After a swirling mess of 2009, 2010 seems to be off to a solid start for Cyan. Things are, as mentioned, calming down a bit, though mainly because our projects are for once happily moving forward, rather than all simultaneously coming off the rails. One of our films was just acquired, another is in the final throes of post-production, and a third gears up for pre-production at the end of next month.

Still, most of my day is spent fundraising and then fundraising some more. Movies ain’t cheap.

This morning, however, I had the brainstorm of all brainstorms, and I’ve been feverishly drafting documents since.

The idea itself – a tax-arbitrage structure leveraging Federal and state subsidies for film – is complicated, but the effect is simple: it reduces risk on a film investment to 15 cents on the dollar. In other words, invest $100, see potential upside from that full $100, but face a maximum loss of $15.

Which, I think, should make fundraising a fair bit easier. Those Goldman boys got nothing on me.