here to help you in your services." A tall white man politely shook hands with Sunny after entering the room.

"Hello, Mr Matthews. I don't know if you are aware but I want to establish my own production house. What suggestions do you have for me?" Sunny asked curiously.

"Well, the best way is to register a company here in LA, California. We have a local branch here and it makes everything easy. I can bring the forms right now.

All you have to pay is 999$ dollars for the whole thing and done. However, if you truly want to use that company, you will need business accounts and a local branch address and other services.

So, it will take around 3,000 dollars for me to make sure you pay the lowest taxes and be free of any legal and financial trouble. I can also help you find one of the properties suitable for rent for a production house.

We have a lot of such production houses here that open and close every day and there are a lot of empty offices under our Bank. Your company's account is with us and in future, that will help you a lot. The price of the place will be extra. Rest, it's up to you."

Sunny discussed this more in-depth with the advisor and finally understood the key principle behind this operation.

While California generally is a high-tax state, it actually is a tax haven for film companies, which is why most of the studios are based in Los Angeles.

In particular, for C corporations and non-California residents, California only taxes income that is "attributable" to California, and income from the licensing of films is allocated to the place where the movie is watched, not to the location where production or sales activity occurs.

That means that even if a film studio produces a film in California and licenses it from an office in Los Angeles, the studio's net income will be allocated to California based only on the ratio of the income from California consumers compared to worldwide.

Given that California is less than 5 per cent of the worldwide market for films, less than 5 per cent of the film company's income is subject to tax in California.

This is simply a great benefit provided by the state to make sure that Hollywood companies won't leave LA any time in future.

"Understood. I have no problem with the fees. Shall we get started?" Sunny asked and Matthew just smiled.

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One hour later, with company papers and the location of a new office, Sunny left the Merrill Lynch building. He not only registered his production house, Vision Studios (just a name that came to mind, not permanent) but also booked an office for rent. This one hour of services and the newly rented office cost him almost 10,000 dollars.

He put 300,000$ back into the studio account for the production cost of the first film. He knew he needed more money to even shoot a basic movie but this was the only money he had in his account. Rest, he needs to wait until his investment in the Game company brings him some surprise.

This year he chose a different stock, Electronic Arts (EA). He really wanted to put all his money in this stock and wait to become a millionaire or a billionaire in future but he controlled his impulses.

Besides, Sofia will also invest her own money in this movie and her two hundred thousand dollars (200,000$) should be enough to plug the gap in the initial time.

Sunny started his truck and finally came to the address given by Sofia. This was a mid-rise building with 5 floors in LA and his office was on the third floor. Just a simple office with two rows of working space and one private cabin.

No way, who made him poor? He must save extra expenses before shooting the movie. This office will only come into use after the first movie under his studio is on the big screen.

Sofia already had her family lawyer present, and they both soon agreed on her final details. Even Sofia wanted to avoid any mistakes before signing the agreement. Sofia invested 200,000$ in the movie in exchange for 20% of the Global Box Office from the movie.

This was a very big trade-off Sunny had to make to be sure he get the big name of Coppola under his studio. 20% of the Global box office is not something even a famous director can ask as his salary.

Sunny gave himself 10, 000$ for his script as the fees and he retained the final editing rights. Only in this way he can be sure that Sofia won't add a lot of emotional drama to this movie. Besides, because the total budget is quite low, the owner himself cannot pocket all the money.

Sofia has a large network in the film industry and with her last name, she could solve many troubles with a phone call. She was the perfect partner he could hope for in his condition.

Together they enjoyed a light lunch and then Sunny started explaining the script and storyboard he designed before.

The two had many places where they had different opinions before but now with Sunny's storyboard, many things become clear in Sofia's head.

In Sofia's mind, emotions and screenplay should add to the soul of cinema while in Sunny's mind, the movie is made to please the audience and generate revenue. Hence Sunny made sure he had explained his idea about the script and showed her the storyboard.

In the evening, Sofia contacted CAA senior agents and scheduled the audition roles for the male and female leads along with the extras. In this way, they can find a lot of actors for their audition and find relevant crew members to start the movie.

It took more than 5 days before the auditions could begin, after all, Sofia and Sunny still needed to finalise shooting locations, travel permits and find a reliable visual effects studio.

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