Europa Distributionworkshop about animation has been held in Annecy from June 7th until June 9th in partnership withAnnecy International Animated Film Festival and Market.

RELEASE STRATEGIES FOR ANIMATED MOVIES IN EUROPE: YOUNG AUDIENCE POLICIES & VIRAL MARKETING

The first talk dealt with release strategies for animated movies in Europe with a special focus on audience policies and viral marketing. It gathered Michaël Ismeni, with Belgian theatrical distribution Le Parc Distributionassociated to the cultural center Les Grignouxand the schoolnetwork Ecran Large sur Tableau Noir, Alessandra Romanelli, from the Swiss child cine club The Magic Lantern, and Stefan Tiess, head of content and video promotion at Moviepilot.de, a web agency for movie communication.

Michaël Ismeni opened the discussion with the presentation of his activity, as a distributor and an exhibitor. Indeed, created 20 years ago, Le Parc Distribution is the distribution arm for young audience animation movies of the cultural center Les Grignoux which manages 3 movie theaters (Le Parc, Churchill and Sauvenière), 8 screens, in Liège. It has been created in a time where animation movies were equal to Disney… Last year, Les Grignoux, first Belgian arthouse movie exhibitor, welcomed 403 000 spectators in their 3 spots. A few years ago, Les Grignoux created Ecran Large: showing movies in the morning for the schools in sixteen French-speaking cities of Belgium (130 000 pupils over one year). Le Parc Distribution movies represent 23 % of these admissions.

The main goal is to develop among young audience the desire to go to the movie theaters, and not only to watch movies at home, on TV, and to build their loyalty towards it. The library is composed  mostly of animated movies, but also of live action movies, some classical films and documentaries. The idea is to create room for movies which are left aside normally.

To achieve this goal, they focus on developing good relationships with the arthouse movie exhibitors in order to be able to program all their movies from Le Parc Distribution, at least for a 6 weeks period. The other main part of the activity is Ecran Large which creates a one year programming booklet sent to every school and teachers. Ecran Large library holds 44 movies whose 21 are distributed by Le Parc. Everything is done in order to reach this young audience target, between 3 and 18 yo, through the learning of watching and understanding movies. They prepare children to became grown up spectators. They need to renew constantly their audience, as children grow… so the network is done by the other pupils, year after year, as well the business model.

The main problems are the following ones: to convince the press to talk about young audience animated movies, to get the public subsidies (they mainly have short movies which didn’t match with the criteria) and the MEDIA programfor distributors. On the other hand, here are their strengths: low expenses, flyers for pupils, social partners, mature internet strategy (website, newsletters, youtube and facebook profiles), co distribution with Folioscope, the Brussels Animated Film Festivalorganization), agreement for movies co purchase with the Flemish distributor Jekinoto divide the distribution between Flanders, Netherlands, and Wallonia, Brussels and Luxemburg, vivid dialogue with French distributors and producers in order to get easily French version of the movies they’re buying. In a way, the weaknesses are the strengths and vice versa…

Thus, the distribution activity is backed by the exhibition one, which enables them to give visibility to their movies. For the future, they’d like to be open to new partnerships, to make their library stronger, to discover new talents in animated movies for young people, to enter a European distributors solid network or to get in touch wich producers who might associate them in projects.

Then, Alessandra Romanelli took the floor to introduce the Magic Lantern association which is a cine club for children from 6 to 12yo, created in 1993 in Switzerland. It has the same goal than Le Parc, to enable children to discover movies in real movie theaters. The originality stands in the fact that children go without their parents (there are four adults which are attending to take care of them). Now, there are 40 000 members and 74 clubs spread around the world (France, UK, Spain, Morocco, Senegal, Argentina, Mexico, Lebanon, Arab Emirates) with different realities to think about. The subscription fee is 32€ a year, 24€ if there is another child in the same family, and free for the rest of the family. It works over a one year period with 9 movies to see: mix of silent movies, black and white, animated ones, etc. 33% of animated movies are shown (12% of stop motion and 21% cartoon movies). Before coming to the theaters, the children read the magazine with all the information and tools which explain the movie. There are five fundamental criteria to choose the movies: technics, emotion, subject, aesthetics, story. For example, Wallace and Gromit, Azur and Asmar, The adventures of Prince Ahmed, etc. They’re setting up partnerships with festivals, like Fantochein Baden, or organizing contests to create a trailer. The idea is to make children active around a range of pedagogical activities. Pop corn, the TV program about movies, is aired on the TSR. As the Magic Lantern is an association, the financing is done through public subsidies, they’re paying screening fees to distributors. There is no advertising.

Finally, Stefan Tiess concluded the workshop by introducing his activity through the website Moviepilot, which started as a personal entertainment guide, on the same pattern as IMDB, and now is more an advertising and communication company for movies distribution. Their clients are the distributors. It’s the biggest and most active film community in Germany. There is no website, it’s only a Facebook page and the whole idea is relying Facebook: the idea is to speak directly to your audience, and consequently to your friends’ audience, to be funny and creative. “Get personal, act boutique”, “there are no bad movies, there are only small audiences” are repeated as a mantra. But Moviepilot doesn’t want to be presented as advertisers, they’re creating games for the audience, because ads are always rejected. You need to by-pass this aspect and make your audience believe that they’re playing… not that they’re indirectly listening to an advertising speech (for example, personality tests for The Simpsonsor Brüno). In Germany, people are reluctant to personal data use, they don’t trust critics as well: using friends is a much better way. Now, they’re mainly working on commercial movies, but they’ll start with indie movies as well. The target audience is from 12yo, because they take the Facebook basic audience when teenagers go to junior high school and create their Facebook profile. Here’s the limit as well, because it seems impossible to target younger audience for animated movies for example.

Moviepilot is a way to communicate about movies in a B to B scheme, by giving people something which doesn’t exist: original footage, trailers, quizzes, tests. When they’re dealing with movie majors, it can be tricky because they’re not keen on giving this kind of material (because of the rights infringement) and they prefer the tests or quizzes. The growing worldwide movies campaign could however restrain their activity.

CHICO & RITA

Fernando Trueba – Spain

Presented by Florent Bugeau from French dsitrbutor, Rezo Films

The movie has been bought to British sales agent Hanwayin Toronto 2010. Then the movie opened Cartoon movie festival in Lyon in March 2011 and they decided to wait until beginning of July to release it in France. It’s an animation movie for adults. Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey – in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero – brings heartache and torment. From Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas, two passionate individuals battle impossible odds to unite in music and love.

The movie will be released on about 60-70 prints, they kept the international poster. Maybe they’ll get AFCAE support. They wanted to end the promotion in Annecy where the movie has been selected. The director, Mariscal, is famous in Spain as Hergé in Belgium or Sfar in France.

They did only subtitled prints. As the movie is relying a lot on the music, the sunny atmosphere, they thought that July is an ideal date to release it. It will work with word of mouth. The idea is to last the whole summer, a bit in the vein of Buena Vista Social Club.

Students, jazz fans, cuban culture fans are the main target audience. There are also many sub targets to work on, like the Spanish music fans.

They organized a contest to win a trip to Cuba, and also teeshirts, soundtracks.

A book has been created from the movie, published by Denoël on June 10th, private screenings of the movie have been organized for booksellers. There will be the “best window award” for the best promotional job done by a bookseller. Mariscal will decide who is the winner.

They set up a partnership with FNAC: tickets to win to the premiere, communication to their subscribers.

The press partners are TV cultural magazine Telerama, language learning Vocable (a contest has been organized: ask the readers to translate a part of the movie).

Sony Music published the original soundtrack composed by Bebo Valdes.

Also, internet with Facebook, cinemovies, FIP Radio.

An art gallery is doing an exhibition on Mariscal work from June to September.

The press reviews are for now pretty good (Premiere, Studio, Telerama and some dailies). Exhibitors like the movie, but they’re not confident with it, they don’t know how to estimate a number of admissions. There is no obvious selling point except music. The movie will be stronger in Paris than in Province.

The P&A is 250 000€. Rezo Films signed a deal with Orange – Studio 37 (half of their line up is composed with Orange movies).

They’re estimating 150 000 admissions.

CASE STUDIES

THE RABBI’S CAT

Joann Sfar – France

Presented by Christine Eloy from Belgian distributor, Cineart

Cineart bought the rights at the script stage, because there was a good fan base of the comics, The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar. They did it also for Persepolis, Ernest & Célestine.

The movie has been refused by Cannes in 2010, they’ve seen the completed movie in January 2011 during Unifrance Rendez-Vous. It was good but not perfect because of rhythms problems particularly at the end. So we weren’t totally so excited about it, and the press showed tepid reviews. The other problem was the distribution in Flanders. The comic is in French so it was easy for Bruxelles. They had to decide in which movie theaters put it and finally they didn’t release it in Flanders. Maybe it will be later. There were 6 prints in Belgium (2 in Bruxelles, 4 in Wallonia), 1 in Luxemburg. 2 were in 3D. They set up partnerships to support the movie: Moustique, a cultural TV magazine (122 000 copies), Le Soir, the most important French speaking daily, premieres with Joann Sfar. One week before the theatrical release, they organized a contest with merchandising to win (comics, tee shirts, pressbook). A newsletter has been sent to 26 000 email addresses. The week of the release, they put a banner in all the cultural pages of Le Soir. There has been a book sign with Joann Sfar in Brussels for the comics. The poster winked at the Cannes winner, Of Gods and men (in French, Des hommes et des dieux) by writing the following tagline “Des chats et des dieux”. 

The marketing strategy was to target adults, the comics fans, the arthouse audience and the UGC network (as it’s the French distributor). The stereoscopic 3D was not an important element, because it’s more “2.5D” and people got bored. There are other real 3D releases, like Kung Fu Panda 2two weeks later.

They estimated 14 000 admissions but it won’t go beyond 10 000 unfortunately, because of the weather the week-end of the release and the qualitative audience will go to see the Dardenne and Malick movies. In comparison, Waltz with Bashirdid 20 000 admissions, and Persépolis80 000. In Liège, they got a programmation scheduled for 6 weeks, so the movie is booked until Mid August.

In France, the movie had 240 prints with 300 000 admissions so far. Normally, in Belgium, the admissions are 2,5% of the French admissions, but in this case it will 1,1%.

The DVD will be released on October 1st.

The P&A was 33 000€, ⅔ for advertising and ⅓ for the prints.

Now, animation movies are really common, and sometimes, they don’t find their place…

A Norwegian distributor did the clever comment that she’s never heard of this comics: it’s tricky in Scandinavia to sell animation movies for adults if there is not something really strong like the historical conflict in Waltz with Bashir.

NEW YORK-UTLAN

France, 90 minutes

Synopsis: 1993, New York is a city under Aztec influence. Peter O’Hogan, a private-eye, is investigating the murder of the first sacred astronauts.

Director, Production: Reno Armanet
Graphic creator: Maud CHALMEL
Author / Scriptwriter: Lionel BOUCHET, Guillaume CABAUD
Target public: 12-15 years / Young adults / Adults
Techniques used: 2D/3D computer, live action

À POINGS FERMÉS
Festival – TVPaint Developpement Special Mention for a Feature film
France, 105 min

Synopsis: Victor Younki is a young Jew born in the Tunisian ghetto. During his life, he will have  crucial meetings – one with a boxer who will lead him to the heights of glory and the other with a lover who will lead him to hell.

Directors: Jean-Jacques Kahn, Franck Van Leeuwen
Production: Jean-Jacques Jauffret, Anne Trefel (Johnny Mad Dog, Après le Sud)
Graphic creator: Franck VAN LEEUWEN
Author / Scriptwriter: Jean-Jacques KAHN
Target public: Adults
Techniques used: 2D computer

For now, they have two partners, CNC development subsidies and Rhônes Alpes regional subsidies. It’s the true story of a boxer, and they wanted to represent it through animation to be able to narrate the century from 1918 to 1960, with the difficult representation of the extermination camps. It’s not illustration but transposition.

The writing has begun, it will be a coproduction between Tunisia and France.

The animation will  be in 3D, with motion capture (done by Thomas Champon who worked on Happy Feet) and photo compositing. The animation will be done by a painter.

ARARAUNA
Colombia, Mexico, Spain, 90 min

Synopsis: In the Amazon Rainforest an indigenous man has three days to save his girlfriend, kidnapped during a Shamanic ritual when in the form of the Ararauna bird. On his path he meets various animals in danger of extinction, and joins forces with them to rally against the international poachers organisation.

Directors: Jairo Eduardo Carrillo, Vlamyr Vizcaya
Production: Vlamyr Vizcaya, Juan Carlos Concha Riveros
Graphic creator: Juan Carlos CONCHA RIVEROS
Author / Scriptwriter: Vlamyr VIZCAYA
Target public: all audiences
Techniques used: 3D computer
Budget 5M€

The project has been presented in San Sebastian and Guadalajara festivals. The first step is to establish a work in progress for the 3D (now in 2D). They’re searching a production company right now, some Spanish and Colombian are already interested. They’re planning to apply to Ibermedia and have hired Beatriz Navarra as a script doctor. They’d like Shakira to do the music.

LA RENARDE QUI N’AVAIT JAMAIS VU L’OCEAN

(TALE OF SHAPE SHIFTER)
France, Great Britain

Synopsis: Kit is 500 years old, has never seen the ocean and can turn into a fox. And she is bored. When Lord Takeo breaks the rules binding them, Kit is delighted by the prospect of having fun at his expense. She has no idea of the potential consequences.

Director: Theresia MCCEARNEY
Graphic creator: Theresia MCCEARNEY
Author / Scriptwriter: Theresia MCCEARNEY
Techniques used: 2D computer
Category: Feature films
Target public: all audiences

Theresia has developed the project by herself and is now looking a director and a production company.
theresia.mccearney@orange.Fr
http://larenarde.blogspot.com
http://taleoftheshapeshifter.blogspot.com

ODDSOCKSHIRE
United Kingdom, Portugal, 80 min

Synopsis: Little did we know that the objects we lose and misplace end up happy and alive in the magical land of Oddsockshire. All objects love it – except for Brolly, who will need help from his  friends to return to his owner Luca.

Director: Sara Barbas
Target public: All audiences
Techniques used: 3D computer, drawing on paper

They’re working with the BBC and looking for a production company.
The main characters have been developed and designed: Lenny the laptop, Penelope the parasol, Keith the key, Moby the mobile phone.
The general visual style will be in stop motion, in a CGI environment.

THE BOOK OF SHADOWS
France, Ukraine, 80 min
Synopsis: Lucas, a street-child, discovers the shadow world and his own supernatural powers.
Director: Anatoliy Lavrenishin
Production: Florence Keller
Target public: 12-15 years / 9-11 years / Young adults
Techniques used: 2D/3D computer

Florence Keller, the French producer, has just been awarded with the Palme d’Or for the short movie she produced, Cross. She spent 2 years in Ukraine as an audiovisual attachée, and met Anatoliy there. They started to work on the project, which can be compared to Kerity.

There are 3 narrative parts: the city with the discovery of the book and the world of shadows (the goal is to understand what is inside a shadow); the child is led by an oz in the forest and learns how to use the book; finally the underworld: as an Orpheus, he’s using the shadows without the books and wants to save his “Eurydice”.

At the end of 2011 summer, the script will be finished along a storyboard. They’re looking for a studio for the coproduction, in Ukraine but also in other European countries.

Budget: 5M€

They aren’t still not sure about the technics to use (it will depend on the budget as well). Maybe a bit of 3D for the shadows only.

The first talk gathered Brian Newman, who used to head the Tribecca Film Institute, Jan Von Meppen who launched VODO FILMS and Tilman Scheel, from Europe Finest.

Brian Newman opened the discussion with a pretty engaging speech about creativity directors and producers should use with new media in order to reinvent the process of distributing movies, and take advantage of the ongoing digital revolution in spite of suffering from it.
He emphasized on the decline of traditional business models for films, including windowing, rights’ territoriality, and more generally gate keepers in a business that went from valuing scarcity into a business where contents are overabundant, and the valuable output no longer resides into the content per se.

Nowadays, consumers’ time is more valuable than the movie as a cultural good itself. Engaging audiences should therefore become a priority for contents producers, in order to encourage one’s public into consuming these images more than a video game or UGC contents. Interactivity should also be a priority, since participatory culture has become the norm, notably because of the expansion of Twitter, Facebook, among other popular social websites.

He notably referred to some artists that took advantage of crowd funding in order to build a fan base that not only play an active part into funding the project itself, but also into marketing it. Such websites as KICKSTARTER, or INDIEGOGO can therefore give a reality to documentaries and fiction projects, relying upon fans’ niche interest into gathering a pro-active community to support the movie (or other cultural products).

Zoe Keating managed to fund her album using these methods, Vanishing of the bees, and IRON SKY are other examples of how Internet, crowd funding and audiences’ engagement could make a project happen, and help finds its audience wherever it is.

He outlined the fact that producers should spend as much time, not to say money, into the marketing and distribution of a movie. The developing time (for the screenplay) should therefore be capitalize in order to build a fan base, with such easy tools as a common Facebook page (in the US, Facebook has now overtaken Google for search), posting creative teasers about the movie, and not hesitate into giving away samples of the product in order to increase public’s interest. Posting creative teasers may eventually be an affordable way of launching a buzz.

He outlined some key words that should remain plugged into our heads in order to capitalize on change.

MULTIPLATFORM:
Young audience is agnostic about platforms, brands and the way they consume media. They don’t care about windows, let alone exclusivity about platforms. Putting out contents on multiple platforms has become a prerequisite in order to reach these audiences and drive them away from piracy.

TRANSMEDIA STRATEGY
Licensing and developing transmedia around a movie is a great way not only to secure the loyalty of the public, but also to increase substantially sources of income.

The MATRIX franchise is a great example of multiplatform strategy with a comic and a video game developed after the movie brand.

The afternoon went on with a polemic presentation from Jan Von Meppen, who launched VODO FILMS. Basically, the website capitalize on P2P networks in order to reach the wide audience that torrents attract. They give away the content for free and cheer up users into paying the money they want to support the work of the filmmaker. It also promote a selected amount of projects, and collects money in exchange for incentives, like downloading the soundtrack, or giving away unique items, crediting donators as producers, ect…. The site makes filmmakers sign a Creative Commons license agreement. Advertisement is another income source, notably throughout prerolls on the videos. The website now counts Verizon, among others advertisers.  The use of P2P network eventually notably decrease the bandwidth used and therefore cost for the platform.

Some French distributors in the audience were completely horrified by this presentation, fearing Vodo would legitimate piracy through kind of monetizing it.  Tilman Scheel’s presentation about Europe Finest also generated mixed feelings among the audience.  They fear an increasing competition from this new service that brings in theaters around Europe some classical movies or more Authors features that would not get a theater release in a given territory, mostly because no distributors bought it. They don’t work on marketing the movie, but mostly into making it accessible to exhibitors. In France, with an average 20 new releases each week, these classics back on screens could generate an overabundant offer according to some participants.

The next matinee opened Saturday with the workshop on viral marketing, followed by practical case studies in the afternoon.

Xavier Roth from Mercredi Films, a French communication agency in entertainment, started with a presentation focused on the various ways a marketing plan should be developed over the web in order to support the film career.

He outlined that the main trend over the web consists in participation and community sharing. Social, video, content strategy and brand identity are key words in 2011.  He also emphasized producers should rely on popular websites in order to drive traffic towards their contents in spite of trying to make web users go to a dedicated website that they would not have ever heard about (that is to say YouTube is no longer the enemy).

The web strategy then should consist in a savant mix of traditional marketing plans over the web and more innovative ones (specifically addressed to this medium).  The classical part consists into building strong partnerships with strategic websites, launching web campaign to hit one’s targets…
The innovative part resides into targeting the relevant blogs, invite web journalists to premieres, and go social. Creating a Facebook page is a first important step, but it needs to be updated regularly, to give insights on the shootings for example, and more generally to give additional value to potential fans in order to make them go to the theaters as well as support the film with a positive word of mouth.  An active follow up of web users reactions and more generally increased interactivity may also enhance the efficiency of the strategy.

Pierre Alexandre Labelle who founded Under the Milky Way , which precisely support digital marketing and distribution online, presented the new company. They already enjoy a partnership with Apple. The company handled the distribution of Benda Bilili online, ranking among top sales on multiple VoD platforms thanks to a good community management as well as strong partnerships with ITunes. The website also allows to manage all the social content posted from a single location, which considerably enhance the web marketing campaign and provide a whole range of data upon users.

Thomas Mai closed the workshop with an inspiring presentation of how distributors should shift from 1.0 to 2.0, the former one no longer being a key for success. Marketing should be connected; distributors ought to pull people towards contents notably via making free samples to be shared available. For example, when FOX worked on AVATAR, almost the whole movie was available via samples for free over the web. Movies are fan dependent, and it’s important to make them part of the whole adventure, at the earliest possible stage.  Word of mouth spreads so fast via social networks that producers/distributors need to prove the quality to the every day man. “Today the closer you get to the audience, the closer you get to the money”.

The website also needs to be sociable by itself: like buttons, newsletters access, loyalty program are as many easy ways to engage the audience, and make the experience more exciting. The website is necessary even if the distributor is also present on FB and Twitter, because on the website, he is the only one in control, and can really build the brand. Facebook is also a great way to promote a movie with people you know, Twitter is addressed to people you don’t know. It’s important to adapt the social contents on each platform upon which the promotion is developed. For example on FB, if all the contents you are posting are commercial oriented, people will get tired of it. You need to mix 80% personal and 20 % promotional contents to keep the audience interested. For a movie, the personal can be creating profiles for the main characters and continue the movie experience in a creative way online.  Therefore, the message become socially credible, especially when information that is not available to the public are given away on these websites.

Thomas mentioned a few valuable websites that may allow distributors identify and reach their target in a more convenient way than in the past. Howsociable.com is one of these, providing brand visibility metrics among a given targeted population. Tweetdeck for example allows you to connect with people interested in definite topics, and therefore reach a potential identified target. Bit.ly is a useful URL shortener that allows to track users, Hotspots on Youtube measures what part of the video gets more attention, and Facebook ads allows to sort targets according to defined interests (including a prism through geolocalization, age, sex, ect…). A sample of Thomas presentation is available here.

The last part of the day has been dedicated to coaching cessions, where distributors were able to initiate the information they had been sharing during the workshop.

Coproduction workshop

Friday, November 12^th

MODERATION: Pascal Guerrin – Backup Films (France)

Alexandre Mallet-Guy – Memento Films (France)

Massimo Brioschi – Mikado (Italy)

A workshop on coproduction opened the afternoon, gathering Alexandre Mallet-Guy from Memento Films Distribution (France), Massimo Brioschi from Mikado (Italy) and Pascal Guerrin from Backup (France). Back UP Films is specialized in structuring and engineering international film financing. It monitors two SOFICA in France, and acts as an intermediate between producers and investors in order to facilitate funding European and International projects.

The discussion opened with the concern about funding indie production, which gets more challenging every day. Therefore, more and more distributors and sales agents are getting involved as co-producers, first in order to develop higher collaboration with talents, but also in order to secure projects at an early stage and benefit from local subsidies in more than only one country.

There are two kinds of coproduction. The “non official” one, which mainly consists in investing equity against long terms rights on local territory, represents the lowest degree of cooperation but may prove really useful to distributors in order to secure rights when the projects gets started in spite of having to compete with counterparts after festival screenings and put a much higher MG if the film is critically acclaimed or enjoys a serious buzz during the festival. The non-official coproduction also allows a better cooperation in festival coverage. Eventually co producers usually come on board driven by a real desire to work with the talents attached to the project.

The “official” one, which is bordered by European Convention and/or bilateral treaties is only applicable if it covers all aspects defined by these international agreements. According to the panelists, this one is therefore more difficult to establish but may prove very efficient in order to get national subsidies. Since there is also an artistic and technical collaboration between co producers in this case, the risks and responsibilities in manufacturing the movie are shared, and so are knowledge/understanding of local markets, as well as access to TV presales. Bilateral treaties (France/Canada; France/Germany; Italy/France) notably define a frame for the movie to qualify for nationalities in both countries, and therefore benefit from local legislation on TV quotas for example, as well as national subsidies in both territories. In this case, the copyright on the movie is also shared.

The European Audiovisual Observatory has developed a database and indexes all local subsidies available in Europe in order to get a movie funded. The Korda database is available here.

Friday, November 12th

MODERATION: Jean-Paul Commin – Consultant (France)

Barbara Tonelli – Touscoprod (France) & Etienne Ollagnier – Jour2Fête (France)

Alessandro Raja & Mathilde Henrot – Festival Scope (France)

Gergo Csikos – Cinefil Co (Hungary)

Peter Buckingham – UK Film Council (UK)

The next panel was dedicated to new tools for distributors, notably related with community management on social networks, digital marketing and how to take advantages of VoD platforms on a B2B approach.

Barbara Tonelli from TOUSCOPROD opened the discussion with a presentation of the crowd funding platform. It allows web users to take financial participation in production and distribution of selected projects. With participation starting at 10 Euros, the return on investment is not always automatic for the users, but it grants them goodies and engages audience with the projects, providing the producer and distributor a free word to mouth as well as marketing exposure on social media as tweeter and facebook.

Touscoprod counts 16 projects in its line up. Besides marketing aspects, the platform may also prove efficient in order to find gap financing for professional (it has raised between 20K and 75K euros on selected projects), which is a consequent amount of money for an indie release in theaters. The expertise in community management provided by the platform in order to create a buzz around the release in theater is also an aspect distributors are looking for when submitting their project.

Jour2Fete which is a French indie distributor created by Etienne Ollagnier has collaborated with TOUSCOPROD on the release of DANCING DREAMS, and reached 100K entries at French BO.

Alessandro Raja and Mathilde Henrot then presented the new tool they have been developing for professional only: Festival Scope. It allows professional to watch online movies selected in festival partnering with the platform, as well as access the complete filmography of talents selected in these same festivals. The platforms also gives information about the availability of the movie on selected territories and media, and these information is updated regularly in order to provide a real useful tool for professionals and sale agents peculiarly. The platform is free for festivals and right holders, but in order to turn the project into a sustainably business oriented platform, Alessandro and Mathilde have been thinking about introducing a reasonable subscription fee for users. The use of professional email in order to join Festival Scope limits now the access to only acknowledged professionals.

Peter Buckingham from the UK Film Council ended the evening with a presentation of the policies developed by the institution in order to promote digital tools in distribution

Saturday, November 13^th

MODERATION: Pierre Alexandre Labelle – Under the Milky Way (France)

Marijn Duijvestein – KEA European Affairs (Belgium)

Efe Cakarel – MUBI (UK)

Jonathon Perchal – Artificial Eye (UK)

Ricardo Torres – Vertice Cine 360 (Spain)

Introducing the panel on VOD, Marijn Duijvestein from KEA consultancy research cabinet, underlines the movie industry still needs to be quicker than the music industry, by understanding what is changing, i.e. the sequences of activities (sequence of funding, exploitation, starting with marketing earlier). Still, the problem remains the access to content. No matter the number of platforms exploding, how transverse the actors are (game consoles and co), the VOD actors need to focus on the ease of use (internet browsers, easy search and alert mechanisms), the value for the consumer and the navigation into European content (VOD markets so far remain national).

In 2008, the European VOD market was equal to 544 millions, and the share of VOD revenues is between 0,2% (Finland) and 1,79% (Belgium) of the total audiovisual revenues. It’s expected to be the same than rental DVD i.e. 2,2 billions in 2013, based on the idea that in USA, 40% of the audiovisual market is rental… So if content is king, what is the problem? Providers just consider VOD as a flagship product, the ultimate goal is to sell internet subscriptions, IPod, computers, etc. depending on their activities. So they don’t really focus on getting a wider number of movies. Anyway the major development to achieve remains multi territory licensing. To conclude, the opportunities are: to reach new markets, to decrease distribution costs, to develop audience; whereas the main challenges are: to get large content aggregators, to experiment how is working the financing gap, and to make easier the EU rights acquisition process. VOD actors need to build brands around movies to engage with their audience. That’s the core strength.

Then, to enter in more concrete details, Jonathon Perchal from UK distributor Artifical Eye, explains how they launch their own VOD platform (they have already theaters, Curzon). The idea is to work title by title, and not buying a bunch of movies, doing a day and date release. The website will be not only for VOD, but also a brand, a marketing tool to reach their audience. The main obstacles he points out are the relationships with the sales agents who don’t want to sell only VOD rights, the platform access, and the competition between Pay TV and VOD: indeed VOD is not allowed during Pay TV window (for example, for the movie Fish Tank they theatrically distributed, they’ll have to wait). If distributors want to come on their website, it will be a usual share of revenues, but he doesn’t want to buy too many movies, in order to be well identified as a brand by the customers. In his opinion, ITunes is really the big challenge, because internet users will go naturally there.

MUBI (ex Theauteurs.com, created in 2007) founder Efe Cakarel arrives in the panel with a non feigned enthusiasm about his company and the initial idea of watching indie movies on internet. He always tells the same story about how he began in the business: he was in Tokyo and wanted to watch Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love: but it was impossible. Whereas festivals are always sold out with indie movies, it became impossible to watch a movie outside festivals. In his opinion, the killer application was to play and watch the movie. So in November 2008, he started Theauteurs.com and sets up a partnership with Criterion Collection and Celluloid Dreams. The project was backed by MEDIA. But nobody was watching movies, the average visit lasted 7 minutes. He realized at that time that TV was necessary (and for example, the set up box, too expensive, never worked): big idea, gaming console! He approached Sony for the Playstation in order to create the first global VOD platform in the world. So, when a gamer wants to buy a game, he’s going to the online store, where there is a now a store for movies, with MUBI (the new name of the company). It has been launched beginning of November 2010, and already 200 000 members have been registered. The idea is to develop also an IPAD application for beginning of 2011. The business model is the following one: subscription at 12,95€ a month + PPV at 3,95€ a movie (there are platforms fees for Sony which he didn’t want to reveal + 300€ for the subtitles + 500€ for the HD for each movie’s expenses). The distributor who has sold his VOD rights has a dashboard for every movie, both for SVOD and PPV. MUBI model is not based on exclusivity, because what matters is the line up, not the “freshness” of a movie. It’s not a catalogue. There is a selective number of movies chosen for their artistic quality (for example, the UK-Chinese movie, She a ChineseI, has been watched 7 times more on MUBI than on Itunes). By the end of the year, he hopes to get 1000 movies. The strength of MUBI is to be not only a VOD platform, but a social platform as well: for example, he knows all the Michael Haneke fans in UK, without spending money on marketing. He’s working with producers, distributors, sales agents, and wants to be in the core of the business, by offering indie movies in all over the world. His goal is to make possible to see a movie with 10 subtitles in 10 years. His revenues are now a couple of thousands every quarter…

Finally, Ricardo Torres from Vertice Cine 360 presented the VOD market in Spain. Whereas different VOD platforms already existed, recently partnerships have been done with Playstation (Sony) and Xbox (Microsoft), and ITunes has just opened its online store with 100 titles. He’s really seeing a growing market emerging with a turning point in 2011 for Spain. But, a lot of people still don’t know what VOD is. Maybe the awareness will come from AVOD (VOD supported by advertising, like in Hulu or Youtube). For now, VOD revenues are between 1 to 3% of theatrical box office. Horror and action movies are working well on VOD, through the Playstation store. There is the same problem with Pay TV exclusivity and the old models of sales agents in Spain. The strength of Vertice Cine 360 is its library of more than 3000 titles, which enable the company to have corners in VOD platforms, it’s easier to market.

If the theory is still the same for VOD (access to content, easiness to use, etc.), the obstacles are still there also from the traditional financing actors. However innovative projects manage to emerge and get a name in the movie industry. To be continued…

Saturday, November 13^th

Moderation: Michael Gubbins – Consultant & analyst (UK)

Régine Vial – Les Films du Losange (France)

Peter Buckingham – UK Film Council (UK)

John Dick – EACEA/MEDIA Programme (Belgium)

Eveline Ferwerda – Cinema Digitaal (Netherlands)

Jean-Paul Commin – ADEF (France)

Christine Eloy – Cineart (Belgium)

Luis Froes – Valentim (Portugal)

The last session of the weekend was dedicated to digital transition in theaters across Europe and how professional are dealing with new costs involved with digital equipment locally.

Peter Buckingham opened the discussion with a presentation of an interesting initiative in the UK based upon creating an event around the screening of a selected movie. So-called SECRET CINEMA creates a buzz around screening a movie (which title remains secret until last minute) in pop up cinema (temporary venues converted into theaters for the time of the screening).

Lawrence of Arabia made 300 000 pounds during a weekend in September in the occasion of a happening like this. The interesting aspect about this initiative is that art house movie may experience difficulties in order to find its audience in traditional distribution networks (mainly because it s hard to keep the copy in theaters week after week) but distributed through innovative ways, art house too may prove profitable, especially through non theatrical exhibition which is not taken really seriously by professionals. Distributors role could therefore be evolving and now also consists in assisting people in creating their own screenings (which has become possible thanks to digital copies) and facilitate these new ways of creating events and promotion around movies.

John Dick from the MEDIA PROGRAMM, which grants funding to selected projects in order to help digital transition, then got right into the main challenge facing the industry today: the cost sharing of digital switch in theatrical exhibition. The whole cost of this transition can’t be supported by the program, and both exhibitors and distributors financial support is a prerequisite to the switch from 35 mm to digital.

The main issue right now is that distributors are asked into a participation in the VPF (Virtual Print Fee), which is negotiated on a case-by-case basis, but evolves around 700 Euros per copy This participation is aimed at compensating the cost involved for exhibitors for getting digital equipment. It’s a transitional costs for distributors who still need to release their movie in 35 mm in order to access theaters that have not yet proceeded the switch. In the future, the digital exhibition may reduce notably P&A costs for distributors. The main issue is to evaluate the transition timeline for distributors to cover exhibitors’ costs in the digital era.

Regine Vial from LES FILMS DU LOSANGE (France) pointed out the ongoing discussions in France upon this topic, and gave a presentation of the legal frame developed by the French Parliament in order to facilitate and border the transition. The law establishes an obligation for distributors to participate in the costs of digital transition through VPF (obligation to pay a digital contribution based on a fee per copy released digitally). This obligation is set to last for the next 10 years, but this is still a controversy topic among concerned professionals.

Another problem raised by digital exhibition is the possible competition from non-films contents in theaters (Opera, Sports, Concerts…). French distributors are trying to make it mandatory for such program right holders to contribute to VPF as well.

These are issues that distributors all across Europe are also facing with nowadays. The workshop allowed everyone to share the local experience, and put in common information in order to face this transition successfully, above all in order to continue indie promotion and art house screening across Europe.

OPEN SESSION

Distributors launch the subject of the efficiency of the viral marketing: as it’s really time consuming to maintain all the social networks, is it efficient? (concretely on admissions). But nobody has now the answer. It’s really difficult to get results, because social media is creating communities: sometimes you have a strong community and disappointing figures, sometimes it’s the opposite. Another distributor underlines cleverly that traditional marketing tools never guaranteed admissions… so that’s the same thing with the new ones!

The tools are existing to share the info, but they’re not used (CDInet database with all the info that distributors need to update on their movies), there is a real need of communication, of data/sharing info.

Adeline Monzier from Europa Distribution pointed out that the next ED meeting will be in Sofia focusing on social marketing, it will be addressed to marketing staff.

Saturday, November 13^th

MODERATION: Jean Paul Commin, consultant (France)

Henk Cluytens – O’Brother (Belgium)

Carolyn Occelli – Haut et Court (France)

Laurent Dutoit – Agora (Switzerland)

Marieke Jonker – Amstelfilm (Netherlands)

The case study is focused on the different distribution strategies, done or to be done, for the Belgian movie ILLEGAL. It has been coproduced by Belgium (Versus Productions), France (Dharamsala) and Luxembourg (Iris), presented in world premiere at Director’s Fortnight in Cannes 2010, and sold by French international sales company, Films Distribution. So far, the following territories have been acquired: Italy (Archibald), USA (Film Movement), Israel (Orlando), Germany (Telepool), Greece (Feelgood Entertainment).

Illegal tells the story of a Russian woman who lives with her teenage son in Belgium, she’s well integrated, has a job, speaks the language, her son goes to school. But she has no official identification papers. When she gets arrested, her son manages to escape, but she ends up in a closed prison like asylum where she risks to get expelled. The movie has a strong political and social anchorage.

The main production company, Versus (Joachim Lafosse, Bouli Lanners, etc), has been created by two brothers, Jacques Henri and Olivier Bronckart, who created the brand new distribution company O’Brother. Thus, O’Brother head of distribution, Henk Cluytens explained how it was important to distribute a movie that you’ve produced. In Cannes, the movie won the SACD prize. The release date has been scheduled for October 6^th: just before, they toured in Belgium with the director and the actress for premieres. There were 14 prints and so far 15 000 admissions (the goal was 20 000, and they’ll do it). The distribution strategy has been focused on three elements. Firstly, the associations: Henk Cluytens underlined it was crucial to have a guide, somebody who can help you choosing the right association (because they all have different means to reach their goal). Secondly, the schools: they were – and still are – responsive to the movie; screenings are booked until April. Thirdly, they wrote an open letter they posted on their website. The question was: how is Belgian government treating illegal immigrants? So far, they got 5000 participations. The open letter has been published as postcards, in theaters and restaurants. Furthermore, Laurent Cantet, Entre les murs’ director, Palme d’or awarded, directed a short documentary (3’), called On bosse ici, on vit ici, on reste ici (We’re working here, we’re living here, we’re staying here), they can suggest it as a supplement for theaters who are showing the movie. Illegal has been selected as Belgian entry for Oscars.

Then, Carolyn Occelli from Haut et Court takes over the panel, relating the French distribution strategy. The movie has been acquired end of 2008, at script stage, only for theatrical rights: Haut et Court is close to Dharamsala, the French coproducer, and to Versus, the Belgian producer. They started working on all marketing elements for Cannes preparation (trailer, key artworks, pics, pressbook – the same for Belgium). Media and non media partnerships have been dealt. The associations were not interested in working on the movie earlier (they did it one week before the release), because, ironically, there were very big issues on immigration laws at that time. Haut et Court decided to focus on online strategy through advertising on cultural and cinema websites (like Allociné or Evene), political targets (like Rue89), Facebook and a blog they created (all the elements could be easily commented).

The movie has been released one week after Belgium, on October 13^th on 73 prints (9 in Paris), but only got 31 686 admissions (Nov 8^th), for a P&A budget of 208 000€. Even if the word of mouth from associations was rather good, people didn’t want to see this kind of movie (when the movie has been released in France, there were harsh strikes). Now, they’re doing screening for associations, and maybe the movie will enter the educational film selection.

On the Swiss part, Laurent Dutoit from Agora Films, bought the movie in Cannes to Films Distribution: he really liked the movie, even if he knew the release would be small (with the same political and social subject, they released Welcome last year, with mixed results – 20 000 admissions). Usually, he tries to schedule the release one week after France to benefit from the media exposure and the word of mouth. But the Swiss Cinémathèque would like to show it during a retrospective and will invite the director to present his movies. The release has been postponed after this event. In Switzerland, there is a law to expel foreign criminals, so this is a hot topic now. He did mailings to associations to spread the news about the movie’s release. If he reaches 1000 admissions, it will be a good number. Indeed, exhibitors are interested but they’ve seen the figures in France, so it won’t be a huge success. Maybe, he’ll manage to get 2 or 3 screenings a day (usually it is 5). The release will be only for the French part (not German neither Italian, because political movies don’t work). Optimistically, he thinks he won’t recoup his costs…

Finally, Marieke Jonker from Amstelfilm in Netherlands, still far away from the release, presents her ideas for the distribution scheduled for March 2011, with 3 prints in 35mm and 5 in digital. The programmers are enthusiastic: the movie has been selected to IFFR in January and MTM (Movies that Matters) in March, just before the theatrical release. The targets are 25yo female audience and students. For now, she thinks she’ll do the same scheme with associations and schools, and likes the idea of the open letter! Still, she needs to explore two important subjects: how accurate is illegal in Netherlands, and how to get in touch with political associations.

These 4 distributors used or will use the same tools to promote Illegal, with a strategy mainly focused on viral marketing and relying on associations. A distributor asks if it was possible to release the movie as a thriller (see the poster), in order to be more commercial, but the panelists answer “no!” in a consensus…