Independent, International Co-Productions, Developing Countries

Independent, International, Co-Productions, Developing Countries

      In this blog post I will be discussing and comparing independent, international co-productions and developing countries with  the financial detriments, distribution  and exhibition and funding bodies in mind.
      An independent production is produced with the help of subsidiaries of other major studios. These major studios fund the independent films. Focus Feature, Lions Gate, Mirimax, Fox Search Light, Paramount Pictures and Think Film and just some some of the more famous subsidiaries out there. The independent films made will have less than half of the funding from a major studio and will most likely be given funds from investors. For an independent film to become successful they must have a well known distributor to put the film out there for the public to see. This distributor might but the rights from the creator so they wont be able to use it anymore. A distributor will most likely want to buy the rights to a film if there is a well known actor staring. This is because the audience will be more likely to buy the film as they want to see their favourite actor/actress. Other ways for independent films to get distributed is film festivals. These give people a chance to get their films out to the public. Also if the film entered into the festival wins and gets awards, it is more likely to be more popular by the public as they assume it must be a good film if it has won awards. Using film festivals is the best way to gain success and acknowledgment for your film and you can have a bigger budget, but you wont be able to make a profit from all the sales as you would have sold the rights to the film, making it no longer your own.
     An international co-production is 2 or more production companies from different countries working together on the same film. By doing this, the countries working on the film can open up an whole new range of audience.This is because the companies will be known in their own country, and the audience will want to watch a film knowing that a company they know and trust has made it. This means that two countries will be watching the film because they know one of the production companies.A larger audience means a larger profit, as more people will pay to see the film in cinemas and buying or renting the film from stores and online. Other advantages to working as part of an international co-production are being able to share a budget and other financial resources, being able to access more locations and a chance to learn from other production companies by working with them. Something that may be a problem when working on an international co-production is that before any of the pre-production can really happen, agreements need to be made between the two countries. This means both countries have to agree to use each others economics, cultural and diplomatic goals.Other parts of the film that the countries will need to agree on come into the pre production stage. These include who will star in the film, what locations they will use etc.Also another disadvantage is that the shooting costs and other prices will be higher than the regular costs, and working with another company means you loose a lot of control you would have had over the film if you had been working alone.World War Z was made for eight different production companies: Paramount Pictures, Skydance Productions, Hemisphere Media Capital, GK Films, Plan B Entertainment, 2DUX, Apparatus Productions and Latina Pictures.The makes the film an international co-production and the profit made from this film would have been split fairly between all eight productions. Having eight different production companies means that the film was distributed to a lot more places and each country would have sold it in their own country. This means the film is more successful as it is seen by a lot more people.
     Developing countries are where Third Cinemas are found, these films are mostly found in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Third Cinema was founded in the 1960's, producing low budget movies by a group of Latin American film producers, usually with a narrative about the politics in the country they are produced in. Third Cinema in Africa usually had a narrative about the independence and culture of the country, but then that changed and the narratives focused on the upper class of Nigeria, this is Nollywood. The Nollywood films are produced in short periods of time, sometimes as quick as a fortnight. They wont ever have high budgets like Hollywood productions do. The typical amount spend on a Nollywood film is around £15,000 and they are sold on video CD's and not shown in a cinema before hand. This is due to the fact that video CD'S are very cheap to get hold of and sell.Because these videos CD's are so cheap to buy, it means they can be sold at a cheap price as well, making the poorer people able to enjoy the entertainment produced.