There's a "rule" in film financing whereby the producer gets paid last. It's common for the producer to forego their salary on a project in order to make sure the project gets financed.
I'm not sure when this started or how this became the norm, but it's absolutely antiquated for a funder or financier to require this of their producers. A DoP or Director would never let someone pay them at the end of a project... two years after production. Why should a producer be required to?
This starts to land in ableist territory when you think about disabled producers. A disabled producer, depending on their disability or chronic illness and their place of residence, may have extreme health care costs. How is this producer supposed to pay these costs and remain healthy (and alive) if they aren't being paid a salary on a film / project? This requirement by some funders is directly ableist as it ignores the struggles of disabled and chronically-ill producers who need a salary to survive. How can I, a disabled producer, make a good film to the standards of those very same financiers if I am struggling to stay healthy because I can't afford my health care costs?
Beyond financiers, this exists in the heads of filmmakers and other film producers as well after years of unfair working conditions. We expect producers and other filmmakers (and even ourselves!) to not be paid for their development work. For example, I recently did production work in development on a film. After I left the project for personal reasons, I was made to feel like I was doing something wrong and was exploiting them by requesting that, if/when the film receives financing, that I be paid for my work in development (this was a project with a budget of close to $1 million and with a path to financing.) I need money to survive, more than the average able-bodied person. I spend hundreds of dollars a month on medical supplies, even with health insurance. Requesting that I be paid for work is quite literally imperative to my survival and any challenge to that is ignoring the experience of a disabled producer.
It's ridiculous that the idea of unpaid work or delaying payments is still the norm in the industry. It unfairly targets disabled film producers and directors, whose struggles are not just physical / mental but also financial. There needs to be more money put aside for these disabled filmmakers to manage their disability during the development and production of their films. Envelopes for health related costs are imperative.
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