Meet Sara. She runs a small production company somewhere in Europe with four people on the payroll and two projects that matter this year. One is a feature film, a drama with a director she has worked with before. The other is a documentary series that a broadcaster liked enough to ask for a second meeting.

Sara is fictional, and so is the year below. It is an imagined production year, pieced together from situations that independent producers will recognise. Not every producer meets all of them, and not in this order. For each one we add what tends to help.

January. The commission that takes longer

The documentary series looked close. The commissioning editor liked the pitch, the taster tape went down well, and then the answer became "not yet". The channel wants to see how its current slate performs first. The streamer Sara also approached now asks for projects that are further along, ideally with talent attached and part of the money already in place.

That matches the figures. According to the European Audiovisual Observatory, the number of TV fiction titles commissioned by global streamers in Europe fell by 7% in 2024 compared with 2023, the second year of decline after years of growth. The total number of fiction titles produced fell by 5% (European Audiovisual Observatory, December 2025). Those figures cover TV fiction in the EU, the UK, Norway and Switzerland, not documentaries, so they are a signal rather than a measure of Sara's own market. For a producer it means more development work at her own risk, and more months between the first pitch and the first invoice.

What helps. A development budget per project with a clear stop point, so it is a decision and not a drift to keep going.

March. Less of the series is hers

When the broadcaster finally says yes, the offer covers most of the budget, but in return it wants more rights for longer, and in more territories. Sara wanted to keep the international sales and a possible format version.

Fully funded commissions are attractive because the money is certain, but they often come with a buyout of the rights. Keeping rights usually means putting money in yourself, through deficit financing from distributors, funds and incentives. That can make a project more valuable and much harder to finance. Owning rights is one way to build a company, not the only one. A company can also do well on its margins, on returning commissions and on a reputation for delivering, and many do. Sara simply has to choose which kind of company this series helps her build.

What helps. An overview per project of which rights are kept, which are sold, and what each choice means for the finance plan.

May. A finance plan in many pieces

The feature has a budget of a few million euros, and no single financier will cover more than a slice. Sara's finance plan has a national film fund, a regional fund, a co-producer in another country with access to that country's fund, a pre-sale to a broadcaster, a minimum guarantee from a sales agent, a cash rebate and a bit of private equity. Seven pieces, and each comes with its own conditions, its own deadline and its own reporting. The regional fund wants a share of the budget spent in its region. The co-production treaty sets how much each country must contribute. The sales agent wants a cast name that the fund's jury does not care about.

Financing an independent film has long looked like this. Every month it takes to close is a month in which the cast's availability, the crew and the season can slip away. The overview of film funds and investors on this site exists because finding all those pieces is a job in itself.

What helps. One list of every financier with their conditions, deadlines, payment moments and reporting duties, kept next to the budget.

July. The budget no longer fits the money

By the time the financing is in place, the budget Sara wrote a year earlier is out of date. Crew rates went up, and so did insurance, travel and accommodation. The financiers, however, committed to the old number. The gap has to come out of the film itself. Two shooting days are cut, two locations are combined into one, and a set built for an early scene is redressed and used again later. The contingency is smaller than she would like.

When costs rise faster than the money a production can raise, the room for the unexpected shrinks. That is when a realistic contingency and a current cost report stop being paperwork and become the way a producer keeps control.

What helps. Comparing two versions of the budget side by side, the one the financiers approved and the one that fits today's prices, so every cut is a visible choice.

August. Finding the crew

The shoot is planned for the autumn, and Sara cannot get her first choice of director of photography, gaffer or production designer. In busy periods the experienced people are booked by the large productions. In quiet periods many of them are idle, and some leave for steadier work.

For a small production this means compromises in experience, higher rates for the people who are available, or moving the shoot. The roles guide shows how many specialists a film needs. Losing one key person can ripple through a whole department.

What helps. Booking key heads of department early, and keeping the schedule and the budget linked, so a moved shoot shows its cost straight away.

October. Waiting for the rebate

The shoot goes well. The cash rebate covers a solid share of the local spend, but it is paid after the production is finished, the costs are audited and the authority has checked everything. That can take many months. In the meantime the crew, the suppliers and the post house need to be paid.

Sara bridges the gap with a loan against the rebate, which costs interest and fees, or with suppliers who are willing to wait. An incentive that is worth a large percentage on paper is worth less once the cost of waiting for it is counted. The incentive comparison shows when each scheme pays out for that reason.

What helps. A monthly cash flow forecast, separate from the cost report, that shows when money really comes in and goes out.

November. Three different AI questions

In post, the questions are new, and they are not one question.

  • Tools that assist. Transcription, subtitling drafts, dialogue clean-up and previs. These save time and change little about who owns what, as long as the tools' terms allow commercial use.
  • Synthetic people. A generated voice, a digital double or an altered face. Here consent and contracts matter. What do the actors' agreements say about their voice and likeness, and did they agree to this use?
  • Generated material. A background or a shot created by a generator. Here the questions are copyright and what the buyer accepts. Some broadcasters and sales agents now ask for a warranty about how AI was used, and insurers ask too.

The rules on consent, copyright and acceptance are still developing and differ per country and per buyer.

What helps. A simple log of which tools were used where, with the permissions behind them, kept from the start of post.

December. More reporting, less time

At the end of the year Sara counts the reports she sent. Cost reports for the financiers. A spend report for the regional fund. A sustainability plan and carbon calculation that some of her funders asked for. A final cost statement, audited, for the rebate. Delivery paperwork for the sales agent. Each wants the same numbers in a different shape.

Every one of those reports is reasonable on its own. Together they take days that a small company does not have, and a mistake in one can delay a payment in another.

What helps. Keeping budget, commitments and actual costs in one place with one chart of accounts, so each report is a different view of the same numbers.

What good financial insight does and does not do

None of these challenges goes away by working harder, and no spreadsheet decides which companies come through a difficult market. Projects, relationships and luck matter too. What clear numbers do is give a producer time. If Sara knows at any moment what is spent, what is committed and what is still to come, she sees a problem weeks earlier. She can show a financier a current EFC without a week of spreadsheets, and when something has to give, she can see the consequences before she decides.

Want to know how your own company handles budgets, actuals and forecasting? The free Production Health Check is a 45 minute conversation about exactly that. New to the terms in this article? See the glossary or read how a film is made.

Related reading: how to build a production budget and what a production cost report is.