Go for genre, ‘ignore’ trends

Top -sexecs from leading European production houses gathered at the Sarajevo Film Festival to discuss the current market for acquiring and adjusting IP, where they are adapted to issues such as catering for local and global public, by sanding to precious stones instead of looking for the next miracle and familiarity as a way to the public. Here are five take -away restaurants of their conversation:

Listen to the market … with reservations

Billy Bowring, co-executive producer at the in the United Kingdom in the VK film films (“slow horses”), creatives “not just reactive” warned on the market.

“We constantly talk to broadcasters, go to festivals, trying to find out what the market wants, trends, to try to understand what to do,” he said. “But I have spent a lot of my career working with writers who have a small idea, and often when you try to compare that small idea with what the market wants, you are at least two or three years away from bringing that thing to the market. What the market now wants now has little relevance for the idea you are working on.”

Bowring called this obsession with the chase of market trends ‘absurd’, which states that it is ‘important to have a good understanding of where the market is, but also to completely ignore it’.

However, senior director of Banijay Entertainment Scripted, Denis Leroy, said that investing in proven genres, such as procedurals, who have long dominated French television, logically. “As producers, we have to look first and foremost what the audience wants,” he said. “There are certain constants with genre and other elements that we have to keep in mind, even if we distract from time to time.”

Worldwide

Leroy emphasized that it is “important to be worldwide and to have a worldwide reach in terms of distribution, but also in terms of data, analysis and research, and has a broader vision in terms of IPs and potential remakes, which is a growing company”, especially given the fact that all important international scenario works with a worldwide. But an important point for the Exec is that, despite this focus on a broader network, productions “will always remain locally”.

Executive Vice President of Worldwide Content at Globalgate Entertainment, Meg Thomson, reflects this idea and adds that “Focus on your local market will make your content perform internationally.” For the Exec, formats from underlying areas in this sense offer a great opportunity, because you can be the one who ‘exposes the public to something new’, with this idea of ​​a global pool with a local hook.

Leroy also pointed out how producers should stay locally if they want to reach directly to large platforms, because streamers tend to be dismissed by the possible difficulties and high price tags of large co-productions. “You can’t co-produce and pitch a platform. If you say so [more than one country] involved, they will give you a LA number and tell you to call them [instead]. ”

It’s not about the “new miracle”

Instead of looking for the next version of a large IP such as Marvel and DC Comics, Leroy believes that creatives and managers should concentrate on formats that are not only relevant to their markets, but also something that can easily be adapted to new areas.

“Nowadays IP can come from any market,” said the Exec. “Of course we have DC Comics and Marvel, who may be in a different galaxy, but we don’t have to chase it, if that was ever possible, to find IPs that are relevant to Europe. We should not be too narrow if we mention IP. It is an existing story that can be brought into a different size or market.

Bowring called “slow horses” as a good example, given that the books of Mick Herron “were not bestsellers.” “But if you were a fan of Spy -Romans, you were a fan of those books. It was not ‘the Lord of the Rings’, but the books were really good. So if you take those books as an idea to adapt to a broadcaster, there is a good chance that you have a good basis.

The tried and tested opens doors for great talent

Thomson emphasized another important advantage of working with existing IP: not having the high risks of a brand new format can give creatives the opportunity to work with high -profile talent that they would otherwise not have access to. With reference to the “Perfect Strangers” format, which is adapted to nearly 30 different areas for great results, said the Globalgate Entertainment Exec: “It has given producers access to top writers and also top stars in every territory.”

“Because you have a great idea, you can gain access [talent]”She added.”[From there] You will create more things together. You develop talent by using IP from elsewhere. “

Focus on the familiar. Genre is still the safest gamble.

Bowring brought up Netflix’s ‘Squid -Game’ as a ‘good example’ of a success built on something that is known to the public. ‘[The show] Apparently came out of nowhere. Who would have thought something like that that would have been a global hit? But when it came out, there was a genre and a origin of telling stories that ‘Squid Game’ fit perfectly. It is ‘Battle Royale’, it is ‘Oldboy.’ ‘

“Slow horses,” Bowring thinks, touches a similar note. “There is no historical reason why the British should have territories about spy stories, but we happened to have two authors more than 60 years ago, Ian Fleming and John Le Carré, who wrote great spy stories. When you send a espionage story to America and the characters have British accents, they feel familiar.” And once you have that familiarity element, the Exec said, it is much easier to have the “grounding to get into the unknown” and to organize the audience in the novelties of your story or format.

Leroy brought up Mike White’s hit -Hbo -show ‘The White Lotus’ as an example of that phenomenon. Although it is not based on existing intellectual property, the mysteries series for the fountain of “satirical heroes such as Agatha Christie’s” and “The Classic Mystery Crime Drama.” “If you adhere to references that people think they know, you can shift the envelope a little,” the Exec added. “If people feel that they are entering a well -known story, they will follow more easily. And once they are there, you can take them to new areas that are completely original. Genre is sometimes as efficient as IP.”

Thomson added that “drama is still the hardest thing to be fine”, so sticking to more popular genre offers such as comedy and horror, “you can give yourself a chance.”