Introduce Yourself : On the edge... by Franz Von Toskana

Whilst reading "My Indecision is Final" which tells the amazing story of the rise and fall of Goldcrest in the 1980s when it produced great films from Chariots of Fire to Gandhi, it tells a lot about the making of The Emerald Forest so I bought the DVD and watched it yesterday. The Amazonian natives in the forest first saw white man clearing the forest so regarded the edge of their forest and where the cleared area began as The edge of the World, beyond which they knew nothing. That set me thinking and asking myself about the edge of my knowledge; that line which separates that what I know and what I don't know. I met it last Tuesday! I know my film pretty well. I write a mean script (www.MargeryBooth.com has just been praised by Stephen Fry and is now in it) and I have a good knowledge of cinematography, directing and editing etc but film finance (although I can still do a budget) on an international level is still beyond me. On Tuesday I hosted a meeting between my financial adviser and a German production facilities director and sat back in amazement whilst they spoke fluent film finance speak!! Apparently you get x% funding if you film in region A, y% if you film in region B and z% for region C but as gross costs are different for the various regions then the net result can be different yet again. Furthermore WHEN you get money back might also vary so the resultant cash flow requirements may change your decision yet again... After they switched back to normal English my adviser turned to me and said "We've got 55%!" but I didn't follow a word!! A great result but all this was happening in a world beyond mine. Does anyone out there speak this weird language??