NFMLA Panel: Film Financing Featuring wiip and Banc of California

Join NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for a conversation about the film financing process with Motion Picture Executive & Producer Luke Rodgers from wiip and Entertainment Finance Executive Adrian Ward from Banc of California's Entertainment Banking Division.

• Moderator: Clayton Davis | Film Awards Editor at Variety

Clayton Davis is Variety's Film Awards Editor. He founded and was the Editor-in-Chief of AwardsCircuit.com. He's covered awards, film, and television for more than 15 years. He's the founder and president of the Latino Entertainment Journalists Association, and a member of Critics Choice, AAFCA, and NYFCO.

• Panelist: Luke Rodgers | Motion Picture Executive & Producer at wiip

Luke Rodgers is a motion picture executive at wiip, a new, global, talent-driven studio. In this position, Rodgers plays a key role in the studio’s efforts to identify, develop and produce a slate of upcoming film and development projects.

Currently, Rodgers serves as an executive producer on wiip’s first film, “Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” by Ana Lily Amirpour.

Prior to joining wiip in 2019, Rodgers was an agent in CAA’s Media Finance Group. In this role, he focused on the independent and international film sector and was responsible for securing packaging, arranging financing and/or selling films including “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” “I Carry You with Me,” “Palmer,” “High Life,” “Swallow,” “Climax,” “The Burnt Orange Heresy,” “A Kid Like Jake,” and “The Florida Project.”

Previously, Rodgers worked at Leeding Media and Scott Free Productions before joining CAA in 2012. Luke is based out of wiip’s offices in Los Angeles.

About wiip: wiip is an independent studio distinctive in its commitment to letting talent do what talent does best – create. wiip creates and produces content for digital and global platforms.

• Panelist: Adrian Ward | Entertainment Finance Executive at Banc of California

Adrian joined the pioneering entertainment lender The Lewis Horwitz Organization (LHO) in 1991, where he was involved in the development and structuring of some of the first bank production loans based on international sales contracts. In the following years he was instrumental in the risk analysis that led to the first ever gap finance transactions and rapidly became one of the leading lenders within the unit.

In 1998 Adrian returned to his hometown of London, England as LHO’s European Representative, where he specialized in packaging multi-party co-production transactions involving many of the available European tax incentives. Returning to Los Angeles in 2005 as the Portfolio Manager for ICB Entertainment Finance, he was responsible for oversight of production loans with an aggregate value of approx. $200,000,000. Titles funded at LHO/ICBEF included, “Big Fat Greek Wedding,” “Monster,” and “The Tudors.”

In April 2008, he became Senior Vice President of National Bank of California’s Entertainment, Sports & Media Department and provided financing for over 60 films, representing over $175,000,000 in production budgets, in over four years including “The Tempest,” “Red Dog” and “The Ward.”

In January, 2013, Adrian joined Pacific Mercantile Bank (PMB) where he is tasked with building upon the bank’s existing entertainment portfolio to take advantage of the numerous relationships he has built over 23 years in the business. Adrian’s breadth of knowledge, amassed over approximately 700 film and TV transactions, gives PMB the ideal platform to become an industry-leading institution in the increasingly complex world of entertainment finance.

In April, 2019, Ward joined the Banc of California family as Market Executive, where he is currently responsible for leading Banc of California's Entertainment Banking group. This includes music, digital, film and television production banking.

Adrian, a UK native and now a resident in Los Angeles enjoys time with his family and on the golf course.

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