The Inner Circle is the premium tier of the Markit Community. It is not a course, a subscription box, or an alumni network. It is a direct, ongoing relationship with a working production company — with monthly live calls, a vetted peer network, full Academy access, Market Pass eligibility, and the kind of applied, current industry knowledge that comes from being active in four major film markets every year. Here is exactly what it provides, how it works, and what the experience is like from the inside.
What the Inner Circle Is Built on
Most film education is built on what someone knew in the past. Courses, textbooks, and training programmes reflect the knowledge and experience of their creators at the time those materials were produced. The industry they describe is the industry as it was, not the industry as it is. The gap between what is taught and what is true compounds with every year that passes since the content was created.
The Inner Circle is built on something different: the live operational knowledge of a production company that is active in the market right now. Every month, Inner Circle members have access to Jason Matthewson — not to a recorded module he produced two years ago, but to a live call where the conversation reflects what is actually happening in the industry this month. What the sales agent said last week. What the distributor passed on and why. What the investor asked for in the last pitch meeting. What Cannes or AFM or the EFM told us about where the market is heading this quarter.
That is the distinction that makes the Inner Circle different from everything else available at any price point in independent film education. It is not a better version of a film school. It is access to a working production company, in real time, applied to your specific situation and your specific projects.
The Inner Circle is not a course that describes how the industry works. It is a relationship with a company that is operating inside it — every month, at every major market, on real projects with real stakes.
What the Inner Circle Provides
The Inner Circle comes with a specific set of benefits, each of which is designed to address a concrete gap in what independent filmmakers and producers need but typically cannot access. Here is what every Inner Circle member receives from the first day of membership.
Every month, Inner Circle members join a live call with Jason Matthewson. The call covers what is happening on the active Markit slate, what the last market cycle taught us, and the specific questions and situations members bring from their own projects. Every call is recorded and added to the library. No pre-recorded modules. The person on the call is the person doing the work.
Complete access to the Markit Academy course library — all current courses and all future courses released during membership. Film financing structures, packaging, distribution strategy, market preparation, sales agent relationships, investor pitching, and slate development. Not generic content: courses built from the actual operational experience of a working company.
Once a year, Markit selects one Inner Circle member to join the Markit team at a major international film market — Cannes, AFM, EFM Berlin, or the London Film Festival. Full accreditation. Real meetings. The rooms where this industry conducts its business. Not as an observer. As a participant. This is the highest-value benefit available in any film community at any price.
Inner Circle members attend Markit Producer Summits in Los Angeles and London at no additional cost. Full-day events with industry speakers, working sessions, and structured networking. These are not general filmmaking conferences. They are producer-focused events run by a company that operates at market level, designed for people building real projects and real careers.
The Inner Circle network is not open access. Every member has been through an application process and assessed for professional seriousness and genuine intent. The conversations in the Inner Circle network reflect that quality filter — they are substantive, specific, and commercially grounded in a way that no open-access community can replicate. The value of the network is a direct product of who is in it.
Inner Circle members can bring their projects, financing plans, pitch decks, and development questions directly into the monthly call conversations. The feedback is from a producer who has packaged and financed projects at market level, not from an educator whose knowledge is theoretical. This is the specific type of feedback that changes the outcome of the next pitch meeting.
What a Monthly Call Actually Looks Like
The monthly call is ninety minutes. Here is the structure that has evolved through the first year of calls, refined based on what members consistently find most valuable.
Jason opens with what has happened in the past month on the active Markit slate and in the wider market. A financing conversation concluded. A sales agent meeting from the most recent market. A distributor’s response to a pitch. A deal that closed or a deal that did not. This is not a news roundup — it is first-hand intelligence from being in the industry in real time.
A structured thirty-minute session on a specific topic chosen based on where members are in their projects and what the market cycle makes most relevant. In the months before Cannes: market preparation and sales agent conversations. In the months after AFM: financing and closing. At any time: packaging, investor pitching, distribution strategy. The topic is always practically applicable to what members are working on right now.
The bulk of the call. Members bring their specific situations — a project they are packaging, an investor conversation they are preparing for, a sales agent approach they are about to make, a financing structure they are trying to close. Jason responds with specific, applied feedback. This is the part of the call that most consistently produces the outcomes members report as transformative.
Specific next steps for the coming month: what should be done, by whom, and by when. Members who have committed to specific actions in the previous call are asked to report back. This accountability structure — light but consistent — is one of the most practically useful features of the call format.
Every monthly call is recorded in full and added to the Inner Circle library. Members who cannot attend live have full access to the recording within 24 hours. The growing library of past calls is itself one of the most valuable resources in the Inner Circle — a chronological record of real market intelligence, real project feedback, and real industry developments applied to the specific situations of real producers, updated every month without exception.
The Market Pass in Detail
The Market Pass is the most distinctive benefit the Inner Circle provides, and the one that most clearly reflects the difference between what Markit offers and what any educational platform can offer. Once a year, Markit selects one Inner Circle member — through a process that considers their current project, their stage of career, and how the specific market chosen can best serve their development — to join the Markit team at a major international film market.
The member attends with full accreditation. They are present in Markit’s market meetings. They see how a professional production company prepares for a market, navigates it across multiple days, conducts sales agent and buyer conversations, and follows up on the commitments made in those conversations. They are not watching a simulation of these activities. They are in the room when the actual meetings happen.
The knowledge that comes from that experience — from seeing how a working producer handles a difficult sales agent conversation, or how they respond when a buyer passes on a project they believed in, or how they close a meeting in a way that advances rather than stalls the relationship — cannot be taught in any classroom or transmitted through any course. It requires being present. The Market Pass creates that presence.
The market knowledge you gain from being in the room for one week at Cannes with a working production company is worth more than any amount of reading about it. The Market Pass exists because we believe that — and because we are committed to making it real for one member every year.
Who the Inner Circle Is For
The Inner Circle is not for everyone, and it is not designed to be. The application process exists precisely because the membership is selective, and the selectivity is the mechanism by which the network delivers its value to every person in it.
The Inner Circle is designed for producers and filmmakers who are at a stage in their career where they are actively developing projects with real commercial intent — working on packaging, preparing for market conversations, building financing structures, or developing the commercial understanding that will allow them to do those things more effectively within the next twelve months. It is not designed for filmmakers at the earliest stages of their careers who need foundational knowledge; the free community and Markit Producer tier serve those members better. It is not designed for people who want to be adjacent to the industry without being committed to working in it.
The member who gets the most from the Inner Circle is the one who comes to every call with a specific situation, engages with the feedback, and acts on the commitments they make in the accountability structure. The call is the most productive context available — but only if the member uses it. The difference between a transformative Inner Circle experience and an expensive subscription is almost entirely determined by the level of engagement the member brings to it.
Ask yourself honestly: Do you have an active project, or a serious development plan that will produce an active project within the next six months? Are you at a stage where specific, applied feedback on your packaging, financing, or pitch approach would produce a meaningfully different outcome in the next conversation you have? Are you willing to engage fully — to bring your real situations to the calls, to act on the feedback, and to be accountable to the commitments you make? If the answer to all three is yes, apply. If any of them is uncertain, start with the free community and build from there.
What Members Say
The most honest assessment of what the Inner Circle provides comes from the members who have been through it. Here, in their own words, is what the experience has meant for the producers who have been part of the first year of calls.
Before joining the Inner Circle I had been developing the same project for two years without being able to move it forward. After three months of calls with Jason, I understood exactly what was wrong with my packaging approach and what I needed to do to fix it. We are now in active financing conversations with an investor who was referred through the Inner Circle network.
Inner Circle Member — Independent Producer, LondonThe Market Pass changed my career. I had never been to Cannes in a professional capacity. Attending with the Markit team and sitting in on real market meetings gave me an understanding of how the industry actually operates that I could not have got any other way. The conversations I had that week led directly to my first meeting with a sales agent for my project.
Inner Circle Member — Film Producer, DublinWhat sets the Inner Circle apart is the specificity. Jason does not give generic advice. He looks at your actual project, your actual package, and tells you specifically what is working and what is not — based on what buyers in the current market are actually doing. That quality of feedback is what I had been missing for years and could not find anywhere else.
Inner Circle Member — Writer-Producer, Los AngelesThe Application Process
The Inner Circle application is reviewed personally by Jason. There is no automated filter, no algorithm, and no threshold that guarantees acceptance. The assessment is holistic: what is your current project and where is it in development? What specifically are you hoping to get from the Inner Circle? What does your background and track record tell us about your commitment to the work and your readiness for this level of engagement?
Applications that are accepted are typically those from producers and filmmakers who are clearly at a stage where the specific benefits of the Inner Circle — the monthly calls, the Market Pass eligibility, the vetted network — will produce material outcomes in their work within the membership year. Applications that are not accepted are typically those from people who are not yet at the stage where the Inner Circle provides the most value, or who have not provided enough context for a meaningful assessment to be made.
The application is straightforward: email info@markitproductions.co.uk with the subject line “Markit Community | The Inner Circle Application”. Tell us your background, your current project, and what you are hoping to get from the membership. We respond to every application within five working days.
The Inner Circle costs £997 per year. It is not positioned as an accessible entry-level offering — it is positioned as the serious producer’s tier, for people who are committed to building real projects and who understand the value of direct, sustained access to a working production company in the rooms where the industry operates. If that describes where you are and what you need, we would like to hear from you.