How Law Firm Ramo’s Sales and Financing Arm Brought Paul Schrader’s ‘Oh, Canada’ and Other Indie Films Across the Finish Line

The process of shepherding an independent movie from ideation to completion is like carrying an armful of eggs through a minefield on the edge of a slippery cliff overlooking a lake of fire: There are numerous ways it can go catastrophically wrong at any moment, and it’s almost guaranteed that some shells are going to crack.

On Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” — about a dying filmmaker (Richard Gere) who gives a former student (Jacob Elordi) a final demythologizing interview — the life-flashes-before-you moment came on the last day of shooting when it looked like production was going to have to shut down.

“We didn’t have all of our financing, and we had to pay the crew,” recalls Tiffany Boyle, president of packaging and sales at the Los Angeles-based law firm Ramo, who served as a producer on the movie.

Fortunately, Boyle was able to call on a trusted financier, who wired the money within 15 minutes, averting disaster.

It was the climatic moment in a game of production troubleshooting whack-a-mole that saw Boyle confronting challenges that were typical (script rewrites), unique-to-the-moment (obtaining a SAG-AFTRA strike waiver for the cast) and unexpected (she came down with COVID during the shoot).

“It was really scary, but because of our relationships at the firm with SAG and some of the other guilds, they trusted us, and they knew that we were going to do right by it, since there was a law firm behind it, and because of that, we were able to get through it all,” says Boyle. “It’s just one of those things where you just put your head to the ground. We make it happen.”

Working with a Ramo sales and packaging team that also includes Stuart Arbury (VP) and Nicole McLendon (creative executive), Boyle handles everything from script coverage, packaging and financing to foreign and domestic sales for film and TV projects, both narrative and unscripted, with budgets ranging from micro to $30 million.

In addition to “Oh, Canada,” which world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, Boyle’s credits include executive producing (alongside firm founder and managing partner Elsa Ramo) Paul Leyden’s “Chick Fight,” starring Malin Akerman and Alec Baldwin, Saim Sadiq’s “Joyland,” which was the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize Winner in 2022, Schrader’s “The Card Counter,” starring Oscar Isaac, and Gus Van Sant’s upcoming “Dead Man’s Wire,” starring Al Pacino and Coleman Domingo.

Boyle attended film school at Loyola Marymount University, and after graduation, immediately landed a job with production company Crystal Sky Pictures. There she got an education in development, foreign sales and branded IP, working on such films as “Ghost Rider” (2007), starring Nicolas Cage, the live action
“Bratz” movie (2007) and the revenge actioner “Tekken” (2010).

“I was there for three years, and it got to a point where I was kind of looking for my next thing,” says Boyle. “My friend put me in touch with Elsa. She said, ‘I’m trying to expand. I get a lot of clients that are asking me questions like, “What do you think of the script, and how do I put it together?”’ So I came on to do that [in 2009], and then we also brought in my sales expertise.”

Ramo says that, going forward, they’re looking to serve as producers on two to four projects a year where they know the team, like the people and feel like they can be “additive” to the process. “Even though there’s a contraction in the marketplace, not very many people know how to make a movie from start to finish, so we feel like there’s a lot of opportunity.”