Get value fast

You don't need to fill in everything to see what Film Forge does. Follow these steps and, in about ten minutes, you'll have your best incentive jurisdiction, a drafted budget, and a projected tax credit for your film.

The 10-minute path

1Create your production. From the Dashboard, choose New production and give it a title. You'll drop into the workspace on Home, which shows a guided setup with a Next → button you can follow the whole way.
2Find where the money is. Open Incentives. It ranks film-incentive jurisdictions for you. Pick the one you'll shoot in and hit Set target — that single choice drives your projected credit everywhere else.
3Add your scenes. Open Scenes & Overview and Import from a script — upload a PDF or paste the text, and Film Forge deduces your scenes and their locations. (Have a screenplay in the Script tab already? Use Extract scenes there instead.)
4Draft a budget. Open Budget & Risk, set your above-the-line reserve, and let the AI draft the below-the-line breakdown. Review and import it, then set your fringes.
5See your number. Add a few actuals in Spend (or paste a batch with Import from CSV), tagging what qualifies. Now Home and Finance & Compliance show your projected credit and net cost.

That's the core loop

Incentive target → scenes → budget → spend → your credit. Everything else in Film Forge builds on these.

Worth a look next

Invite your team in Members & License — each person lands where their job is.
Build a shooting schedule — after the breakdown, Build stripboard gives you a real day-by-day board.
Close a deal — draft a Deal Memo and send signing links; it's e-signed and sealed with a proof.
Hand off an audit package — bundle spend, credit, compliance, and chain of title into one verifiable report.

Want the full detail on any tool? See the full guide. Finance-focused? There's a cut for finance teams.

Two shortcuts to know

Press ⌘K (or CtrlK) to jump to any tool by name.
Hover any ⓘ for a plain-English explanation of an industry term.