Crowdfunding

Event Date: Saturday, August 10, 2013 || Speakers: David Tenzer, P.C., David Marlett, JD CPA,  Marc Zicree, Cindy Baer & Moderator Mariana Danilovic || Check-in: 12:30 pm ||

Learn how to produce & fund entertainment projects including film, TV, and other formats through crowd funding and other sources of capital: private equity, debt, sponsorship, branded integration, international pre-sales, etc.  Panelist will examine building buzz, brand and community and how the production of film, TV, and other forms of entertainment (webisodes, apps, etc) has changed due to access to crowd funding and therefore the audiences around the world.

 **The deadline has passed and REGISTRATION is now CLOSED for this event. Please view our calendar for upcoming events.

David Tenzer is an entertainment lawyer, talent manager and business consultant, with extensive experience in many sectors of the media industry.

His clients include talented artists and companies in all areas of entertainment, including actors, writers, directors, producers, on-camera personalities, lifestyle experts, film and television distributors and digital content providers.

For 24 years (1982-2006), Mr. Tenzer worked at Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles, one of the world’s leading talent agencies. He started at CAA as an executive in Motion Picture Business Affairs, then transferred to the Television Division, where he soon was named the head of Television Business Affairs. After several years, he became a Television Agent, working first in television movies, then covering CAA’s projects at CBS.

Mr. Tenzer co-founded and operated the agency’s International Television Department, Alternative Programming Department, and later its Lifestyles Department. During his tenure at CAA, he also worked with the agency’s New Media, Film Financing and Marketing Departments, handling clients such as eBay, Delta Airlines and Procter & Gamble’s a Television Agent, Mr. Tenzer was responsible for selling over 40 produced series, movies and specials, with budgets in excess of $800 million. These included scripted prime-time series for broadcast and cable networks, reality shows, documentaries, children’s programming and international co-productions, as well as projects (such as “Home Made Simple”  and “Dear Santa”) directly underwritten by advertisers.

As a Business Affairs executive, he negotiated virtually every type of television contract, including license agreements on behalf of production companies, distribution and co-financing arrangements, overall deals with studios, sponsorship and endorsement deals, contingent compensation definitions and agreements with above-the-line talent. He was also responsible for all commission and packaging issues within CAA’s Television Division.

Mr. Tenzer has served on the Board of Directors of the International Documentary Association, the Banff World Television Festival, NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) and the Hollywood Radio and Television Society. He traveled to Beijing and Shanghai with Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan as an entertainment delegate on the city’s Trade Mission to Asia. He was named one of “Twelve to Watch” by Electronic Media in one of its annual cover stories.

Prior to joining CAA, Mr. Tenzer was a contracts attorney with IBM Europe in Paris and Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles. He also worked in private practice with the law firm Rosen, Wachtell & Gilbert, where he specialized in commercial transactions and business litigation.

Mr. Tenzer has an undergraduate degree in Politics from U.C. Santa Cruz, a law degree from U.C. Davis and an M.A. in Urban Studies from Occidental College. He was a Coro Foundation Public Affairs Fellow, and earned a Certificate in Advanced International Legal Studies from McGeorge School of Law.

Mr. Tenzer is a member of the State Bar of California and a licensed real estate broker. He is an experienced public speaker, and has testified as an expert witness in several lawsuits and arbitrations, including the recent Golden Globes litigation in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. He is a native of Los Angeles.

David Marlett is a writer/producer/director under his production company, BlueRun Media, www.BlueRunMedia.com, and CEO of its financing arm, BlueRun Crowdfund. BlueRun Crowdfund provides innovative consulting, financing, management, and reward-fulfillment services to the film crowdfunding and finance industry.

In addition, he is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Crowdfunding Association, www.NLCFA.org, the world’s largest trade association for crowdfunding, and the Founder and Chairman of the Board of the World Crowdfund Federation, www.WorldCrowdfund.org, a federation of crowdfunding associations across 13 countries and five continents. With 25+ years as an attorney and CPA, David has arranged over $100M in financing for ventures across an array of industries including energy, real estate, manufacturing, high tech, health and entertainment (his specialty).

David knows the film industry. He has the scars to prove it. He knows both the hills and the valleys of the process. He is a writer and director with a number of film and television projects in development (www.BlueRunMedia.com). He has taken several film projects from concept to financing, and has worked for or on behalf of a host of producers and studios, including Dreamworks and Lionsgate. He has written a novel and many screenplays, having sold or optioned most of them. He knows the agency system, both in NY and LA, and has endured the agonies of pitch rooms mixed with the highs of successful sales and green lights. He has written a number of pieces on filmmaking, film finance, transmedia and crowdfunding. His online works include a recurring film finance column in Moviemaker Magazine and a column for Digital Book World on transmedia publishing and production. He has appeared in all major press outlets, appeared on most every network news program, and has been covered many times by Deadline Hollywood, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and The Wrap. His literary agent is the incomparable Jane Dystel, at Dystel & Goderich in New York.

He has a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law, and degrees in accounting, economics and finance.

Marc Zicree, author of “The Twilight Zone Companion”, has written for virtually every major network and studio, with hundreds of hours of credits on such shows as Star Trek – The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Friday the 13th – The Series, Babylon 5, Smurfs, HE-MAN, Superfriends, Real Ghostbusters and <strongSliders. He has been nominated for the Humanitas Prize, Hugo, Nebula, Diane Thomas and American Book awards and has won the TV Guide Award, Rondo Award and Saturn Award. Most recently, he has been writing the book GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES with Guillermo del Toro for Palace Press and is currently writing, directing and producing Space Command, an epic series of science fiction films with some of the top actors in TV and movies.

Cindy Baer is a director, producer, actress and co-founder of Patron of the Arts, a nonprofit company whose mission is to help emerging filmmakers & artists create new works and connect with audiences.  www.patronofthearts.org

As a director/producer, Cindy’s micro-budget feature “Purgatory House” screened at over 25 film festivals, where it nabbed highly coveted screening slots alongside the bigger-budgeted, star-studded indies. The film became a critical darling, garnering feature stories in publications like The New York Post, The Chicago Tribune, NPR’s “All Things Considered” and CBS Radio. It won 11 festival awards, 2 Prism Nominations, and appeared on 5 critics’ lists for “Best film of the Year” before securing distribution with Image Entertainment.  Cindy also produced, directed and starred in the award-winning short comedy “Morbid Curiosity”, which screened in over 25 film festivals. As an actress, credits include the roles of “Lizzie Borden” in the indie feature “Lizzie” and Rainn Wilson’s girlfriend “Jillian” in “Few Options”, which is currently airing on Showtime. Cindy is in post-production on her second feature “Odd Brodsky”, which she directed, produced, and co-wrote with her cinematographer husband Matthew Irving.  www.freedreampictures.com

Cindy has appeared on filmmaking panels across the country speaking as an expert on low budget and 21st century filmmaking at events, some of which include: the Vimeo Awards + Festival, Hollyshorts, the Provincetown Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the La Femme Film Festival, Dances With Films, Screenwriting Expo, Screen Actor’s Guild, and the Technology World Expo’s “Picture This!” series for the Entertainment Industries Council. In addition, Cindy has been a judge for the Cine Eagle Awards, Prism Awards, Valley Film Festival and the 48 hour film festival.

Special Moderator for this event:

Mariana Danilovic is the Founder and Managing Director of hollywood portfolio, an accelerator, incubator, owner and operator of transmedia companies. Through hollywood portfolio, Ms. Danilovic launched and helped develop several transmedia companies and serves as the CEO and Director of infiom, served as the President, CEO and Director of ultralivetv, serves on the Board of Directors of reframeit (observer), and the Board of Directors of alphabird.

Ms. Danilovic was the EVP Business Development for transmedia entertainment company NTN Buzztime, Inc. (AMEX:NTN) and VP Business Development, Content Aggregation and Programming for MediaZone, broadband video company owned by NASPERS/MIH media conglomerate. She also founded and directed the Digital Media Incubator at KPMG LLP, which developed about two-dozen digital media companies. The companies Ms. Danilovic helped develop received institutional funding from KPCB, Sequoia Capital, Hummer-Winblad, Constellation Partners, Softbank, North Star Ventures, HP, and Intel.

Ms. Danilovic headed business development for Peter Guber’s Mandalay Entertainment and was on the management team of the venture fund at Sony Pictures Entertainment, investing in media companies worldwide. Ms. Danilovic also worked for Michael Milken’s Knowledge Exchange and at the Twentieth Century Fox International Television Group. She serves on the Board of Directors of C3, the Arts and Media Node of the Millennium Project, served on the New Media Council of the Board of Directors of the Producers’ Guild of America, and is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

She previously served on the Board of Directors of Tim Draper’s Zone Club and was a member of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s Digital Coast Roundtable. Mariana earned a Masters in Business Administration from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, with a Minor in Biomedical Engineering from University of California, San Diego.

Join us on the Second Saturday every month at:

**New Location…

TDJ Studios

5723 Auckland Ave.

North Hollywood, CA 91601

As this is a professional event, we ask that you please arrive prior to the event start time.

Meeting Timeframe: 1:00 pm to approximately 3:00 pm

Free Parking!

Please remember to bring a picture ID and your SWN Membership Card!

Any questions, email us at [email protected].