Creating A Production Company

A production company gathers all the pieces required to make a film (including funding). More often than not they do not put up all of the funding.

As far as what's involved legally, it is a regular business entity, so however you go about setting up a business in your location will dictate the legal requirements.

From wiki: "Production company refers to a company responsible for the development and physical production of performing arts, film, radio or a television program. The company may also be directly responsible for the raising of funding for the production or may do so through an intermediary. The production company may be a small company, selling its product to a film studio or presenting it at a theatrical venue, or, in the case of film and television, it may be the studio itself."

Will's nailed it... but I just got my ass handed to me over at indieclub, so I'm feeling frisky (don't ask... when will I learn) LOL

One of the difficulties is that the terms "production company" covers a huge range of different businesses, that don't always have a lot in common with each other.

For some companies, the term production company is a literal description... they're a company that owns production resources (and can outsource others)... they have either inhouse or freelance staff who have particular production skills... and they work as guns for hire for anyone who needs film or video produced.

So, when I first freelanced I would take on a producer/director role for a local company who did huge events and corporate gigs... but who sometimes needed to call in people like me, who can step into a managerial role and firefight, what ever production nightmare they'd got themselves into that week... like, for instance, doing a live link, five camera broadcast, in the centre of London, on a day that clashed with the European Cup and after they forgot to confirm their order for cameras and the microwave links (which wouldn't have done the job anyway!)... or flying to Mexico with 24hrs notice to be met at the airport by a guy holding a giant card with "sanitary towels" written on it.

The guys who hired me, ran a production company and had a lot of in house production resources.

Now, at the same time, I also ran my own production company, that had no in house production resources, beyond the skills of the people involved. We wrote, developed and packaged screenplays ... in order to raise investment, to put movies into production. Sometimes we invested our own money... and actually that led to (oh, damn it, everyone here knows what that led to... LOL)

Now, at the same time every major actor also has a production company, which they use to find and develop films for the star involved... and, Dreamworks is also a production company.

Basically, it's a fairly broad term, that is used to mean many different kinds of companies... and in this industry anyone who can afford to print a card with "producer" on it, is a production company.

Actually, I just ordered new business cards... so I know that last one is true.

Where this gets complicated, is when a company decides to make a movie with a budget... because, what generally happens at that point is a "production company" is set up... which is distinct from the other companies involved... this company is the company legally responsible for the film, but it exists only to make that one movie... then, connected to this company by a thousand contracts, are all the other companies involved... so, the producer's company will be involved, so will the main star's production company, and also the director's company... and if the central film production company goes to an executive producer or financier who is a major film angel... well, their company will be involved as well.

If all goes well, these companies behave themselves and eventually a film gets made... however, sometimes one of the players decides to play corporate games and pulls a power play... at which point the director gets fired and maybe the primary producer... but their companies are still attached to the project. However, the new director and the new producer also bring their production companies to the production.

Basically, this is why you sometimes see there are about twelve different production companies involved.

I know this is a way more complex answer than the one you asked for... but the only problem with questions like "what does a production company do?" is there are three answers:

1) make films (the simple answer)
2) get involved with other companies to make films (the complex and more honest answer)
and
3) keep a lot of lawyers in brand new Jaguars (the true answer)