NATPE Europe Panel Touts Strength of European Co-Pros

PRAGUE: This morning in Prague, Rola Bauer, president and partner at Tandem Communications, was joined on stage at NATPE Europe by a number of executives from across the international production community to discuss the region's value in the co-production landscape.

The title of the summit was Now, the Story Starts in Europe! Bauer pointed to the French production Les Revenants (The Returned), from Haut et Court, as a project that exemplifies this theme. The story started in Europe: it was shot in France, then traveled to the U.K., where it was successful on Channel 4 with subtitles. It then went to the U.S., where it aired on SundanceTV, and subsequently landed an American format deal, with A&E ordering a remake. “That’s a great indication of how the story starts over here,” said Bauer. (Caroline Benjo, co-managing director of Haut et Court, was unable to attend the session as originally planned due to the French air strike.)

Thomas von Hennet, the VP of international co-production and documentaries at ProSiebenSat.1 TV Deutschland, discussed the changes he’s seen in the co-production arena over the years. Having been involved in documentary co-pros in the ’90s, von Hennet said that the initial need for international co-productions was primarily a financial one. Now, in terms of dramas, the need for international co-productions hinges on the fact that the supply of U.S. series that can travel abroad is dwindling. “There is less of the type of shows [coming in] that were and still are successful on our channels, and therefore we’ve been looking for ways to compensate for that,” he said. “International co-production with like-minded broadcasters and production companies seems to be a way.”

Bauer agreed. “There’s a story need in Europe that the American studios are not delivering,” she said. “There are other stories that they are delivering—that’s what is interesting. But there are certain ones they are not doing anymore, for whatever reason…. That’s why we have to look after our needs.”

Von Hennet said that, for example, audiences of ProSiebenSat.1 channels were very used to watching U.S. procedurals, which there are fewer of now in the marketplace. Tandem has done a number of co-productions with ProSiebenSat.1, Bauer added, because “the stories that we were wanting to tell were stories that may have had a European sensibility in them; they were procedural, they were crime and, more importantly, they may have been based on books that have done very well here in Europe.” Bauer listed Dune and Crossing Lines as examples of Tandem productions that could not have been done out of the U.S. because they have distinct European sensibilities.

Matthew Stillman, the managing director of Stillking Films, has also seen changes in the way the production business has developed in Europe. “When we started, what we were trying to do was create creative and financial value for our partners,” he said. “We were trying to find local solutions whereby we could open new territories and new places to people in traditional markets who could benefit creatively and financially from that. That was the original promise, about 20 years ago. At that time, people tended to shoot in the place that they were based. But through the ’90s and 2000s, we’ve seen a whole industry evolve with productions happening outside of the inception place.”

As Stillman explained, Stillking Films has tried to place itself geographically in areas that add value, with bases in Prague and Cape Town, among others. Therefore, the company is able to act as a co-production partner that can access local rebates and incentives for financing, and also as production managers that can organize local infrastructure to help everything run smoothly.

However, Tomas Krejci, the owner, creative filmmaker and producer at Milk & Honey Pictures, believes that it is no longer enough to just be a production facilitator. “We don’t want to only bring muscles to the table because those muscles are very much replaceable,” he said, noting that labor is less expensive in some of the smaller European countries. “For us to actually have a value as a potential co-production partner, we have to bring creative value to the table.”

The award-winning writer/producer/showrunner Frank Spotnitz does exactly that for international productions. He spoke about his experience working with both U.S. and European broadcasters and how the creative process differs. “Everything about it is different!” he said. “The business in America is dominated by giant media corporations that have huge resources and they have their own distribution. Here, it is much more like the independent film market—you’ve got to assemble it each time you go and if you try to do big productions, you need more than one partner. It’s very complicated; there are a lot of moving parts.”

Spotnitz said that the first challenge is coming up with “an idea that deserves to be made—a great idea that has integrity. People can smell it if it doesn’t. This is why co-production got a bad reputation some 20 years ago. Then you have to find the right marriage of broadcasters, because you need to have more than one home for it in order to afford the show. You’ve got to make sure you have two compatible partners, otherwise you’re going to be pulled in two different directions and the show is not going to succeed.”

He touched on his experience with Hunted, which was for HBO/Cinemax in the U.S. and the BBC in the U.K. Spotnitz explained that HBO/Cinemax was looking for more “sensuality and violence,” while the same would not work for BBC One. “We would shoot everything pretty extreme [for the U.S.], then pull it way back for the BBC,” essentially resulting in two different versions of the same series.

The British outfit RED Production Company has extensive experience working with the BBC and other major U.K. broadcasters. The company has built a track record in the British market and now has its sights set on getting more into the international co-production sphere. Andrew Critchley, the managing director of RED Production Company, noted that even though it’s mostly telling British stories, “there’s strong appetites for remakes of our material.”

RED recently became part of the STUDIOCANAL family, giving it access to the company’s library. “We have great relationships with U.K. writers, and that [fits with the theme of this session] about where the story begins. It’s vital that the writer’s voice remains central to each project that we make. If we have that, then our strong domestic content will attract interest from overseas.”