Pre-production

There are two components to pre-production, and while it may seem that the main focus is naturally on the “creative” – sifting through the materials and writing the screenplay – the administrative part is no less important.

What is our legal structure? How are taxes to be handled? What insurance will we need? How important is legal advice to our project? And, of course, we need to determine a funding model and come up with a preliminary budget.

Below is the progress we have made thus far.

Legal

We have had our first consultations with an entertainment lawyer and determined the legal structure.

Accounting

We have consulted an accountant who has experience in film production. We also have a fiscal sponsor Filmmakers Collaborative.

Archival

Throughout 2015 and 2016, over 600 internet-published video clips have been watched and analyzed. 130 interviews have been read and documented. Three of Boris Nemtsov’s own books have been adapted to film script format. Materials on economic and political development in Russia over the past 25 years have been studied.

Creative

All that we were able to find and work on will become the basis for our screenplay. We already sketched out a script treatment, found a concept, and determined the genre. 1-, 5-, and 17-minute samples have been created per requirements of various organizations. Several public screenings of these trailers with subsequent viewer discussion sessions have taken place.

Financial

We have determined the funding model and created a list of potential grant foundations. A generic application for grant funds has also been compiled.

Money received at our first successful fundraiser has been spent on specialist consultations, web hosting, domain purchase, fiscal sponsor membership fee, company registration, and upcoming event bookings.

The funds we hope to raise in the future will be used for further grant applications, the legal setup of the production company, purchase of hardware for materials storage, office expenses, and hiring of professional editors and sound designers to polish the already existing clips.