Thursday, March 19th
Our special guests this week,
Peter Klass, Viviana Zarragoitia, William Nix will Present on:
A Survival Guide to Investing in Hollywood: Where Finance, Accounting, and Legal Strategy Converge
Hollywood is speculative and can offer meaningful upside -- but only for those who understand the risks. The new landscape of entertainment is defined by emerging technologies, premium intellectual property exploited across multiple forms of distribution and media, and waves of consolidation at the highest levels of the industry. Savvy investors and their teams of representatives invariably find themselves at the intersection of established paradigms and new deal structures. Having the right experts by your side is paramount at all stages of the process, and where our panel of experts comes in.
“A Survival Guide to Investing in Hollywood” provides backstage access to the often unseen world of Hollywood accounting and the nuanced issues at play. This seminar provides a unique insider’s perspective and explores where film and TV deals most often unravel, why disputes arise, and how they are resolved in practice. It will also address the ways in which front-end negotiation across talent, investor, and distributor deals affects back-end recoupment for all parties embracing these new deal structures.
Drawing on experience across business negotiations, audits, and litigation support, our panelists Peter Klass - Partner and Profit Participation Services Practice Leader at Green Hasson Janks, Viviana Zarragoitia – SVP of Film/TV Finance in TPC's lending division, and Professor William Nix - CEO of Creative Projects Group, offer their combined expertise in Hollywood to address current pressure points impacting investors, producers, and attorneys and explain why experts are critical when navigating backend definitions, deal structures, and dispute strategy.
This seminar will provide insight into how this ecosystem of deals, audits, and disputes operates in the Hollywood studio system and beyond. Expect practical tips for how to manage the complex web of stakeholders in this field, how to identify potential issues and anticipate disputes, and real world frameworks for resolving conflicts from the pre-filing stage all the way through trial
When you’re thinking about where to donate, please consider supporting your local food bank
Our presenters:
This program brings together three leaders whose work sits at the intersection of entertainment, finance, accounting, and dispute resolution.
Viviana Zarragoitia is Senior Vice President at TPC, a boutique firm specializing in senior lending for film and television. She has been involved in financing more than 200 independent films and has received over 80 Executive Producer credits. Earlier in her career at Lionsgate, she worked in profit participation and audit divisions, overseeing multi-million-dollar distribution deals and managing royalty audits. She is an active member of the Producers Guild of America and serves on the board of Female Executives in Media & Entertainment.
Peter Klass, CFE, is a Partner at GHJ and leads the firm’s Profit Participation Services Practice. With more than 25 years of experience in entertainment accounting and audit, he specializes in profit participations, contract compliance, litigation support, and dispute resolution. Before joining GHJ, he worked at Sony Pictures Entertainment managing profit participation statements and supervising worldwide third-party audits. He is co-author of the third edition of Movie Money: Understanding Hollywood’s (Creative) Accounting Practices and a recipient of the L.A. Times’ Entertainment Business Visionaries award.
William Nix is Founder and CEO of Creative Projects Group® and a producer working across entertainment, media, sports, and intellectual property. A lifetime voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and a member of the Television and Recording Academies, his work spans feature films, documentaries, and multi-platform media projects. He serves as an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine’s Straus Institute, where he teaches Entertainment & Media Dispute Resolution, and he has long been engaged in projects that connect storytelling, finance, and global impact.
Together, they bring deep experience in financing, accounting, compliance, production, and dispute resolution within the entertainment industry. We’re fortunate to have all three perspectives on one stage.
Offered by Will Work For Food, founded by Natalie Armstrong-Motin (www.HowToMarketMyMediationPractice.com, moderated by Jeff Kichaven (www.JeffKichaven.com ) and Jean Lawler (www.LawlerADR.com), and Program Coordinator, David Shraga (www.DavidShraga.com).
This worldwide conversation will be like nothing else. Join in! Share, learn, have fun, and raise money for food banks.