By Timothy Owase

A co-production is a production where two or more different production companies agree to work together, for example in a film production. In the case of an international co-production, production companies from different countries work together on a project. It is the most common form of film industry cooperation.

Co production agreements enable foreign producers to pool their creative, artistic, technical and financial resources to co produce projects that enjoy the status of national productions in the countries involved.

There are other common ways of cooperating internationally that are not limited to distribution, film festivals and educational cooperation, artistic production, post-production, script development among others. For long, festivals were generally seen as a way to accessing international markets, good networking opportunities and a good way to expose local audience to foreign films but that has since changed.

There are two types of co-productions:

• Co-production where the creative control is shared between local and foreign partners, and where there is a mix of local and foreign elements in the creative positions.
• Co-production that encompasses a straightforward co-financing arrangement (finance only) in which one partner provides partial funding while another company undertakes the actual production.

Why Kenya should embrace film co production initiatives.

International co-production is an important avenue through which producers tap into international financing and talent to create films and television programs with international audience appeal. Governments enable co-production agreements with other countries.

These agreements permit foreign producers to combine their creative, technical and financial resources to co-produce films and television programs, which benefit from national status in each co-producer’s country, thus bringing many benefits to the local or partnering entities to which the advantages are not limited to;-

• Enables access to bigger and new markets

• Avails opportunity to learn from the partner and network
• Provides access to a desired location
• Immense cultural benefits, e.g. promoting one’s country
• Offers an increase in the quality of production
• The ability to pool financial resources
• Access to the partner government’s incentives and subsidies
• An open access to specialized skills or equipment in host country
• Access to less expensive inputs to the production
• the opportunity to learn from the partner

 International Treaty co-productions are governed by agreements, with specific requirements that may not be limited to approvals by a recognized authority in the partnering country, set minimum financial participation by each partner, agreed costs incurred in each country and a balance between the financial, technical and artistic contributions of each country.

In most cases, audiovisual co production treaties and MOUs are negotiated between two countries to outline their respective obligations with regard to an audiovisual co production. These guidelines provide producers with detailed information on the requirements and procedures to follow when making a recommendation application for an international co production.

Governance

Governments support openness, fairness and consistency at all levels of co production operations. Similarly, they develop several grids to help evaluate co production projects. These grids are not an integral part of the co production guidelines, but serve as a tool to assess the creative and technical aspects of projects to be considered.

A project must first and foremost meet the required minimum creative positions, as they are defined in co production guidelines. If a project doesn’t meet this minimum, it is then evaluated using the grids, which include a bonus-point system. Particularly complex or atypical projects can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

 How co production’s work

Agreements between Governments specify how projects can be ‘co-produced’ between partner countries. These agreements are in the form of either a Treaty or a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). There are differences between the two but for the purposes of administering the co-production program and applying for co-production status, the practical effect is usually minimal thereby using the general term ‘Arrangements’ to refer to these agreements.

Each country which is party to an Arrangement nominates a ‘Competent Authority’ to administer the co-production program. Thus work together and jointly approve projects in order for them to be eligible as co-productions.

In conclusion, Kenya has to explore this opportunities as one way to bolster the creative economy sector in the country.

The Writer is a Chartered Marketer, Development Communication expert and film industry professional and can be reached at timothy.owase@live.com

 

 

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