Financing offered for fi lm projects

The Ohio Film Group has launched a film finance department to help the private company’s push into larger film projects and toward its goal of establishing a permanent movie business sector in central Ohio.

The finance department is “hugely important in that it allows us to attract and service independent films and even large post-production projects in need of loans, tax credits and various other financial-service products that we can offer,” said Len Hartman, the company’s president.

The Ohio Film Group opened

its 7,000-square-foot postproduction, visual-effects and animation studio at 380 E. Broad St. in July 2015. Since then, the company has worked on 16 movies, most of them independent films but also some studio films.

A finance department “was always in the back of our minds,” Hartman said. “We didn’t know how quickly or how necessary it would be. As time passed, we were finding that it would allow us to capture more and more projects.”

To that end, the Ohio Film Group’s finance department will link filmmakers with appropriate funding sources — such as film funds or private investors — depending on the size of the project, he said.

To help run the finance department as well as other aspects of the company, the Ohio Film Group has created a new management position of chief operating officer.

That new position is being filled by Chad Monnin, a local entrepreneur and founder and former CEO of humanresources firm Mission Essential Personnel. He is a full partner in the company with co-founders Gil Cloyd and Hartman.

“Chad has financed and produced couple of documentary films,” Hartman said. “We thought he was the perfect guy to bring on board.”