Pillango Productions · Est. 2019 · Sydney / Pécs

Zoltan L. Deak

Producer / Filmmaker / Author

Twenty years of features, commercials and television across Australia and Europe — distilled into the book nobody handed me when I made my first film.

Get the book What's inside
STOP!… And Read This Before Making Your First Film, second edition, standing on a wooden table
Roll camera

Sc. 01 The Book

Book cover: STOP!… And Read This Before Making Your First Film by Zoltan L. Deak

Second Edition — Revised & Expanded

Stop!…
And read this before
making your first film

A real-world guide to making — and selling — your first feature film.

Everybody tells you how to shoot a movie. Almost nobody tells you what happens the morning after the wrap party — when the footage is in the can and the film still has to find an audience, a distributor and its money back.

This is the plain-spoken, unglamorous, deeply practical version: budgets that survive contact with reality, financing and incentives, the paperwork that quietly decides whether your film can ever be sold, and the sales and delivery process that first-time filmmakers almost always discover too late.

  • Development
  • Budgeting & cost control
  • Financing & incentives
  • Co-productions
  • Production management
  • Contracts & deliverables
  • Festivals
  • Sales & distribution
Get your copy

Sc. 02 Get the book

Take one.

Second edition — revised and expanded.

Second edition · Revised & expanded

STOP!…And Read This Before Making Your First Film

Zoltan L. Deak

Buy now

Secure checkout via IngramSpark

Bulk orders, film schools and workshops — get in touch.

Sc. 03 The Author

Portrait of Zoltan L. Deak

Zoltan L. Deak · Producer, Pillango Productions

I've been on both sides of the first film.

I'm an Australian–Hungarian producer with more than twenty years of international experience across feature films, television and commercials — leading complex, multi-stakeholder projects from concept to delivery, and balancing creative vision against budgets, schedules, contracts and crews.

I founded and ran The Deli Agency in Sydney for twelve years, producing branded content for clients including LinkedIn, AON and Telstra Wholesale. In Hungary I directed 360 episodes of a daily children's programme for the national broadcaster, and today I run Pillango Productions in Pécs — developing features, handling film sales, and working with financing structures and the Hungarian 30% tax incentive.

I wrote this book because the gap between "we finished the film" and "the film found its audience" is where most first features quietly disappear. It doesn't have to.

20+Years in production
360TV episodes directed
2Continents, one passport each

Sc. 04 Credits

The call sheet.

  1. 2019 — Now

    Founder & Producer

    Pillango Productions — Pécs, Hungary

    Feature film development and production, film sales, business development, and a virtual studio project for broadcast weather.

  2. 2015 — Now

    Freelance Director & Producer

    Various production companies — Hungary

    Television, commercials and music videos. Directed 360 episodes of the daily 26-minute children's programme Felsős for the national broadcaster.

  3. 2004 — 2016

    Producer, Creative Director & Cinematographer

    The Deli Agency Pty Ltd — Sydney, Australia (Founder)

    Built and ran a content and production agency serving corporate, media and independent clients. Online branded campaigns for LinkedIn, AON and Telstra Wholesale.

Training

  • Producing — Australian Film, Television and Radio School, 2015
  • Advanced Diploma, Screen & Media (Multiplatform Producing) — Metro Screen, 2010
  • Advanced Diploma, Accounting — TAFE, 1990

Core expertise

  • Feature & TV producing
  • Executive & line producing
  • Project operations
  • Budgeting & cost control
  • Team & vendor leadership
  • Creative development
  • Co-productions
  • Hungarian 30% tax incentive
Download full CV (PDF)

Sc. 05 Bonus reel

The bonus reel.

The book gets you through the shoot. The list keeps sending you the things I wish someone had put on my desk the first time — working templates, plain-English explainers, and the paperwork nobody hands a first-timer.

Join the list

  1. 01

    First-timer's budget top sheet

    A template you can open and start filling in, instead of a blank page and a rising sense of dread — the line items a first feature actually has.

  2. 02

    The Hungarian 30% incentive, in plain English

    What it is, who qualifies, roughly what it's worth to you, and where first-timers trip over it. Written for filmmakers, not for lawyers.

  3. 03

    And whatever comes next

    New templates, guides and notes from the floor go out to the list before they go anywhere else.

Sc. 06 The course

Sit in the producer's chair.

The book is one way in. The other is five Saturdays with a working producer, following real projects as the decisions get made — not a finished story told backwards.

Course date to be announced

See the course

Online course

Film Producer Fundamentals

  1. 01What does a producer actually do?
  2. 02Development
  3. 03Financing
  4. 04From packaging to the shoot
  5. 05Post-production, delivery, distribution

Online, live◆5 sessions◆Max 10 people◆195 USD