October 1, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode, Jeff Deverett sits down with Cameron Woodward, founder of Wrapbook, a payroll service built specifically for the film industry. They dive into the essentials of payroll management for indie filmmakers, covering:
- Why proper payroll is critical for productions of all sizes
- The role of insurance and how it protects both crew and producers
- Understanding deductions and compliance requirements
- The benefits of paying employees through EOR (Employer of Record) services
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, you're making a feature film and you're going
(00:02):
to need to pay a lot of people. You need
to pay your cast and your crew, and that can
be a pretty daunting task writing all those checks. So
I suggest you use a payroll service. Today's guest runs
one of the best ones. If you want to be
a successful indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot
(00:24):
about not just the production of movies, but the business.
We are going to tell you the truth and reality
of what really happens in the indie film business. All right,
Today we have Cameron Woodward, who is the co founder
of rap Book and rap Book. If you don't know,
I haven't heard of it as a profound and great
(00:46):
payroll service. I would know because I'm a client, and
I don't even know if you know I'm a client, Cameron,
But I shot two films using your payroll service and
it worked out really well, and hence the reason I
wanted to invite you as a guest. So I'm going
to plug using a payroll service, and you can plug
using yours. So nice to meet you. Can you just
give us sort of your background how you got into this.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, absolutely, well, happy that you are a happy customer
and that this is not a public lashing for the
payroll process not working well, but for those listening an
honor to be here. Thank you Jeff for having me.
My name is Cameron Woodward. I am one of the
co founders of wrap book dot com. I got my
start making content online with a nonprofit organization called Invisible Children.
(01:32):
Learned a lot about creating content and stories that people
find engaging and important, and that inspired me to then
start a production company where for eight years I built
a pretty decently sized non union production company in the
Bay Area, and during that process I learned a lot
about sort of the background tasks and administration that goes
(01:55):
into making a production successful. And one of the things
that was most alarmed and challenging and difficult in my
experience as a film producer was entertainment payroll and also
entertainment insurance, believe it or not, And so in my background,
during the process of building my commercial production business, I
got an insurance broker's license and then started an insurance
(02:19):
agency called Film Casualty and Insurance Agency that sold property
and casualty insurance to filmmakers. And the reason I did
this was because using insurance as a filmmaker is sort
of different than just being a company with an insurance policy,
because every time you're doing their production, you need to
be able to poll certificates of insurance for different locations,
you need to add endorsements. There's a lot of complexity,
(02:41):
and so I just got very passionate about these sort
of administrative tasks. And in that process, I met my
other co founders at rap book and we had this
shared vision of a financial services platform for payroll that
sort of utilized an industry specific language and feature set
for as filmmakers. And so that was a number of
(03:02):
years ago for me and my journey. It started as
a filmmaker, then an insurance guy, then a software guy,
and a payroll guy. And I'm really really happy to
see that it's been a useful tool for you, Jeff,
and thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Okay, well, let me just explain why I use a
payroll service as an indie producer. It's not just about
writing checks to people. It's about doing the deductions and
doing them properly in each of the areas you're shooting,
Like each state has its own regulations and numbers and
amounts and filing properly and doing the W two's at
(03:36):
the end of it. There's a lot that goes into
doing things properly now. One of the most important components,
and this is what I think most indie filmmakers don't understand,
is that years ago, when I first started the film business,
you could bring people on as independent contractors and they
would basically work and then they would give you an
invoice and you could pay them and they were responsible
to pay their own taxes. That was allowed a lot
(03:58):
of jurisdictions, certainly californ You where I work, say that
you need to employ the people now, even though it's
short term, Like you know, you bring them on for
a month for an indie shoot, and you say, why
do I have to employ them? It's only for a month,
And they say, because that's the law, and if you
break the law, you're gonna there's gonna be problems. The
thing that you guys do, and I don't know if
all payroll companies do it, is that you are actually
(04:21):
the employer of record. So the people who work on
my shoot, the actors and the crew, are actually employed
by you wrap book and then I pay you to
pay them and you issue all the paperwork, and I
get you know, it makes my life a lot easier.
So can you explain, like I mean, I think a
lot of indie producers don't understand that component of having
(04:41):
somebody employ people on your behalf.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well said, Well stated you you sort of touch on
a few things, and I'll try to sort of hammer
away at these different elements one by one for listeners
to sort of understand. So the first thing that you
mentioned is absolutely right. There are people that you hire
on a production that are workers, and there's a question
of how should they be classified as an independent contractor,
(05:07):
which is somebody that brings their own tools, sets their
own hours, typically has control over what their workday looks like.
Or are they an employee, which is somebody's subject to
W two wages, subject to various benefits and rights as
an employee. And when you're on set, typically a worker
(05:28):
receives a call sheet that tells them when to show up.
When they get to leave, you tell them when they
get to take lunch. You probably provide them with tools
that you've rented from a rental house. Because of this,
even non union productions, when you're employing workers, traditionally and
typically fall within the classification of employee, and because they're
(05:48):
an employee, you have to be able to understand how
to calculate their withholdings for state and federal taxes and
be able to assure yourself and the workers that they're
being paid according to proper timelines. And so that's a big,
big piece of this. The other part of it is
that you know, working in entertainment, there is a very
(06:08):
distinct possibility that your production will be unionized, and if
you're working with unionized labor, those collective barding agreements stipulate
that their workforces will be paid as employees as well.
And so you're absolutely right. Rap Book is an employer
of record. And what this means is that rap Book
will contractually enter into a relationship with the common law employer,
(06:31):
that is you, the film producer, and will take on
some of these responsibilities related to calculating the withholdings and
then sending those monies to the proper whether that be
a state or a federal government tax. And then as well,
an ear also manages the workers compensation experience, which is,
let's say one of your workers gets injured, they file
(06:52):
a claim that I'll actually go through wrap Books Workers
organization to help manage that part of this as well.
Imagine yourself as a documentary filmmaker and you're filming across
six or seven states in the United States and your
cast and crew are working you know, good long six
seven hour days. You know, to do this compliantly by
(07:14):
yourself without an employer of record would mean that you
like need to calculate and remit to each of those different.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
States, and a nightmare, a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It just doesn't even make sense, you know, unless you're
a full on company that exists in perpetuity and then
you are constantly remitting. If you're not, and you're a
short term film, like, it just doesn't make sense. And
so the employer of record model that you know, wrap
Book utilizes really helps with these obligations and the union
(07:47):
obligations as well.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Now, some of the stuff that you do is greatly
assists in people in filmmakers filing for tax credits and
or rebates. Are you involved in that component of it
or do you just provide the documentation that they need
to do their filings.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
That's a wonderful question, and thankfully I have hopefully some
useful answers. So we just talked about eor payroll. Right. Yes,
wrap Book is an eoer employer employer.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Of record for those viewers who didn't catch that, Yes, yeah,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So rap Book is an employer of record. But we're
also a financial technology company, meaning that like, when you
use wrap book, you're getting this entire suite of software
that allows you to sort of manage this workflow of
paying and accounting for your productions. What do I mean
by that? When you use rap book, you invite workers
(08:42):
to your given projects, workers on board themselves, fill out
time cards, and then that automatically pushes throughout the system.
This includes to a production accounting software. So you were
describing production incentives across the United States and even the world.
There are differing types of incentives for filming there, depends
(09:03):
on the type of content, depends on the budget, depends
on how many people you're hiring locally. And it's really
important in order to secure these incentives that when you're
paying and spending money in these given jurisdictions, that your
production accounting solution is properly coding and classifying the transactions
(09:24):
that are going through your production. And so we talked
about wrapic as an ear for production payroll. But wrap
Book as a software company, also has a production accounting
software that enables you to produce you know, the proper
cost reports and general ledger reports, but in addition do
something called fringe mapping and tagging various classifications so that
(09:46):
in the event that you get audited, which you will
if you're looking for a film.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
No, no, no, it's a requirement to do an audit.
It's not like a bad thing, you got audited. You
have to do the audit.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
That's exactly right, in order to get I apologize from speaking,
but absolutely you're going to be audited. But it's a
happy audit.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
It's a you hire the auditor to do the audit
for you, exactly. It's not like you're going to get it.
You have to arrange it. You have to pay for it, exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
But to pass that audit right, to pass that audit, well,
to maximize the amount of money that you get back,
you want to have really really clean production accounting so
that you can see the classifications of what the expenses were.
See the backup meaning like the receipts, the invoices that
have been properly reconciled and so at wrap book. We
have a fully integrated production accounting solution built in with
(10:35):
the employer of record payroll, which is the crew onboarding,
the time cards, the start work, the time card approval processes.
It flows into the production accounting software where you're tracking
you know, your vendor payments and all of that.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So on the production accounting side you can track all
your payments, not just the labor payments.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, that's correct. We have a couple of different neat
feature sets within wrap Book related to this. For short
projects like a commercial, a short film, you may not
need a totally robust production accounting solution. You might just
want to use petty cash tracking, purchase order creation, and
that way you can sort of track your costs in
(11:14):
addition to payroll. But if you are utilizing an incentive,
you definitely would want to use the production accounting software,
which gives you a really robust, you know, set of tools,
things for like posting transactions from credit cards or pulling
in automatically from wrap Books payroll, your payroll invoices, your
ability to like you know, post all kinds of transactions
(11:37):
and code them appropriately multi budget so that you can
keep track of where all of your expenses went and
then pass your audit with flying colors.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Okay, so this all sounds fantastic, and I know it
is because I've used it. I didn't use the production software,
so I'd only use the labor side, like the employer
record thing. But next time I'll know better. But it
all sounds expensive now. Actually I know what I paid,
so I know it's affordable, but it's sounds expensive. So
do you want to talk about how sort of the
pricing works on these types of things?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Also a really great question. You know, Traditionally a technology
company is going to charge something like an annual fee
or like a per production cost. That's not how we
do it at wrap Book. We enable the employer of
record service and the production accounting free of charge for
doing your payroll. So there is a cost for every
dollar that runs through the platform, but that's what pays
(12:27):
for your utilization of the software itself. So I can't
remember off the top of my head the pricing. But
if you get in touch with our wonderful salespeople, they
give a demo, they walk through, they learn about your production,
They route you to like do you need help with
the incentives? Do you need help with labor relations, and
then as you transact your payroll through the system, wrap
Book takes its fees and then gives access to all
(12:49):
of the software that we produce.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Okay, So just to clarify this for the listeners, they're
going to take a percentage, like in the case of labor,
if they're processing all of your labor, they're going to
take a percentage of the pay role as a fee.
And it's very affordable. So I mean, I could tell
you what I paid, but each depending on the complexity
of the project and all the levels that you're accessing it,
you're going to get a quote from your rep. My
(13:12):
rep was Jason by the way, who did a great job.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Jason Trump, one of the best I would give.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I'm giving him a plug because if he listens to this,
he's going to phone me and thank me. He's a
great guy, which is, by the way, very helpful when
you have somebody who is who can hold your hand
through the whole process, because listen, most indie filmmakers are
artists and they don't deal with this kind of stuff.
I mean, this is this is a hassle. This is
one of those necessary evils that you have to deal
with and you want to do it properly, but you
(13:37):
don't really want to put a lot of time and
effort into it. So when you're dealing with a company
like yours that actually knows what they're doing and is
holding your hand through it. And I didn't bring you
on to plug you by the way, I just had
a very good experience, it does take a lot of
burden off of the indie filmmaker for things that they
just never really do otherwise, other than you know, when
they make the film. Like I'm a big proponent of
(13:59):
spending money to do it properly because the aggravation and
time factor you would otherwise have to put in, and
you probably wouldn't even do it properly because you don't
know how to do it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
There's a couple of things there that I think are
worth talking about. One is, yes, I'm really glad you've
had a great experience, and you had it a great
experience not just because there was software, but because there
was somebody there to provide service and education or guidance
on using these tools and being a partner to you
going through these processes. And we say it rap book
(14:29):
that one of the core reasons why we're different is
a concierge service model. So that means if you call us,
we aim to have the phone picked up in thirty seconds,
because you might have a worker that's having a hard
time log in or just isn't used to the system yet,
or maybe you have a question about payroll or the
contract that you signed with a given organization, or maybe
if you're an indie filmmaker, you get super super super
(14:54):
lucky and you get that amazing talent and then they're
in SAG and now all of a sud and you
need to figure out how to deal with your production
being union because if you don't, it's going to get flipped.
So you want a really amazing labor relation organization that
can help you in dealing with that and navigate it
and do retroactive payments. Perhaps, so we say that we're
(15:14):
different on that concierge service model, we think we're really
different on just next generation technology, you know, building a
fully integrated end to end solution that makes this just
feel better in using it. And then we say that
we're also engineered for rapid innovation, like we're constantly refining
the software and making it better and better. On the side,
(15:35):
you were just mentioning something that I thought was really
interesting too. On the aggravation factor, Well, the aggravation factor
is like I feel in my bones like a filmmaker.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Right, you come from there, Yeah, you come from that world.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
This is my life's work because I feel deep kinship
with the creative process of creating media. And one of
the things that was so annoying to me as a
filmmaker was utilizing these types of payroll services and then
just getting all of the payroll reports in my email
and then never really being able to use them for anything.
Like it was sort of like this annoyance, this expensive
(16:09):
annoyance that I had to just deal with. Whereas one
of the things I'm really proud of with wrap book
is that as you use the system, it actually accrues
all of the like historical data and knowledge that you're
acquiring in the process of running your production. What I
mean by that is when you hire people through wrap
Book to work on your production, the system remembers all
(16:30):
of those people so that if you work with them
again some other time on a new production, like you
can reference that information. You don't have to, you know,
sort of go back through PDFs to go find a
call sheet. You sort of have a repository of all
of your project's data. That's really really powerful.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Now having had experience in the in the insurance side,
do you guys have offer an insurance solution like can
production insurance through?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
We totally do so you'll find this. If you're a
listener and you've used an EOR before, you know, you
sign up and then one of the first questions they
ask you is, hey, can you please provide us a
certificate of insurance the EOR. The employer of record needs
to make sure that you, as a client, are a
legitimate organization with a general liability policy with an automobile
(17:18):
general liability policy. Because the employer of record and the
production enter in such an intimate relationship, it's really important
for any employer of record to know that there is
insurance is that is operational and effective and legit before
they will enable you to like onboard and pay your workers.
(17:39):
One of the wonderful things about wrap book is we
actually have a fully dedicated insurance agency that if you
don't have a certificate of insurance, you can chat with
one of our awesome in house brokers. They will navigate
with you and sort of understand consultively, like, hey, is
this like a one off job? Are you doing lots
of jobs? What's the size, scale and sophistication of it,
(18:01):
and then work with you to find the right insurance
carriers that can take on some of the risks that
are required when working on your production. So that's one
part of it, and then the other part of it
internally here at Rapid is we have a worker's compensation organization,
meaning that if any of your cast or crew members
file a claim for sickness or injury, we will like
sort of triage those situations and help those workers navigate
(18:24):
the process of a worker's compensation claim.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Okay, last question, do you have aspirations of going back
and becoming a filmmaker now that you've had the inside
scoop on exactly what goes on and I can see
that you have the passion for it. Is that still
in the cards for you? Not that it matters to
pay roll services.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
But I think, especially as the world is changing so
rapidly right now, that one of the most high leverage
things in the world is the capacity and ability to
tell interesting stories. I think it's a way that we
individually make sense of our lives in the world and
how we also collectively make sense of what it means
to be alive as a group, as a civilization. Part
(19:05):
of the reason why I feel so connected to the
work we do at rap Book was the same reason
I felt connected to being a filmmakers. I think instead
of it's me. I never had the personal ambition to
be the storyteller, but I always felt a deep connection
to storytellers and enabling them to do that work, and
so at rap Book, I feel like it's an even
further expression of my desire to enable people to speak up,
(19:27):
to say something, to articulate their aliveness, and to share it.
I think it's a beautiful thing. And so I do
feel like I am scratching the itch as a filmmaker
by being an enabler of filmmakers. But I do have
so many amazing friends and colleagues that I had made
content within the past that like are amazing. There's this
(19:48):
amazing film coming out soon called Holland by a director
named Mimi Cave. You know, years ago I got to
work with Mimi and she's such a brilliant artist and
like to see her succeeding in this way as like phenomenal.
The first director of photography I ever worked with on
a commercial, Caitlin Aris Mindy, she shot a couple of
episodes of the last season of Succession. Just absolutely phenomenal artists,
(20:09):
and so like I do feel this connection to the artists,
the individuals. Keevan Knight, this amazing, amazing guy Bay Area
filmmaker was the key grip on Moonlight that won Best Picture.
Like these people are just like such visionary artists and
to have even a loose connection to them all these
years later, like makes me very proud of what they've
(20:30):
accomplished and what they're doing. And this is a long
long answer to say, like, yes kind of, Jeff, I
mean maybe.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You love filmmaking and you're part you're happy to be
part of the industry and supporting storytelling very much.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So, very much so, and and you know I still
get to, like do do films every now and again, Like,
we worked with some amazing, some absolutely amazing clients, and
so like we for example, we launched them called Crew
Appreciation Day last year, and so we pulled a bunch
of crewd when we interviewed them about who do they
appreciate when they're on set and so like being able
(21:05):
to scratch that filmmaking itch and like tell some of
those stories is great. Or we have an awesome client
called super Prime, like being the guy to go out
there with my producer buddy and direct the case study.
It's like always fun. So I still definitely have a
love for cinematic arts. And you know who knows, I'm
not going to close the door on it.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Right well, Cameron Woodward, thank you very much for being
a guest today. I personally endorse your company. Wrap Book
was a great experience, as I said during the discussion,
and we appreciate your insights. And for those filmmakers who
are doubting whether or not they should spend the money
to do payroll with an employer of record, I suggest
(21:45):
you do. I suggest it'll make your life much easier
and let you focus on the things you really want
to do, which is filmmaking. So good luck,
All right, you're making a feature film and you're going
(00:02):
to need to pay a lot of people. You need
to pay your cast and your crew, and that can
be a pretty daunting task writing all those checks. So
I suggest you use a payroll service. Today's guest runs
one of the best ones. If you want to be
a successful indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot
(00:24):
about not just the production of movies, but the business.
We are going to tell you the truth and reality
of what really happens in the indie film business. All right,
Today we have Cameron Woodward, who is the co founder
of rap Book and rap Book. If you don't know,
I haven't heard of it as a profound and great
(00:46):
payroll service. I would know because I'm a client, and
I don't even know if you know I'm a client, Cameron,
But I shot two films using your payroll service and
it worked out really well, and hence the reason I
wanted to invite you as a guest. So I'm going
to plug using a payroll service, and you can plug
using yours. So nice to meet you. Can you just
give us sort of your background how you got into this.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, absolutely, well, happy that you are a happy customer
and that this is not a public lashing for the
payroll process not working well, but for those listening an
honor to be here. Thank you Jeff for having me.
My name is Cameron Woodward. I am one of the
co founders of wrap book dot com. I got my
start making content online with a nonprofit organization called Invisible Children.
(01:32):
Learned a lot about creating content and stories that people
find engaging and important, and that inspired me to then
start a production company where for eight years I built
a pretty decently sized non union production company in the
Bay Area, and during that process I learned a lot
about sort of the background tasks and administration that goes
(01:55):
into making a production successful. And one of the things
that was most alarmed and challenging and difficult in my
experience as a film producer was entertainment payroll and also
entertainment insurance, believe it or not, And so in my background,
during the process of building my commercial production business, I
got an insurance broker's license and then started an insurance
(02:19):
agency called Film Casualty and Insurance Agency that sold property
and casualty insurance to filmmakers. And the reason I did
this was because using insurance as a filmmaker is sort
of different than just being a company with an insurance policy,
because every time you're doing their production, you need to
be able to poll certificates of insurance for different locations,
you need to add endorsements. There's a lot of complexity,
(02:41):
and so I just got very passionate about these sort
of administrative tasks. And in that process, I met my
other co founders at rap book and we had this
shared vision of a financial services platform for payroll that
sort of utilized an industry specific language and feature set
for as filmmakers. And so that was a number of
(03:02):
years ago for me and my journey. It started as
a filmmaker, then an insurance guy, then a software guy,
and a payroll guy. And I'm really really happy to
see that it's been a useful tool for you, Jeff,
and thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Okay, well, let me just explain why I use a
payroll service as an indie producer. It's not just about
writing checks to people. It's about doing the deductions and
doing them properly in each of the areas you're shooting,
Like each state has its own regulations and numbers and
amounts and filing properly and doing the W two's at
(03:36):
the end of it. There's a lot that goes into
doing things properly now. One of the most important components,
and this is what I think most indie filmmakers don't understand,
is that years ago, when I first started the film business,
you could bring people on as independent contractors and they
would basically work and then they would give you an
invoice and you could pay them and they were responsible
to pay their own taxes. That was allowed a lot
(03:58):
of jurisdictions, certainly californ You where I work, say that
you need to employ the people now, even though it's
short term, Like you know, you bring them on for
a month for an indie shoot, and you say, why
do I have to employ them? It's only for a month,
And they say, because that's the law, and if you
break the law, you're gonna there's gonna be problems. The
thing that you guys do, and I don't know if
all payroll companies do it, is that you are actually
(04:21):
the employer of record. So the people who work on
my shoot, the actors and the crew, are actually employed
by you wrap book and then I pay you to
pay them and you issue all the paperwork, and I
get you know, it makes my life a lot easier.
So can you explain, like I mean, I think a
lot of indie producers don't understand that component of having
(04:41):
somebody employ people on your behalf.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well said, Well stated you you sort of touch on
a few things, and I'll try to sort of hammer
away at these different elements one by one for listeners
to sort of understand. So the first thing that you
mentioned is absolutely right. There are people that you hire
on a production that are workers, and there's a question
of how should they be classified as an independent contractor,
(05:07):
which is somebody that brings their own tools, sets their
own hours, typically has control over what their workday looks like.
Or are they an employee, which is somebody's subject to
W two wages, subject to various benefits and rights as
an employee. And when you're on set, typically a worker
(05:28):
receives a call sheet that tells them when to show up.
When they get to leave, you tell them when they
get to take lunch. You probably provide them with tools
that you've rented from a rental house. Because of this,
even non union productions, when you're employing workers, traditionally and
typically fall within the classification of employee, and because they're
(05:48):
an employee, you have to be able to understand how
to calculate their withholdings for state and federal taxes and
be able to assure yourself and the workers that they're
being paid according to proper timelines. And so that's a big,
big piece of this. The other part of it is
that you know, working in entertainment, there is a very
(06:08):
distinct possibility that your production will be unionized, and if
you're working with unionized labor, those collective barding agreements stipulate
that their workforces will be paid as employees as well.
And so you're absolutely right. Rap Book is an employer
of record. And what this means is that rap Book
will contractually enter into a relationship with the common law employer,
(06:31):
that is you, the film producer, and will take on
some of these responsibilities related to calculating the withholdings and
then sending those monies to the proper whether that be
a state or a federal government tax. And then as well,
an ear also manages the workers compensation experience, which is,
let's say one of your workers gets injured, they file
(06:52):
a claim that I'll actually go through wrap Books Workers
organization to help manage that part of this as well.
Imagine yourself as a documentary filmmaker and you're filming across
six or seven states in the United States and your
cast and crew are working you know, good long six
seven hour days. You know, to do this compliantly by
(07:14):
yourself without an employer of record would mean that you
like need to calculate and remit to each of those different.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
States, and a nightmare, a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It just doesn't even make sense, you know, unless you're
a full on company that exists in perpetuity and then
you are constantly remitting. If you're not, and you're a
short term film, like, it just doesn't make sense. And
so the employer of record model that you know, wrap
Book utilizes really helps with these obligations and the union
(07:47):
obligations as well.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Now, some of the stuff that you do is greatly
assists in people in filmmakers filing for tax credits and
or rebates. Are you involved in that component of it
or do you just provide the documentation that they need
to do their filings.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
That's a wonderful question, and thankfully I have hopefully some
useful answers. So we just talked about eor payroll. Right. Yes,
wrap Book is an eoer employer employer.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Of record for those viewers who didn't catch that, Yes, yeah,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So rap Book is an employer of record. But we're
also a financial technology company, meaning that like, when you
use wrap book, you're getting this entire suite of software
that allows you to sort of manage this workflow of
paying and accounting for your productions. What do I mean
by that? When you use rap book, you invite workers
(08:42):
to your given projects, workers on board themselves, fill out
time cards, and then that automatically pushes throughout the system.
This includes to a production accounting software. So you were
describing production incentives across the United States and even the world.
There are differing types of incentives for filming there, depends
(09:03):
on the type of content, depends on the budget, depends
on how many people you're hiring locally. And it's really
important in order to secure these incentives that when you're
paying and spending money in these given jurisdictions, that your
production accounting solution is properly coding and classifying the transactions
(09:24):
that are going through your production. And so we talked
about wrapic as an ear for production payroll. But wrap
Book as a software company, also has a production accounting
software that enables you to produce you know, the proper
cost reports and general ledger reports, but in addition do
something called fringe mapping and tagging various classifications so that
(09:46):
in the event that you get audited, which you will
if you're looking for a film.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
No, no, no, it's a requirement to do an audit.
It's not like a bad thing, you got audited. You
have to do the audit.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
That's exactly right, in order to get I apologize from speaking,
but absolutely you're going to be audited. But it's a
happy audit.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
It's a you hire the auditor to do the audit
for you, exactly. It's not like you're going to get it.
You have to arrange it. You have to pay for it, exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
But to pass that audit right, to pass that audit, well,
to maximize the amount of money that you get back,
you want to have really really clean production accounting so
that you can see the classifications of what the expenses were.
See the backup meaning like the receipts, the invoices that
have been properly reconciled and so at wrap book. We
have a fully integrated production accounting solution built in with
(10:35):
the employer of record payroll, which is the crew onboarding,
the time cards, the start work, the time card approval processes.
It flows into the production accounting software where you're tracking
you know, your vendor payments and all of that.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So on the production accounting side you can track all
your payments, not just the labor payments.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, that's correct. We have a couple of different neat
feature sets within wrap Book related to this. For short
projects like a commercial, a short film, you may not
need a totally robust production accounting solution. You might just
want to use petty cash tracking, purchase order creation, and
that way you can sort of track your costs in
(11:14):
addition to payroll. But if you are utilizing an incentive,
you definitely would want to use the production accounting software,
which gives you a really robust, you know, set of tools,
things for like posting transactions from credit cards or pulling
in automatically from wrap Books payroll, your payroll invoices, your
ability to like you know, post all kinds of transactions
(11:37):
and code them appropriately multi budget so that you can
keep track of where all of your expenses went and
then pass your audit with flying colors.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Okay, so this all sounds fantastic, and I know it
is because I've used it. I didn't use the production software,
so I'd only use the labor side, like the employer
record thing. But next time I'll know better. But it
all sounds expensive now. Actually I know what I paid,
so I know it's affordable, but it's sounds expensive. So
do you want to talk about how sort of the
pricing works on these types of things?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Also a really great question. You know, Traditionally a technology
company is going to charge something like an annual fee
or like a per production cost. That's not how we
do it at wrap Book. We enable the employer of
record service and the production accounting free of charge for
doing your payroll. So there is a cost for every
dollar that runs through the platform, but that's what pays
(12:27):
for your utilization of the software itself. So I can't
remember off the top of my head the pricing. But
if you get in touch with our wonderful salespeople, they
give a demo, they walk through, they learn about your production,
They route you to like do you need help with
the incentives? Do you need help with labor relations, and
then as you transact your payroll through the system, wrap
Book takes its fees and then gives access to all
(12:49):
of the software that we produce.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Okay, So just to clarify this for the listeners, they're
going to take a percentage, like in the case of labor,
if they're processing all of your labor, they're going to
take a percentage of the pay role as a fee.
And it's very affordable. So I mean, I could tell
you what I paid, but each depending on the complexity
of the project and all the levels that you're accessing it,
you're going to get a quote from your rep. My
(13:12):
rep was Jason by the way, who did a great job.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Jason Trump, one of the best I would give.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I'm giving him a plug because if he listens to this,
he's going to phone me and thank me. He's a
great guy, which is, by the way, very helpful when
you have somebody who is who can hold your hand
through the whole process, because listen, most indie filmmakers are
artists and they don't deal with this kind of stuff.
I mean, this is this is a hassle. This is
one of those necessary evils that you have to deal
with and you want to do it properly, but you
(13:37):
don't really want to put a lot of time and
effort into it. So when you're dealing with a company
like yours that actually knows what they're doing and is
holding your hand through it. And I didn't bring you
on to plug you by the way, I just had
a very good experience, it does take a lot of
burden off of the indie filmmaker for things that they
just never really do otherwise, other than you know, when
they make the film. Like I'm a big proponent of
(13:59):
spending money to do it properly because the aggravation and
time factor you would otherwise have to put in, and
you probably wouldn't even do it properly because you don't
know how to do it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
There's a couple of things there that I think are
worth talking about. One is, yes, I'm really glad you've
had a great experience, and you had it a great
experience not just because there was software, but because there
was somebody there to provide service and education or guidance
on using these tools and being a partner to you
going through these processes. And we say it rap book
(14:29):
that one of the core reasons why we're different is
a concierge service model. So that means if you call us,
we aim to have the phone picked up in thirty seconds,
because you might have a worker that's having a hard
time log in or just isn't used to the system yet,
or maybe you have a question about payroll or the
contract that you signed with a given organization, or maybe
if you're an indie filmmaker, you get super super super
(14:54):
lucky and you get that amazing talent and then they're
in SAG and now all of a sud and you
need to figure out how to deal with your production
being union because if you don't, it's going to get flipped.
So you want a really amazing labor relation organization that
can help you in dealing with that and navigate it
and do retroactive payments. Perhaps, so we say that we're
(15:14):
different on that concierge service model, we think we're really
different on just next generation technology, you know, building a
fully integrated end to end solution that makes this just
feel better in using it. And then we say that
we're also engineered for rapid innovation, like we're constantly refining
the software and making it better and better. On the side,
(15:35):
you were just mentioning something that I thought was really
interesting too. On the aggravation factor, Well, the aggravation factor
is like I feel in my bones like a filmmaker.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Right, you come from there, Yeah, you come from that world.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
This is my life's work because I feel deep kinship
with the creative process of creating media. And one of
the things that was so annoying to me as a
filmmaker was utilizing these types of payroll services and then
just getting all of the payroll reports in my email
and then never really being able to use them for anything.
Like it was sort of like this annoyance, this expensive
(16:09):
annoyance that I had to just deal with. Whereas one
of the things I'm really proud of with wrap book
is that as you use the system, it actually accrues
all of the like historical data and knowledge that you're
acquiring in the process of running your production. What I
mean by that is when you hire people through wrap
Book to work on your production, the system remembers all
(16:30):
of those people so that if you work with them
again some other time on a new production, like you
can reference that information. You don't have to, you know,
sort of go back through PDFs to go find a
call sheet. You sort of have a repository of all
of your project's data. That's really really powerful.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Now having had experience in the in the insurance side,
do you guys have offer an insurance solution like can
production insurance through?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
We totally do so you'll find this. If you're a
listener and you've used an EOR before, you know, you
sign up and then one of the first questions they
ask you is, hey, can you please provide us a
certificate of insurance the EOR. The employer of record needs
to make sure that you, as a client, are a
legitimate organization with a general liability policy with an automobile
(17:18):
general liability policy. Because the employer of record and the
production enter in such an intimate relationship, it's really important
for any employer of record to know that there is
insurance is that is operational and effective and legit before
they will enable you to like onboard and pay your workers.
(17:39):
One of the wonderful things about wrap book is we
actually have a fully dedicated insurance agency that if you
don't have a certificate of insurance, you can chat with
one of our awesome in house brokers. They will navigate
with you and sort of understand consultively, like, hey, is
this like a one off job? Are you doing lots
of jobs? What's the size, scale and sophistication of it,
(18:01):
and then work with you to find the right insurance
carriers that can take on some of the risks that
are required when working on your production. So that's one
part of it, and then the other part of it
internally here at Rapid is we have a worker's compensation organization,
meaning that if any of your cast or crew members
file a claim for sickness or injury, we will like
sort of triage those situations and help those workers navigate
(18:24):
the process of a worker's compensation claim.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Okay, last question, do you have aspirations of going back
and becoming a filmmaker now that you've had the inside
scoop on exactly what goes on and I can see
that you have the passion for it. Is that still
in the cards for you? Not that it matters to
pay roll services.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
But I think, especially as the world is changing so
rapidly right now, that one of the most high leverage
things in the world is the capacity and ability to
tell interesting stories. I think it's a way that we
individually make sense of our lives in the world and
how we also collectively make sense of what it means
to be alive as a group, as a civilization. Part
(19:05):
of the reason why I feel so connected to the
work we do at rap Book was the same reason
I felt connected to being a filmmakers. I think instead
of it's me. I never had the personal ambition to
be the storyteller, but I always felt a deep connection
to storytellers and enabling them to do that work, and
so at rap Book, I feel like it's an even
further expression of my desire to enable people to speak up,
(19:27):
to say something, to articulate their aliveness, and to share it.
I think it's a beautiful thing. And so I do
feel like I am scratching the itch as a filmmaker
by being an enabler of filmmakers. But I do have
so many amazing friends and colleagues that I had made
content within the past that like are amazing. There's this
(19:48):
amazing film coming out soon called Holland by a director
named Mimi Cave. You know, years ago I got to
work with Mimi and she's such a brilliant artist and
like to see her succeeding in this way as like phenomenal.
The first director of photography I ever worked with on
a commercial, Caitlin Aris Mindy, she shot a couple of
episodes of the last season of Succession. Just absolutely phenomenal artists,
(20:09):
and so like I do feel this connection to the artists,
the individuals. Keevan Knight, this amazing, amazing guy Bay Area
filmmaker was the key grip on Moonlight that won Best Picture.
Like these people are just like such visionary artists and
to have even a loose connection to them all these
years later, like makes me very proud of what they've
(20:30):
accomplished and what they're doing. And this is a long
long answer to say, like, yes kind of, Jeff, I
mean maybe.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You love filmmaking and you're part you're happy to be
part of the industry and supporting storytelling very much.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So, very much so, and and you know I still
get to, like do do films every now and again, Like,
we worked with some amazing, some absolutely amazing clients, and
so like we for example, we launched them called Crew
Appreciation Day last year, and so we pulled a bunch
of crewd when we interviewed them about who do they
appreciate when they're on set and so like being able
(21:05):
to scratch that filmmaking itch and like tell some of
those stories is great. Or we have an awesome client
called super Prime, like being the guy to go out
there with my producer buddy and direct the case study.
It's like always fun. So I still definitely have a
love for cinematic arts. And you know who knows, I'm
not going to close the door on it.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Right well, Cameron Woodward, thank you very much for being
a guest today. I personally endorse your company. Wrap Book
was a great experience, as I said during the discussion,
and we appreciate your insights. And for those filmmakers who
are doubting whether or not they should spend the money
to do payroll with an employer of record, I suggest
(21:45):
you do. I suggest it'll make your life much easier
and let you focus on the things you really want
to do, which is filmmaking. So good luck,
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