The Yard Films
Launching a film production company
OVERVIEW
Former Viaplay and Shahid executive Jakob Mejlhede Andersen teamed up with his wife and former Shine International CEO Camilla Hammer to launch a new Dubai-based production company called The Yard Films. At the time that Jakob and Camilla were introduced to us they were already pitching to investors who were asking to see their business plan. Although both founders had extensive industry experience they did not have a detailed financial plan and did not know how much money then needed to raise. We worked intensely with them over a 2-week period learning about production financing and their revenue model and then building a business model. They pitched the model to investors, hit their fundraising target of $6million and launched The Yard Films.
Sector
Media
Deliverables
7-year financial model
Outcome
Investment raised
Business launched
"
Lifesavers! The
business plan went way
beyond our expetations
Thank you so much.
"
Camilla Hammer
CEO
DETAIL
This was an exciting project. We had a tight timeline - Camilla and Jakob were already speaking to investors and were under pressure to present a detailed business model - and we had no experience of how production companies worked. We also needed to build a 7-year model rather than our usual 5-year model to accomadate the extended timelines in production - a show that is pitched today may not appear on a streaming service such as Netflix until 3 years time.
We needed to get our heads around production financing. Learning about how shows are pitched to broadcasters, how and when the development money is received and spent, what proportion of shows that are developed go onto to be produced, how and when all the costs are incurred, how the shows earn revenue and when that revenue is received.
We created a bespoke production schedule that included multiple different types of show from low budget content at $500k/episode up to $2m/episode series. Camilla and Jakob could then adjust the schedule in a visual way to play out various scenarios whilst viewing the financial implications.
The model enabled Camilla and Jakob to plan out the production schedule for the next 7-years with a clear set of targets for how much each production needed to earn to be profitable.
They pitched the model to investors, hit their fundraising target and launched The Yard Films.
