Elsa Ramo - Today's Master Producers: Part 3

Hosted by Matthew Helderman
Hosted by Elsa Ramo

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Elsa Ramo

Webinar hosted by: Elsa Ramo

Founding Partner at Ramo Law

Elsa Ramo, Managing Partner, Ramo Law PC Elsa Ramo was recently named one of Variety’s “Hollywood New Leaders in Legal & Finance”. Elsa is an established entertainment attorney, representing producers, financiers, and production entities in film, television, and digital content. She graduated from University of San Diego School of Law in 2002, and began her career by establishing the Los Angeles office for Davis Dixon Kirby LLP (a royalty litigation firm). After several clients approached her to handle their independent productions, she founded her own firm on the Universal Studios backlot in 2005. Ramo Law PC is now located in Beverly Hills. Her law firm has seven full time attorneys, a packaging and sales executive, and a full staff who provides production, distribution and finance legal services in feature films, documentaries, scripted and unscripted television and digital content. Their television credits include series on Crackle, MTV, Netflix, Hulu, and Bravo. Some recent film credits include: STILL ALICE (Julianne Moore, 2015 Best Actress Oscar™ Winner), FURY (Brad Pitt), STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT (Billy Crudup) which won an award at Sundance this year, STOCKHOLM, PENNSYLVANIA (Saoirse Ronan), and SHORT TERM 12 (Brie Larsen).She represents such producers as: Informant Media (CRAZY HEART and KIDNAPPING FREDDY HEINEKEN with Anthony Hopkins), QED International (FURY with Brad Pitt), Scott Mednick (TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES and 300), and Electric City Films (LITTLE BIRDS and MISSISSIPPI GRIND).In May 2010, she was awarded an Artistic License Award along with Maria Shriver by California Lawyers for the Arts for her outstanding pro-bono work providing artists and arts organizations with legal services. In October 2014, she was listed in Variety’s 2014 Women Impact Report. Outside of membership in four Bar Associations (California, American, Beverly Hills, & Los Angeles), Elsa is also a member of Film Independent, Women in Film, California Lawyers for the Arts and is the founder of PEFA (a professional organization for female attorneys in the entertainment industry). Matthew Helderman, CEO, Bondit Media Capital Matthew Helderman founded Buffalo 8 Productions in 2012, as a feature film & commercial production company growing to deliver projects to clients such as Sony and Lionsgate. Under Helderman’s leadership, Buffalo 8 has built a full library of content – touting 4 premieres at the 2016 Sundance Festival – a roster of commercial directors, a talent management division and a full post-production facility. In 2013, Helderman co-founded BondIt Media Capital to solve the multitude of financing difficulties found in the entertainment & media business — by 2017 BondIt had participated in the financing over 200 feature film projects ranging from low budgets to studio level productions. Helderman graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy with a minor in English from Lake Forest College. Helderman has been a featured speaker at the Cannes, London, and Bahamas Film Festivals as well as guest speaker at the Chinese US Business Summit. Full Bio »

Webinar Summary

This is the 3rd installment of the Stage 32 + Bondit Media Capital Masterclass featuring Matthew Helderman (CEO of Bondit Media Capital) and Elsa Ramo (Managing Partner of Ramo Law).

 


What You'll Learn

Your Stage 32 + Bondit Film Finance Master Class host, Matthew Helderman, leads a discussion with Elsa Ramo (Managing Partner of Ramo Law), about film financing today. In this exclusive Master Class Elsa discusses how her business has evolved from starting on the Universal backlot to now being involved with over 100 projects a year. Matthew and Elsa discuss negative pickups, international pre-sales, players like Netflix & Amazon entering into the industry, packaging, being female in the industry and new avenues with different types of projects like virtual reality and more. 

Q&A with Matthew and Elsa

About Your Instructor

Elsa Ramo, Managing Partner, Ramo Law PC

Elsa Ramo was recently named one of Variety’s “Hollywood New Leaders in Legal & Finance”. Elsa is an established entertainment attorney, representing producers, financiers, and production entities in film, television, and digital content. She graduated from University of San Diego School of Law in 2002, and began her career by establishing the Los Angeles office for Davis Dixon Kirby LLP (a royalty litigation firm). After several clients approached her to handle their independent productions, she founded her own firm on the Universal Studios backlot in 2005. Ramo Law PC is now located in Beverly Hills.

Her law firm has seven full time attorneys, a packaging and sales executive, and a full staff who provides production, distribution and finance legal services in feature films, documentaries, scripted and unscripted television and digital content. Their television credits include series on Crackle, MTV, Netflix, Hulu, and Bravo. Some recent film credits include: STILL ALICE (Julianne Moore, 2015 Best Actress Oscar™ Winner), FURY (Brad Pitt), STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT (Billy Crudup) which won an award at Sundance this year, STOCKHOLM, PENNSYLVANIA (Saoirse Ronan), and SHORT TERM 12 (Brie Larsen).

She represents such producers as: Informant Media (CRAZY HEART and KIDNAPPING FREDDY HEINEKEN with Anthony Hopkins), QED International (FURY with Brad Pitt), Scott Mednick (TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES and 300), and Electric City Films (LITTLE BIRDS and MISSISSIPPI GRIND).

In May 2010, she was awarded an Artistic License Award along with Maria Shriver by California Lawyers for the Arts for her outstanding pro-bono work providing artists and arts organizations with legal services. In October 2014, she was listed in Variety’s 2014 Women Impact Report.

Outside of membership in four Bar Associations (California, American, Beverly Hills, & Los Angeles), Elsa is also a member of Film Independent, Women in Film, California Lawyers for the Arts and is the founder of PEFA (a professional organization for female attorneys in the entertainment industry).

Matthew Helderman, CEO, Bondit Media Capital

Matthew Helderman founded Buffalo 8 Productions in 2012, as a feature film & commercial production company growing to deliver projects to clients such as Sony and Lionsgate. Under Helderman’s leadership, Buffalo 8 has built a full library of content – touting 4 premieres at the 2016 Sundance Festival – a roster of commercial directors, a talent management division and a full post-production facility. In 2013, Helderman co-founded BondIt Media Capital to solve the multitude of financing difficulties found in the entertainment & media business — by 2017 BondIt had participated in the financing over 200 feature film projects ranging from low budgets to studio level productions. Helderman graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy with a minor in English from Lake Forest College. Helderman has been a featured speaker at the Cannes, London, and Bahamas Film Festivals as well as guest speaker at the Chinese US Business Summit.

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Reviews Average Rating: 5 out of 5

  • This webinar has tremendous value when it comes to thinking about structuring

Other education that may be of interest to you:

Navigating Legal Contracts Post-Pandemic: 5 Important “Boiler Plate” Provisions that Now Matter in Film, TV and New Media Projects

A hot topic of conversation in our current COVID-19 world is how film, television and new media productions will resume production safely and effectively. The entire entertainment legal landscape has changed as a result of the world’s pandemic. Producers, filmmakers, directors and crew need to think about protection before you can ever step on set to say “action.” It’s important to take a deeper look at the legal agreements that tie parties together on a project as we contemplate the future. Contract provisions that parties wrote off as “boring” or “boiler plate” will significantly change moving forward. It’s important you understand how this affects your project.   You don’t want to get stuck with a production or financial nightmare if you’re not protected legally to move forward on your film, TV or new media project. There are five basic provisions in a legal contract that many dismissed as “boring boiler plate” that now will have significance moving forward. It’s important that you know the basic purpose of these provisions, why they are drafted and what purpose they serve for all parties. With each provision, you will need to know the impact and implications as it relates to COVID-19 and how these provisions will continue to change to comply with government and guilds, insurance coverage and mitigation of risk for both parties. You need to make sure to contemplate unlikely scenarios so that contracts are comprehensive to whatever may occur.   Elsa Ramo is one of the top entertainment attorneys in the industry today and the managing partner of Ramo Law. Recently named to Variety’s 2019 “Dealmakers List,” Elsa Ramo has represented over 100 films and 50 television scripted and unscripted series in 2019 alone, including Emmy award-winning shows and films which debuted at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.Her clients include Imagine Entertainment, FOX, Balboa Productions (Sylvester Stallone’s production company), Scout Productions (creators and EPs of QUEER EYE), Boardwalk Pictures (EPs for CHEF’S TABLE) and Skydance. Elsa has her finger on the pulse of the legal side of the entertainment law and works non-stop to protect her clients in all deals.   Elsa will go through the nuts and bolts of contractual provisions in the entertainment industry and a walk through of how these should and will change due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Elsa will start by offering a basic understanding of five contractual provisions that are now much more important in the wake of the pandemic: Force majeure, suspension/termination provisions, assumption of risk and related indemnification provisions, medical releases and disclosures, and scheduling and payment provisions. She’ll discuss why they are drafted and what purpose they serve among the parties. Then, with each provision, she will discuss the impact and implications as it relates to Covid-19 and how these provisions are and will continue to change to comply with government compliance, guild compliance insurance coverage and mitigation of risk for both parties as they contract during a pandemic. Elsa will distill what we can learn from changing these ‘boring provisions’ that we can apply to better prepare ourselves for future unlikely scenarios and ensure contracts are comprehensive to whatever may occur. Finally, Elsa will teach you how to flag and ensure that the modifications placed on these contracts comply with government legislation, union compliance, and other worst-case scenarios.You will be fully prepared to understand how “boring boiler plate” provisions can affect your project and how to best protect yourself.   Praise for Elsa’s Stage 32 Webinar: "This was one of the best webinars I have taken so far. Thank you again. I look forward to the next one!" -Romina S. "Awesome presentation - great speaker, made complicated issues much clearer, lots of great info! Great info for anyone in the industry in all positions. Thanks!!" -Ron H. "This webinar was absolutely brilliant! Elsa is clearly a pro, but her manner was so calm and approachable. She didn't talk down to us and explained all these intricacies so that I believe everyone was able to understand them. Bravo! More Elsa Please!" -Becca G. "Elsa is always amazing and legal is always a fantastic topic, now more than ever!" -Lisa G.        

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Script Clearance 101

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Creating Realistic Characters for Television and Film

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How To Make Your Logline Attractive to A-List Actors, Producers, Directors, Managers, Agents, Financiers and Development Execs

Exclusive to Stage 32, Chris Lockhart, one of the most legendary and revered literary agency story editors in the business, teaches you how to create a world-class logline. Chris has read over 60,000 scripts in his career for WME and has the database to prove it! **PLUS! Chris breaks down selected loglines submitted from the Stage 32 community!** A logline is the way your screenplay is introduced to the world. It’s rare that anyone in the industry will read your script without knowing something about it first. A-List actors, producers, directors, managers, agents, financiers and development execs usually require hearing a logline before ever agreeing to read a screenplay. If your logline doesn't sing, the script usually doesn't get opened. Even more important, if the logline doesn't work, it's a signal to those who read screenplays for a living that the script probably doesn't either. Delving into a logline can help you identify problematic elements of your screenplay, enabling creative solutions to fix those issues. There is no one better to teach this subject than Chris Lockhart. As Story Editor at William Morris Endeavor (WME), the world's largest diversified talent agency, Chris has curated projects for A-list actors such as Denzel Washington, Liam Neeson, Mel Gibson, Matt Damon, Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, and countless others over the last 20+ years. He's accomplished this reading and exploring through piles of screenplays, magazines, books, old movies, TV shows, and pitches in search of potential film projects. If you've seen one of these actors in just about anything, chances are Chris was the first stop for the screenplay (of which he's read over 60,000), but only after he heard the logline and deemed it worth of a read in the first place! Chris began his career at International Creative Management (ICM), where he worked as script consultant to legendary talent agent Ed Limato, who represented industry giants such as Mel Gibson, Richard Gere, Michelle Pfeiffer, Liam Neeson, and Robert Downey, Jr. Chris later moved to the venerable William Morris Agency, which eventually merged with Endeavor to form WME. Chris is the Story Editor for A-list talent such as Denzel Washington, Michelle Williams, Richard Gere and more! In this exclusive stage 32 on-demand webinar, Chris will break down the mechanics of a logline to determine what makes one work. He'll show you what aspects A-List actors, directors, managers, agents, producers, financiers and development execs look for in a logline that makes them want to take the next step and read your script. Chris will then take you on a broader discussion of the elements of successful screenwriting and how your logline can betray what you've written or reveal the shortcomings in your script. As a bonus, Chris will then read and break down several loglines that we're sent in by Stage 32 community members to demonstrate what worked and what didn't. In this jammed packed and entertaining webinar (trust us, Chris is a character and a half), Chris will not only teach you how to write a logline, but how to tailor it in such a way that it is appealing to talent, representation and the money! Praise for Christopher's previous Stage 32 Teaching: "Amazing webinar, loved it. It was the best I have ever watched!"  -- Robert M. "Chris was clear, concise, helpful, and focused. Loved his enthusiasm and humor."  -- Lori H. "Oh my god, I was laughing all the way through. In between writing about 10 pages of notes. SO much fun and a wealth of knowledge." -- Denise G. "Very informative. Clarified a lot of questions I've always had regarding loglines. Well worth the money." -- Emmit R. "It was very informative and insightful." -- Mays S.

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