Welcome to ForcaWiki

A stick figure character thinking, with a thought bubble full of gears, question marks, a glowing lightbulb, and a simple math problem

ForcaWiki is Neil Forcadela's personal encyclopedia, a place for things he finds interesting, explained in plain language that a curious 12 year old could enjoy.

148 topics so far, and always growing.

All topics

A

  • Above the Line The people an audience actually notices in a movie, like the writers, director, producers, and lead actors, plus the deals that hire them.
  • Accrual Method An accounting approach that counts money as earned or spent the moment it is owed, not whenever cash actually changes hands.
  • Actual Break-Even The moment a movie's earnings finally catch up to its full costs, counting the distributor's entire normal distribution fee.
  • Adjusted Gross Receipts A movie's gross receipts after subtracting a short, specific list of off the top deductions, like taxes and collection costs.
  • Advance Money paid up front, either for the license of a movie's rights or as pay for someone's work, before the movie has actually earned that much.
  • Advance Rate How much cash a lender will hand over today against a payment they are promised in the future, shown as a percentage.
  • American Film Market (AFM) A giant yearly marketplace in Santa Monica, California, where people who make movies and people who distribute them around the world meet to strike deals.
  • Ancillary Revenue Money a movie earns from its characters, story, and name, like toys, sequels, and streaming deals, instead of from theater tickets.
  • Ancillary Rights The specific legal rights to make and sell things based on a movie's characters and world, like toys, soundtracks, novels, and theme park rides.
  • Answer Print The very first complete version of a movie that can actually be watched and heard together, combining the picture with its sound.
  • Asset Anything a business owns that is worth something, from cash and cameras to trucks and story rights.
  • At-Source A contract rule that calculates someone's share using the earnings at one fixed, agreed point in the distribution chain, no matter who actually collects the money.
  • Attached When an actor, writer, or director has agreed, usually with some conditions, to be part of a movie project.
  • AVOD Free video on demand that is paid for by showing viewers advertisements instead of charging them.

B

  • Back-End A casual way of referring to a royalty or a participation, the money someone earns after a movie is released, rather than up front.
  • Bayes' Theorem An exact rule for turning "what's the chance of B, given A" into "what's the chance of A, given B," which are usually two very different numbers.
  • Bayesian Probability A way of using probability to describe how confident you are about something, and carefully updating that confidence whenever new evidence comes in.
  • Below the Line Everything in a movie's budget that is not the writers, director, producers, or stars, like the camera crew, lighting, and equipment rental.
  • Berne Convention An agreement between many countries, including the United States, that they will all recognize and protect each other's copyrights.
  • Black Holes A spot in space that pulls so hard that nothing can escape it, not even light.
  • Boolean Algebra A branch of math with only two possible values, true and false, and rules for combining them, that turned out to be the secret blueprint for every computer chip.
  • Box Office Receipts All the money people paid for tickets to watch one specific movie in theaters, added together.
  • Budget An estimate of what a movie will cost to make, or, once filming is done, a final statement of what it actually cost.

C

  • Cash All the physical money and bank account money a business, or a movie production, actually has on hand right now.
  • Cash Break-Even The moment a movie's earnings catch up to its costs using a low, or even zero, distribution fee, reached sooner than actual break-even.
  • Cash Method An accounting approach that only counts money as earned or spent once it is actually paid or received.
  • Cash-Flowing When a production company pays a movie's costs out of its own money as they come up, instead of waiting for a loan or investor's check to arrive first.
  • Chain of Title The unbroken trail of contracts that proves who really owns a movie or TV show and every important piece used to make it.
  • Co-Production Two or more companies, often from different countries, teaming up to make a movie together.
  • Collateral Something valuable a borrower promises to a lender, which the lender is allowed to take if the borrower does not pay back what they owe.
  • Collection Account Manager (CAM) A neutral company that collects all the money a movie earns worldwide and pays out each person's fair share in the right order.
  • Common Stock A small piece of ownership in a company that you can buy, which can grow or shrink in value and sometimes pays out a small share of the profits.
  • Comparable Films (Comps) Movies that already came out and are similar enough to a new project that people use their numbers to guess how the new movie might do.
  • Completion Bond A promise, backed by a specialized company, that a movie will get finished and delivered even if something goes badly wrong during filming.
  • Completion Guarantor The specialized company that actually issues a completion bond, promising a movie will get finished no matter what goes wrong.
  • Costs All the money a business, or a movie, has to spend to keep running or to get made, also called expenses.
  • Cross-Collateralized Using the profits from one movie or territory to cover the losses of a different movie or territory.

D

  • Deal Memo A short written summary of the main points of a deal, usually meant to be binding even before a longer, full contract is signed.
  • Debt Money you owe to someone else, which usually has to be paid back with a little extra on top called interest.
  • Deferral Compensation that will be paid once a certain goal has been reached, instead of being paid right away.
  • Delivery Handing over all the finished physical and digital pieces of a movie to whoever is going to distribute it.
  • Derivative Works A new creative work based closely enough on an older, copyrighted work that it needs the original creator's permission, like a sequel or a remake.
  • Directors Guild of America (DGA) The labor union that represents film and television directors in the United States, negotiating their minimum pay and working conditions.
  • Discounted Cash Flows A way to figure out what money you expect to receive in the future is worth today, since money later is worth less than money now.
  • Distribution The process of turning a finished movie into money, by releasing it in theaters and on every other platform where people watch it.
  • Distribution Fee A share of a movie's earnings that the distributor keeps for itself, usually a percentage of gross receipts, confusingly called a "fee."
  • Distribution Rights A contract that gives a company permission to sell copies of a movie in a specific place, for a specific window of time.
  • Distributor A company that gets a finished movie in front of an audience, either by selling it to theaters and platforms or by showing it directly, like a streaming service.
  • Docker A tool that packs a computer program and everything it needs into a sealed box called a container, so it runs the same way on almost any computer.
  • Domestic Territory The United States and Canada, treated together as one region in most movie distribution deals.
  • Droit Moral An author's or director's personal right to be credited for their work and to object to it being changed in ways they consider disrespectful, respected more in Europe than in the United States.
  • DVD A shiny plastic disc that stores a movie digitally, popular for watching movies at home before streaming took over.

E

  • Equity A claim on what something is worth, either the traditional ownership stake left over after debts are paid, or, in independent film financing, a mix of a repayable loan and a share of the profits.
  • Errors and Omissions Insurance Insurance that protects a movie against lawsuits claiming it stole someone else's copyright, trademark, or reputation.
  • European Film Market (EFM) A major yearly marketplace held in Berlin, Germany, where movies and their distribution rights are bought and sold, similar to the American Film Market.
  • Exhibitor A company that lets an audience actually watch a finished movie, like a movie theater, a streaming service, or a pay television provider.

F

  • Film Rentals The portion of box office ticket money that a movie theater actually pays over to the movie's distributor.
  • Final Cut The finished, official edited version of a movie, with no more changes to be made.
  • Financier A person or company that puts up cash, goods, or services to help make a movie, in exchange for either being owed money back or owning a piece of it.
  • First Dollar Gross A participation deal that gives someone a percentage of a movie's earnings starting from the very first dollar, instead of waiting for a milestone to be reached.
  • First Look A deal giving one company the first chance to negotiate for, or the option to buy, a movie's rights before anyone else gets the chance.
  • Foreign Territory Every country in the world except the United States and Canada, for the purposes of a movie distribution deal.

G

  • Gap Loan A loan made against the movie rights that have not sold yet, based on a solid guess at how much those unsold territories will eventually bring in.
  • GitHub A website where people store, share, and work together on computer code, while keeping a full history of every change.
  • Gravity The invisible pull that keeps your feet on the ground and makes dropped things fall down.
  • Green Light The official decision to move forward and actually make a movie.
  • Gross Participant Someone entitled to a slice of a movie's adjusted gross receipts, either starting from the very first dollar or once a certain milestone is reached.
  • Gross Receipts Every single dollar a movie brings in at a specific point in the chain of people selling and reselling it, before anything at all is subtracted.

H

  • Hard Floor A guaranteed minimum share of profits for a producer, below which the distributor, not the producer, absorbs any further participations owed to talent.
  • Hold-Back A contract rule that stops a distributor from releasing a movie in a certain way until a specific time has passed.
  • Home Video Watching a movie by buying or renting a physical copy, like a DVD, instead of seeing it in a theater or streaming it.
  • Home Video Royalty A common contract rule where only a small slice, often around 20 percent, of home video earnings actually count toward what talent are paid on.

I

  • IATSE The labor union representing the below the line crew who build, light, and run a film or television set, like camera operators and set builders.
  • ICO A way for a company to raise money by selling its own brand new digital coins to investors, instead of selling shares of stock.
  • Intellectual Property (IP) The creative, one of a kind parts of a movie or other work, like its story, characters, dialogue, and even props or locations, that make it uniquely itself.
  • INTERCEPT Function in Microsoft Excel A Microsoft Excel formula that looks at scattered data points and tells you where the closest straight line through them would start, before anything has changed at all.
  • Interest Extra money paid over time for the privilege of using someone else's money.
  • Internal Rate of Return (IRR) The single interest rate that would make a deal's net present value exactly zero, used as a quick way to compare how good different investments are.

L

  • Lagrange Multiplier A math trick for finding the best possible answer to a problem when you are only allowed to pick answers that follow a rule.
  • Liabilities All the money a business is required to pay in the future, including loans, deferred pay, and bills.
  • Limited Liability Company (LLC) A type of business that protects its owners' personal belongings from being taken if the business runs into serious money trouble.
  • Line Producer The person in charge of managing a movie's budget and its day to day operations, from before filming starts all the way through the final edit.
  • Linear Algebra The math of lists of numbers and the grids of numbers that stretch, spin, or flip them, used to describe things like directions, pictures, and 3D graphics.
  • Loan An agreement to borrow money that requires paying the lender back the full amount, plus interest, at some point in the future.
  • Loan-Out Company A small company that a single actor, writer, or director sets up so that their services can be hired out to movies through the company instead of hiring the person directly.
  • London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) A once famous daily interest rate that big banks reported for lending to each other, used for decades as the starting point for pricing loans all over the world.
  • Long-Form Contract The full, detailed written agreement that spells out every single term of a deal, including all the fine print.

M

  • Machine Learning Teaching a computer program to get better at a task by showing it a huge pile of examples, instead of writing exact step by step instructions for every situation.
  • Main Titles The opening credits shown at the very start of a movie.
  • Markov Chains A way to describe something that hops from one situation to the next by chance, where the next step depends only on where it is right now, not on how it got there.
  • Merchandising Rights The right to sell physical products, like toys and t-shirts, that use a movie's trademarks or copyrighted characters.
  • Minimum Guarantee A fixed amount of cash a distributor promises to pay the producers as soon as the finished movie is delivered to them.
  • Monte Carlo Simulation A way to solve a hard problem by trying it many times with random chance and seeing how the results turn out on average.

N

  • Nash Equilibrium A balance point in a game where no one can do better by changing their own choice alone, so everybody stays put.
  • Negative Cost The full cost of actually producing a movie, including the above the line and below the line budgets, financing costs, and a safety cushion for surprises.
  • Negative Pickup A deal where one distributor agrees to pay the entire cost of making a movie, but only once the finished movie is handed over to them.
  • Net Present Value (NPV) The value of a future stream of money, shrunk down to today's dollars, minus what it costs today to get started, so a positive number means a good deal.
  • Net Profits What is left of a movie's gross receipts after subtracting every imaginable cost, including the budget, distribution fees, and residuals.
  • Non-Theatrical Showing a movie on a small screen somewhere other than a regular movie theater, like a school, a church, an airplane, or a military base.

O

  • Off-the-Tops A short specific list of costs, like taxes and collection fees, subtracted from a movie's gross receipts before almost anything else.
  • On Spec Making a movie without any distribution deal already signed, hoping to sell it only after it is finished.
  • Option Agreement A deal where a producer pays a small fee to reserve the movie rights to a story for a set time, with the full price agreed in advance if they decide to make it.
  • OTT (Over the Top) Sending a movie or show straight to a viewer over the regular internet, instead of through cable or satellite television.
  • Output Deal A contract requiring one company to acquire every single movie another company produces, sight unseen.
  • Overage Extra money a movie earns above and beyond its minimum guarantee or advance, once it does better than expected.
  • Overhead An extra markup, like an added 15 percent, tacked onto a movie's costs when figuring out how much profit is left to share.

P

  • Participation A contract that gives someone a share of a movie's profits, if it earns any at all.
  • Pay-or-Play A contract rule guaranteeing that an actor, writer, or director gets paid their full fee even if the movie ends up not using them.
  • PFD Agreement A deal where a distributor, often a big studio, agrees to directly pay for a movie's entire budget, in exchange for producing, financing, and distribution rights all at once.
  • Point One percent of a movie's profits, the unit used to measure how big a share someone gets.
  • PPM A detailed document that lays out all the important facts and risks of an investment before someone is asked to put money into it.
  • Pre-Production All the preparation work done before actual filming begins, like hiring crew, scouting locations, and finalizing the budget.
  • Presale A contract that sells a movie's distribution rights in one territory before it is even made, in exchange for a promised payment once it is delivered.
  • Prints and Advertising (P&A) The money spent to actually release a finished movie, like marketing and getting copies of the film out to theaters, separate from the cost of making it.
  • Probability A number that measures how likely something is to happen, from completely impossible to absolutely certain.
  • Profits Whatever money is left over after subtracting all the costs of running a business or making a movie from everything it earned.
  • Project What a movie is called before filming has actually started, when it is still just an idea, a script, or a plan.

R

  • Recoupment A distributor's right to get back the money it advanced before it has to start paying out any extra overages.
  • Release Print A copy of the finished movie made from the approved answer print, used to actually show the film in theaters.
  • Release Window A specific stretch of time and a specific place where a movie is available, like theaters first, then streaming, then television.
  • Residuals Ongoing payments owed to actors, writers, directors, and crew whenever a movie or show they worked on gets used again later, like on streaming or reruns.
  • Return Getting back the money you originally invested, called the principal, plus extra money on top like interest or profit.
  • Revenue All the money an organization earns by selling its goods or services.
  • Rolling Break-Even Recalculating a movie's break-even point again and again over time, instead of only checking for it once.
  • Royalty Ongoing payments a distributor owes to whoever licensed them a movie's rights, based on a percentage of what the movie earns.

S

  • SAG-AFTRA The labor union representing actors and other on screen talent in the United States, formed when two older unions merged into one.
  • Sales Agent A company hired to find distributors around the world and negotiate the sale of a movie's distribution rights on the producer's behalf.
  • Sample A smaller group taken from a much bigger population, used in research when it is impossible to study every single member of that population.
  • Share One single unit of ownership in a company, like one slice of the whole pie of common stock.
  • Soft Floor A guaranteed minimum share of profits for a producer that can still shrink a little further, unlike a hard floor which cannot.
  • Stock Ownership in a publicly traded company, usually made up of common stock, that can be bought and sold on the stock market.
  • Studio One of the small handful of major companies in the United States that produce and distribute most big budget movies, like Disney, Warner Brothers, or Universal.
  • Subdistributor A company that a distributor hires to help actually distribute a movie in a specific place.
  • SVOD Video on demand you get access to by paying a regular subscription fee, rather than paying for each movie separately.

T

  • Talent The industry word for the writers, directors, and actors who create a movie's story and performances.
  • Talent Agent A person or company whose job is finding acting, writing, or directing work for the artists they represent, and negotiating those deals.
  • Tax Credit A rule from a government that lets a company or person pay less in income taxes, often used to encourage movies to film in a certain place.
  • Tax Incentive Any government rule that reduces the taxes a person or company owes, or pays them back directly, based on how much they spent in that government's area.
  • Trades The nickname for the movie industry's own news publications, especially Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.
  • TVOD Video on demand that you pay for one movie at a time, either to rent it briefly or to buy it and keep it forever.

V

  • Vig Slang for interest earned on an investment, borrowed from an old gambling word.
  • VOD Watching a movie digitally whenever you personally choose to, instead of at a fixed showtime.
  • VR Virtual reality, a technology that uses a special headset to make you feel like you are truly standing inside a digital world.

W

  • Waterfall The agreed order and amount that everyone gets paid out of the money a movie earns, from the first person in line to the last.
  • Windowing The strategy of releasing a movie through several release windows in order, usually starting with theaters and ending with free television or streaming.
  • Writers Guild of America (WGA) The labor union that represents film and television writers in the United States, negotiating their minimum pay and working conditions.

X

  • XIRR Function in Microsoft Excel A Microsoft Excel formula that finds the yearly rate of return for money that arrives on real, irregular calendar dates instead of a neat once a year schedule.
  • XNPV Function in Microsoft Excel A Microsoft Excel formula that works out net present value using the exact calendar dates money arrives, instead of assuming it shows up in neat, evenly spaced chunks.

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