About Us

When Harold met Brenda it was the start of something unique in the world of film financing and banking.  Harold Lewis and Brenda Doby-Flewellyn, both highly experienced and highly regarded entertainment industry banking executives, worked together at Union Bank of California.

Harold served as Vice President and Manager of the Entertainment Banking Group for Union Bank’s Beverly Hills Private Banking office.  His responsibilities included leading a team of relationship managers that acted as trusted advisors to actors, directors, producers, writers and executives in the entertainment industry providing lending, investment and advisory services.

Brenda was Vice President in Union Bank’s Entertainment Division and had become one of the leading finance professionals in the industry, financing more than 100 films.  She also financed negative pick-up transactions with all of the major studios, was the first to create “gap” financing for film productions, and her reputation was established with the industry’s top business and talent management firms and attorneys.

FILMBANKERS International (FBI) was formed in 2006, to provide a critical, one stop resource to help filmmakers negotiate the fast changing and sometimes arcane world of film finance.  It also enables financial institutions to enter the lucrative film production business without the need to build, staff, and maintain a dedicated and specialized department.

Between them, Harold and Brenda have built a team that has, collectively, more than 80 years experience in banking and entertainment finance and which provides unique consulting, advisory, finance, and distribution services to clients.

Key to the company’s success and the centerpiece of its offerings to filmmaker clients is FBI’s consulting practice which assesses projects in three phases, including a comprehensive and rigorous proprietary 35-step vetting system covering all aspects of the project, including marketing, financing, statistics and investigatory elements.

Says Harold: “This is a green-light evaluation and by the time a project goes through this process we will know whether this thing should be done or not.  We do what is called probability analysis; we apply statistical modeling, as well as regression analysis, for risk-assessment.  We’re bankers by trade, by background, so we assess the probability of failure not the probability of success.

“That’s a concept that’s the inverse of what other people do, but we’re trying to assess what is the probability, within a reasonable period of time, that an investor will get their money back.  The investor will have a very sober and clear view of that as a result of our thorough analysis.”  

Brenda notes: “Our film clients are primarily creative people and we are their business partner.  We’re truly looking at a project from a business point of view.  However, we speak the industry language and we speak the business language so it’s a really good complement.

“We respect talent, we respect producers, directors, writers and I think that we’re unique in that we do what we do and let them do what they do.  We don’t try to do their job, which is the creative aspect of the project.”
                                                                                             
Harold adds: “We’re not trying to apply business school techniques to the creativity, but we do apply business techniques to the financing of a film.  In other words, we match production creativity with financial creativity.”

FBI advises clients in the finer points of deal structure, helping maximize investor’s ROI (Return on Investment), and maximize profit participation in the case of filmmakers, while keeping a keen eye on risk.

When a project has been cleared for financing, FBI is able to offer an array of financing alternatives to meet the needs of these commercially viable projects.  The company’s expertise in financial packaging includes bank underwriting, equity raises, product placement, banking presale contracts, gap financing and other sources.

FBI works with its clients on an exclusivity basis.  Harold explains it this way: “Our whole business is responding to needs.  We analyze what the market is, but there is a lot of distrust in this business.  We felt that the only way the joint interests and goals of our clients and FBI could be aligned properly is if we are part of the same team.

“In the case that a client generates a source of finance, we are the clearing house to vet that source to make sure it is legitimate, real money, thereby protecting our client.  It could be that we convert some of the financial instruments into acceptable monetary instruments.

“As bankers we have experience in real estate, we have experience in precious metals, in oil and gas, and we can convert different pieces of collateral into acceptable monetary instruments.  We will also vet out foreign banks or institutions to make sure they have the capital to be able to come through on what they say so we can protect our client.”

FBI also provides distribution services for its clients helping to identify the right distributor for a particular project.

“We have non-exclusive output deals with a couple of the major domestic distributors,” says Brenda.  “We will also have our own branded distribution through a major, and we will take some completed films and find distribution for them.  Our goal is to enhance ownership and participation for our clients.”

For the financial institutions and investors, FBI is able to bring to them appropriate packages for their specific requirements according to their policies.

“You could say we do preliminary underwriting for the financial institutions and investors so that none of their time is wasted.  By the time we bring a deal to them it is already structured according to their policies.  It reduces the transaction time and makes it easier for them to accept the deal because we speak their language.”

Harold is quick to make the distinction that Bankers International is not a bank but helps clients obtain financing.  However, a new company, The Film Vault, is on the horizon and very much a part of Harold and Brenda’s future plans.  This is a fund that they are raising to do direct equity investment.

“It wouldn’t be in any competition with any of our financial partners,” says Harold, “but would put a greater responsibility on us to vet the deals out very well.”

More will be forthcoming on this exciting new development.  In the meantime, both Harold and Brenda agree: “When it comes to assets, our integrity is our most valuable asset.”