COPRODUCTIONS INDUSTRY
MAINTAINING YOUR VOICE (AND AVOIDING A “EURO PUDDING”) A potential pitfall of adding more partners is that you run the risk of a ‘too many cooks’ situation, ultimately leading to dilution of the film’s true voice. “If you have four or five partners, you can end up with what they call a Euro pudding,” says Treacy. “You have to question: is it worth it? What do I have to give up? You might end up having to film in two or three countries, with different crew; it can be very fragmented – and that can come through in the end product.” Both producers stress the need for a clear lead: “Someone who can have the final say on things, and the responsibility for channelling the creative vision – everybody follows in their slipstream,” says Morgan. But the fear that a coproduction will inevitably dilute a film’s identity is, Morgan argues, a bit of a misconception. “If anything, [coproducing] enables stories to be told and, if it’s done properly, there is someone leading the creative and standing by the director’s vision.” THE KEYS TO SUCCESS For producers considering dipping a toe into coproducing, both Morgan and Treacy return to the same fundamental point: know who you’re getting into business with. Morgan advises getting to know potential partners before the pressure of a production kicks in, building relationships through festivals, labs and industry events, and checking a prospective partner’s track record. Treacy, similarly, stresses the importance of doing your research and finding a producer who is genuinely like-minded. And, if possible, she recommends partnering with a company that has coproduced before. “You always learn something more,” she says. “If you can work with someone who is more experienced in production and has more contacts, then that’s going to help elevate you and your company.” For Treacy, the increasingly complex financing landscape means international collaboration is likely to become ever more important. “I think everyone should coproduce,” she concludes. “I think it’s a necessity going forward in terms of the challenging financial landscape we’re all in.”
but you’re planning then to apply for a fund that’s really important to your film. But then if you don’t get that, what’s the impact overall to the production?” she questions. “So it sometimes encourages people to end up applying to a number of different funds, and that can be tricky too. Because then you’re kind of hedging your bets…” She thinks the solution is “always managing expectations and communication – this is the really important bit”. Then there are the more prosaic realities of international production: conflicting time zones, tired Zoom calls, masses of paperwork and the logistics of keeping teams in different countries aligned. Treacy agrees that if a breakdown happens, communication is generally the culprit – or relying on assumptions. “You’ve got to keep reiterating the key vision and goals – not just in a financial sense, but what the director requires, what’s needed to make the film a certain way,” she says. “When we’re coproducing, we like to have meetings at least once a fortnight and then move to once weekly in pre-production. It keeps everyone on the same page.”
Another big challenge is monitoring spend across territories, and making sure there isn’t a “huge overspend that then bleeds into other territories – we’ve had that happen on one or two occasions. You have to be very [on top of] the budgets and seeing what’s coming in and what’s going out in each territory,” she adds. For Morgan, one of the biggest things is simply working out whether the financial benefit of adding another territory genuinely stacks up against the creative and practical demands it brings with it. “The spend requirements that you have can be a challenge,” she says. “You might get funding from a place – but does it really fit the creative needs of the project? Or bigger picture, does it end up costing more? What’s the net value of bringing another country and the funding from there?” She cautions against adding a territory simply because there is another funding pot available, particularly when the conditions attached begin to dictate the way the film is made. “You do have to be careful that it’s not just a case of having exhausted other options. Think about [whether] it’s counter-intuitive to the creative,” she says.
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