‘Talk To Me’ Backer Head Gear Opens U.S. Arm With Ambitious Indie Investment Plan

EXCLUSIVE: Head Gear Films is opening in the U.S. and company co-founder and CEO Phil Hunt has told Deadline Head Gear US will sink $120M into U.S. indie film and TV in year one.

Head Gear exec Samantha Allwinton will run the new unit as Director of Operations. She will be based in Denver and spend time between there and LA. She was previously COO of Head Gear Films, based in London. Before joining Head Gear she was at Ingenious Media.

Head Gear majors in independent film, TV and games finance, including government incentives, presales, gap and bridge funding, as well as executive production and packaging. It has recently helped finance The Apprentice, Talk to Me and How to Have Sex.

The Head Gear US office is opening its doors as a new proposed federal tax credit, part of the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act, is moving through Congress. It would apply on top of new and existing state-level incentives.

Hunt said he wants Head Gear to be in position as the aforementioned industry-boosting measures take effect, which he expects to happen by year-end. “Over 50% of our deal flow is American movies, so we’ve already laid that down. The reason to go to LA is to increase that flow because the federal tax credit’s coming in, which is nice timing. It’s about having more of a foothold in the U.S. and being on their time zone.”

He added: “U.S. producers will have half their budget covered and still need the rest. We’ve closed that gap on close to 600 films. We want to be there before the rush.”

Head Gear is using existing resources for its U.S. expansion and will provide various types of finance. “When we look at where the company is at right now, and all the other companies that we’re horizontally integrated into, they’re growing. We have got money that we can deploy,” Hunt said.

The Head Gear team are regular visitors to the U.S. and Hunt made the point that having a full-fledged base there has been a long-held ambition. “I’ve been meaning to open up in the States for a very long time. I’ve never found the right person until now, who’s got exactly what Head Gear needs and understands Head Gear’s character and ethos, which is quite different from that of most people.”

The newly-minted Head Gear US will be at AFM in November and then Sundance in January. “I’ve spent years running Head Gear from the inside,” said Allwinton. “I know how we choose films and why we say no to most of them.

“Now I get to sit across the table from U.S. producers and tell them straight what their film is worth and how we’d get it made. American independents are about to get a lot of new money. We’re here to help them turn it into films people buy.”

Production Focus

Hunt co-founded Head Gear in 2002 with Compton Ross, who as well as his film interests has been a CEO in the international oil and gas industry for 48 years.

With the U.S. office opening, Hunt also spoke about his wider strategy for the business and plans to boost Head Gear’s production-side role.

“We’ve been silently kind of working on the production side of Head Gear, and the next phase for us as a business is going back into production and really kind of being the producer’s producer. So, working for the producer in the background; they’ve developed projects, and then we help package them up, do the business affairs, get them off the ground, run finance plans, and then years down the line, we’re still helping collect the money.”

Hunt said Head Gear is helping to fund about 30 movies a year and is a hands-on exec producer on a third of those. “Coming from a ‘failed’ producer background, I’m really fascinated with helping producers and guiding them through the marketplace better than ever using our data.”