This article originally appeared in DP 01 : 2014.

Blackmagic Design’s Resolve 10 goes into open beta. And while we’re all still playing around with it, we speak to someone who’s already been using it – James Tonkin(www.hangmanstudios.com) is a videographer from London – and has been on tour with Resolve 10 and Robbie Willliams.

DP: Mr Tonkin, how did you come to be on tour?

James Tonkin: I’ve been working with Robbie Williams and the team for twelve years now, and we’ve done a few videos together, so we’re already very well attuned to each other. In addition, after such a long time you know what is possible and what something can look like – be it for music videos, live footage or commercials. On the last tour, we produced a three-minute film for each city where the tour stopped, which was then released on YouTube. We also shot commercials for Samsung, showing the arrival in the city and the excitement of the fans, who in some cases had been waiting months for the concert.

DP: How long in advance did you plan the set-up and equipment?

James Tonkin: Because we’ve been working together for so long, the team gave me carte blanche. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use a few different cameras for each element. As I film a lot “handheld”, the Blackmagic Pocket Camera was a good choice – you want to still have a shoulder after 16 hours of work and not be completely destroyed (laughs). In post, we edited in Final Cut and then did everything else in Resolve – which I’ve been using for grading for a few years now and which has simplified and accelerated our workflow enormously since the last updates.

DP: What other cameras did you use and how did the BMD Pocket perform compared to the others?

James Tonkin: We had a Red Epic, the Sony FS700, the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera and the Blackmagic Design Pocket Camera. The Pocket did well – because of its small size, I favoured it over other cameras when I was shooting “free” and on the move. The advantage is that it looks like you’re just taking pictures. For the shows, I shot mostly on the Epic and used the FS700 as a “documentary camera”. The image quality of the Pocket was really fantastic – especially compared to the other cameras. A good example is the beginning of the commercial: I shot the first few shots of the city “waking up” on the Red, then a shot of the tour poster at a bus stop, which I shot with the Pocket. If you jump back and forth between the two, you can’t really tell the difference.

DP: And what other hardware did you have with you?

James Tonkin: My set-up is practically completely Apple-based. A Macbook Retina for travelling, which also manages Resolve 10, allows me to do a lot on the road. At Hangman Studios in London, we have MacPros connected to a 48 TB SAN network. After a day of filming, a Red can easily generate two terabytes of data. And after each project is completed, the data is backed up to LTO-6 tape and, of course, external hard drives for clients.

DP: You worked exclusively in Resolve 10. How did the features perform, were there any problems with the new version?

James Tonkin: We edit offline in FCP X and then import the XML directly into Resolve. I also think it’s great that you can drag the scaling information directly – which was previously only possible via “Mismatched resolution” to “Centre crop with no resize”. And now that it works perfectly, you can let off steam on the timeline. As I mostly work with shortcuts (a matter of taste), this is very practical. There are a lot of new features in Resolve 10, but the online editing is brilliant. And the layout of the interface is designed so that you can continue working straight from editing, which of course benefits anyone who has previously only used the grading tools.

DP: Why did you do so much in Resolve? Wouldn’t a pipeline with tried and tested tools for the individual tasks have been safer?

James Tonkin: The time pressure was really high: for example, we still had to upload stills taken from Epic for the respective concert in the evening. The short films for each city also had to be online within 48 hours, at the latest – so we had to deliver quality work on the go. And the Resolve 10 workflow came in handy – the navigation and controls are familiar to anyone with editing experience. I can only recommend it to anyone with broadcast experience if you have to work on the road with the smallest possible equipment.

DP: How did online editing perform under production conditions?

James Tonkin: A good example of this: When you open your timeline including different frame rates, different codes and file types, multiple audio tracks and so on from FCP X in Resolve 10, all elements are opened – and the RawFiles are pulled during mastering. This is very helpful under production conditions.

DP: Are there any other new Resolve features that you have used in particular?

James Tonkin: Resolve 10 has phenomenal new features – online editing, for example, has the “Contextual Trimmer Tool”, which allows you to ripple and roll and slip and slide on the timeline with the mouse. Another great feature is the speed control, which allows you to adjust the playback speed in real time – something I used a lot in the tour videos. Plus, of course, true multitrack editing, and sync, trim and drag for audio tracks, independent of the timeline.

Many Resolve users have also asked for additional plug-ins within Resolve and with version 10 this is included – namely the standard OpenFX format. So, for example, I was able to add my favourite lens flares from the Sapphire library via keyframe. And – also from Sapphire – additional film noise. There is also an unlimited number of Power Windows per Connector Node, and a Gradient Power Windwow, with which you can distribute gradations over the entire image. It’s also a great time saver to output a DCP directly from Resolve. In the past, I always had to either book a studio or pass the work on to someone else. Now an EasyDCP licence is enough for me.

DP: Have you used the Cinema DNG workflow? How did it perform?

James Tonkin: I’ve shot a few projects on Blackmagic cameras now, each in CinemaDNG and then graded in Resolve. And I love how much information comes out of the dailies and the footage, and how you have all the freedom on the image – especially in grading.

I shot in S-Log on the FS700 so that I could get the maximum out of the footage, even though you can clearly see the difference between the 12-bit DNGs and the 8-bit AVCHD FS700 files.

DP: Finally, what do you need to become a good grader?

James Tonkin: I came to grading via offline editing – with the intermediate step of online editing, so I was always trained from the practical side. Mostly on real projects, with the deadlines of the TV world. It’s extremely important to watch a lot of films and learn from their examples – both positive and negative. Over time, you build up a mental library of looks and their effects. I believe that a good colourist should not only master the technical side of the software, matching and simple error correction, but also bring different perspectives to the project. Grading is the final step in the creative process and the first point where the images really jump out at you – that’s what I like about it.

The post Resolve 10 on tour first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

The team at Naughty Dog attached great importance to authentic textures for the end-time game “The Last of Us”. 20 years after a pandemic, the main characters, 14-year-old Ellie and smuggler Joel, fight their way through the now ruined cities. In a world without electricity, the developers deliberately emphasised the lighting and ensured outstanding gameplay, not least with an elaborate MoCap. This year, Naughty Dog won the animago AWARD for Best Game Design.

The global pandemic is triggered by a fungus. Naughty Dog based the game on a model from nature, the Cordyceps fungus, which causes insects to mutate into mindless zombies. The player controls Joel in the year 2033 through a decaying world with dangerous living creatures and no less life-threatening infected. Up to 120 artists worked on the “survival action” game for three and a half years, including motion capturing, for which the movements of actors Ashley Johnson (Ellie) and Tom Baker (Joel) were captured. DP spoke to Game Director Bruce Straley, Technical Artist Christophe Desse, Mocap Pipeline Technical Director Damon Shelton, Lead Cinematic Animator David Lam, Lead Gameplay Animator Mike Yosh and Lead Character Artist Michael Knowland.

DP: Where was the MoCap made?

Damon Shelton: The motion capture was done in Culver City and was done by Sony San Diego. The system is a near-infrared Vicon mx40 system consisting of 94 cameras. Of these, 55 are responsible for a real-time preview. Together with the other 39 cameras, higher quality data is captured for post-processing. The stage measures 13.5 by 9 metres and captures at 59.94 fps.

DP: How long did the shoot take?

Mike Yosh: Over three years in total. We shot 121 shots, including previs, cinematics, in-game cinematics and systemic gameplay.

DP: Were the facial expressions also captured?

David Lam: No, the facial animation was completely keyframed by hand by the Cinematic Animation team. It was the best choice for us at the time to mimic the look and feel of our actor performances. It allowed us to better emphasise certain moments. A good example of this is when David reveals his true intentions to Ellie. The scene takes place by a fire pit in a barracks, after a fight with the infected. We wanted to dramatise the tension and slyness in David’s eyes and his movements around his nose and mouth. Another good example is the final cinematic where Ellie wants to find out the truth from Joel. The emphasis was on the subtle movements of the eye performance to show the uncertainty and the search for confirmation.

DP: How does the workflow work?

David Lam: Once we have a few animations on a rig based on Maya, we create an in-game animation asset using our proprietary tool. We use this to adjust the in-game frame rate and determine whether it’s a full-body or partial animation. If a movement is a new in-game function, our programmers or scripters take care of it. However, if it is simply an animation for a new character that behaves exactly like another character, then we replace important animations, play them on the new character and leave the rest as it is. These could be resting poses, running and racing movements, for example. In this way, we don’t have to constantly generate completely new movement sets and we can create many characters with a small animation team that are as different as possible.

DP: To what extent does the MoCap improve efficiency and lead to better results?

David Lam: For the cinematics, MoCap gives us a great first animation pass that sets the stage for the scene and creates subtle, nuanced moments. There’s no other way to realise this with our tight production schedule. This MoCap data forms the basis for further work. We improve the performance of our characters and thus the effect of a scene. We can make characters hit harder or bring more weight into play when interacting with characters or props. Sometimes we simply have to change the pose of characters to show more violence in a fight, for example. However, improvements can also involve keyframing new performances if, for example, an existing MoCap is not wanted because there have been changes to the design or animation.

DP: What is the relationship between MoCap and keyframe animation?

Mike Yosh: For gameplay, we probably use around 80 per cent MoCap. But since almost all of the MoCap is extensively processed to make the movements look better and to work with real-time animation layering, I can’t assign a ratio here. The point is: the pure MoCap neither looks good in the game, nor does it feel right. Our game isn’t hyper-realistic, so the movements shouldn’t be either. But we have helped out a little here and there or amplified something. As the gameplay, which is in a constant state of flux, is so closely linked to the in-game cinematics, these also had to change constantly.

DP: Hello Bruce, to what extent did you have to adapt your engine for “The Last of Us”?

Bruce Straley: Fortunately, we started the development of the game on an engine that had already gone through several iterations while working on the “Uncharted” games. Nevertheless, we had to make some adjustments to the rendering engine. Our AI system, for example, was completely unusable for the game we had in mind.

DP: What did you have to consider when rendering?

Bruce Straley: It was clear that in the world of The Last of Us, electricity wouldn’t play a very big role. It was also clear that the player would spend a lot of time inside buildings, in environments with a strong ambient light component. So we had to light the rooms indirectly using bounce light, which is very aesthetically pleasing. The shadows are softer and the light shines further than usual. The Uncharted rendering engine was designed to showcase Nathan Drake outdoors in daylight jungle environments. We had been working with Global Illumination since Uncharted 1, but the engine was primarily optimised for dynamic shadows and direct lighting. So we had to build a much more robust lightmap-based pipeline to generate these soft ambient shadows for the indoor areas.

DP: Did that work smoothly?

Bruce Straley: Yes and no. During the realisation, we noticed that the characters didn’t quite fit into these softer lit scenes and we weren’t getting the quality of materials we wanted for the background surfaces. Everything looked totally flat. We had to develop a dynamic ambient shadow technology for the characters and what we called “Dominant Directionality” for the environments to store dominant light vectors. These are passed on to the material shaders so that surfaces appear well lit, specular flickers from the optimal direction and normal maps get reasonable shadows. The same vectors are forwarded to the ambient shadow system. This ensures that the shadows cast by the characters are correct. In addition, the opacity of the shadows is modified based on the values saved in the dominant directionality.

These two technical achievements and a few changes in the pipeline and mindset have completely changed the entire look and feel of the environments. I am proud that we were able to achieve such a look.

DP: The textures are well done. If you’re not being chased by the infected, you’re happy to look around a little longer. How did you proceed here?

Bruce Straley: It was clear that this world was doomed to decay. But when everything falls apart, nothing stands out any more. It also quickly leads to a problematic “surface noise”, as every centimetre of a surface in a scene is excessively weathered. We therefore focussed heavily on the contrast between “negative” and “positive” space when texturing the surfaces. Another point was the “story” of decay. The artists were instructed to think about how things might have decayed over time, rather than just quickly adding a few stains or letting something flake off here and there.

DP: Do you have an example of this?

Bruce Straley: I would love to. Did a stain appear because a water pipe burst? Or perhaps the gutter was simply blocked, causing the water to back up? Aesthetically speaking, we were fascinated by this beauty of decay. Mould infestation or water seeping into a dry wall creates chaotic patterns. These created these beautiful textures that we wanted to capture.

DP: Did the Dominant Directionality technology also come into play here?

Bruce Straley: Yes, it also helped us with texturing and surfacing. It allowed our artists to emphasise the different surfaces of each material in an environment. In addition, we’ve also revamped our spec component to add contrast in dimly lit areas. This stylised realism sets “The Last of Us” apart from other post-apocalyptic games.

DP: Would you go so far as to say that the environment is a separate character in the game?

Bruce Straley: I would sign that statement immediately. The concept of the game was that environmental storytelling would play a big role. It bridges the gap between what’s happening now and what might have happened in the 20 years after the outbreak. We have scattered small vignettes, a kind of “forensic” moments in the environments, also to motivate the player to explore the settings. Aesthetically, the environment creates a contrast between the beauty of nature reclaiming human space and the unspoken horror one feels in an abandoned space. Both together add another level of tension, despair, fascination and a certain beauty found in few games.

DP: Enivronments are also sometimes destroyed – which tool is used?

Christophe Desse: We work with Havoc. It gives us the best toolset and is perfectly integrated into our engine. We use it to create interactive elements such as destructible ceilings, objects that fall down, dynamic plants, clothing and other destruction effects.

DP: Michael, what were your biggest challenges as Character Lead?

Michael Knowland: Achieving an almost photorealistic look within the PS3 while trying to make the whole project artistically appealing. I’m a firm believer that the key to making things look interesting and alive is to do a lot of things by hand and judge them with the human eye. Another challenge for me was actually finding my way around game development at Naughty Dog – it’s quite open and iterative. It’s like a big sandbox. Towers can collapse at any time, but it’s also extremely fun. You can create and move an amazing amount here.

DP: So you haven’t been working here very long?

Michael Knowland: That’s right, I joined in the last two and a half years, just as they were starting to work out the main characters. At that point it was just me in-house on the project and I was working off-site with Sony San Diego. I had a lot to do with Neil Druckmann, the creative director, and Hyoung Nam, the concept artist. Together we designed the main characters as the team gradually grew. In the end, there were five character artists in my team.

DP: How did you actually design the characters’ hair?

Michael Knowland: I’m glad you brought that up, because the hair was a huge challenge. All the hair in the game was modelled and textured by hand. Maybe that’s why there are so many bald guys in games? In my opinion, it depends on the hair whether a character’s look is complete. We experimented a lot to make the geometry and textures work well together. We wanted to find the right balance between saving the texture resolution and individual strands or tufts of hair. We also played around with this a little: We try to reflect as much texture space as possible. At the same time, we wanted to keep the style as natural as possible. We often painted over the 3D heads to plan how to create them or to get a basic look for a character artist.

DP: How often were there correction loops?

Christophe Desse: Towards the end of the game, we move into a “polishing phase” where we correct shaders and geometry to keep the game in frame rate. In my opinion, it’s this period at the end of production that makes our games so successful, because we check and optimise a lot of elements again in detail.

DP: What software do you use for your work?

Christophe Desse: In addition to my dynamic work, I also model some weapons. I personally work with the following tools: I create high-poly models in Maya, sometimes also in Zbrush, and the low-poly models are created in Maya. The baking of the normal maps and other derived maps is mostly done in xNormal, texturing is done in Mudbox, the generation of the shaders is done with our proprietary tools.

Michael Knowland: I love Zbrush for sculpting. It’s incredibly flexible and has all the tools I need. It helps me achieve my results and improve my workflow. Another favourite tool for me for texturing is Mudbox. Occasionally I also use Photoshop to touch things up, adjust levels or contrast, or paint out tileable alphas. Max and Maya are also great tools and I use both equally often.

DP: What will future games look like?

Christophe Desse: Looking at that aesthetic realism we achieved on The Last of Us, I think next gen will be even more about lighting effects and shaders. Maybe we can even add more dynamic elements that react to the player. This will be largely thanks to the impressive processing power of the PS4.

Michael Knowland: I hope we can achieve a new level of realism and artistry in games. And ideally we won’t all be replaced by scanners! If we can create far more realism, we need a greater technical understanding of how things work on the inside – we can’t just look at the surface. We still need to keep an eye on what feels right and looks good.

Founded in 1984, the company specialised in console games early on. The four instalments of the “Crash Bandicoot” series alone sold 22 million copies. in 2001, Sony, until then a publishing partner, took over the studio. With the PlayStation 3, the three “Uncharted” games set new standards in storytelling, the quality of graphics and cinematic elements. “The Last of Us” was released in June 2013 and the company currently has 170 permanent employees.

We asked Eric Monacelli and Arne Meyer, both Community Strategists at Naughty Dog(www.naughtydog.com and www.thelastofus.com), what it’s like to work for the Californian developer.

DP: How did the name Naughty Dog come about?

Eric Monacelli: Originally, Naughty Dog was known as JAM (Jason and Andy Magic) Software. When the co-founders Jason Rubin and Andrew Gavin signed a deal with EA in 1989, it turned out that the name was already protected in Australia. So a new one had to be found quickly. The name Naughty Dog goes back to doodles by co-founder Jason Rubin. They show a dog on a surfboard wearing sunglasses and hanging out with women on the beach. This name was radically different from all the Micro, Vision, Electro, Play, Intelli, Soft and so on combinations of the time. It stood out and was remembered, even though Trip Hawkins from EA was not so enthusiastic at the time.

DP: Why should you work at Naughty Dog?

Arne Meyer: Our company is flexible and efficient, and we work in a team-orientated and iterative way. We encourage our employees to share their ideas. Because at the end of the day, the best ones are considered – the ones you’ve worked hard on to move a game project forward. To meet our personal benchmark, we work very long and hard. But we still maintain a dynamic and beautiful working environment – we’re in beautiful, sunny Santa Monica, after all. There are core times when everyone has to be there. You can still organise your working hours flexibly. The important thing is that the work gets done – and of course at Naughty Dog’s level of quality.

DP: How can an artist get further training with you?

Eric Monacelli: Our artists have the opportunity to attend courses in nude drawing almost every week. There is a fitness room in our building, and we also encourage and support professional training on a case-by-case basis. There is a company wiki in which we record our ideas. In most cases, however, we simply go to a colleague’s desk and talk. That’s how we do our work here: there is a personal and helpful atmosphere.

DP: Which employees are you looking for?

Arne Meyer: Our vacancies are listed on our company website. Just take a look at www.naughtydog.com/work to get a clear picture of what we expect from an employee. You can apply for one of the advertised positions via jobs@naughtydog.com. But if you have a truly exceptional portfolio, you can of course also contact us.

DP: How is your workflow organised?

Eric Monacelli: For our games, we make our technical libraries available to the entire studio. This means that everyone can see what everyone else is doing and work on solutions. Our development workflow is very agile. We really do have a unique and very iterative approach to game development that is hard to find anywhere else in this form. We also don’t have any producers. You can organise your own time and just have to make sure that you get the work done. We do have department leads who oversee everything. But if someone is working at a certain level and wants to take on a leadership role, we are happy to support them once we have a functioning team.

DP: What software do you work with?

Arne Meyer: OpenGL, DirectX, C , Maya, Adobe Creative Suite, various scripting tools and recently we started using Scaleform – just to name a few. What is used and how varies from department to department. We usually find the best tools for our work. If something doesn’t exist, then we build that functionality ourselves. We have a proprietary shader engine and a lot of other proprietary technology in our Naughty Dog engine that gives our games their own unique look and feel – we always try to make something unique.

The post Historical Decay first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

State, regional or pan-European funding – the Korda database helps online and completely free of charge to navigate through the variety of funding programmes and find the right source of funding: korda.obs.coe.int

That’s why DIGITAL PRODUCTION took a look at this practical collection of film funding data, because the database’s search mask can be used to find the right form of funding for a specific stage or type of project. DP spoke to Susan Newman-Baudais about the Korda database and its contents as well as about German film funding in particular and European film funding in general.

She is a cinema analyst at the European Audiovisual Observatory and manager of the information centre for the Korda database for film funding and audiovisual works in Europe.

DP: In which countries in Europe does the medium of film receive the most funding?

Susan Newman: France is the country in Europe that provides the largest amount of direct funding for the film and television sector. In 2009, for example, a total of 581 million euros was channelled directly into the industry. This figure takes into account the funding provided by national and regional film funds in France, but excludes indirect support such as tax credits. Other European countries that provide direct support on a large scale include Germany, which provided funding totalling 303 million euros in 2009, as well as Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain.

DP: How do the European subsidy systems differ?

Susan Newman: There are big differences in funding between European countries. On the one hand, there are countries such as France, Germany at federal level, Poland or Slovakia, which use a redistribution system to finance their film funds.

These countries use taxes or levies on the use of audiovisual content to finance the activities of the funding organisation. On the other hand, there are funding programmes that are mainly financed from the state budget, as is the case in Italy and Spain. Then again, there are countries that use revenues from the national lottery to finance part or all of the promotion, such as the United Kingdom or Finland.

Television broadcasters are ultimately important partners for funding in the German federal states, in the French-speaking community of Belgium and in Sweden. One point that the vast majority of funding organisations have in common is their support for film production. All of the funding organisations included in the Korda database and in the Observatory’s current report award production funding, whereas not all of them support the early stages of production such as script writing and project development.

There is only a small group of funding bodies that specialise in activities such as vocational training or project funding and do not support production activities.

DP: How does the Korda database stay up to date?

Susan Newman: We keep the Korda database up to date by staying in constant contact with the various film funding organisations in Europe. We would of course like to update the database on a daily basis, but given the fact that there are currently more than 280 film funding organisations operating in Europe, this is not possible. We currently organise regular campaigns in which we collect information and then enter it into the database at certain times of the year. For future development, we hope to enable regular correspondents to enter certain information directly into the database themselves. In addition, we have established two very important partnerships that help us to collect information for the database. These are Cine-Regio, a European network of 37 regional funds, and Centre Images, a French regional funding organisation. Their task is to coordinate the collection of information on 44 sub-national funding programmes operating in France.

DP: What criteria did you use to compile the various selection criteria for funding in the database?

Susan Newman: We have endeavoured to make the search process in the database as simple as possible.

The database is centred around a geographical search that allows users to select a country and then select a national or regional grant. Alternatively or in addition, the user can select the type of activity for which they are looking for support: for example, whether support is needed for a screenplay or for project development or perhaps for the distribution of films. If the user is looking for production funding, they can also search by type of project – for example, feature film, short film, animated film or documentary.

The results of the search come up in the form of a list of funding programmes corresponding to the selected criteria. Users can then view detailed information on the individual results. Of course, there are many other criteria that play a role in the question of support, but these are very complex and are not necessarily suitable for searching in a database that is intended for public use.

DP: What do the European film funding co-operations look like?

Susan Newman: Actually, there are many links between European countries when it comes to funding. At the top level is the Council of Europe’s Eurimages programme, which supports co-productions between European countries.

36 European countries are currently members of this funding programme, which not only promotes cooperation between the producers involved in funding projects, but also between the national film funding agencies represented on the Eurimages board.

Similarly, the European Union’s MEDIA programme promotes cooperation between European filmmakers through its funding programmes in the areas of training, distribution and the Europa Cinemas network. Of particular interest is the MEDIA-supported CARTOON network (www.cartoon-media. eu), which offers several funding programmes to the European animation sector. On a second level, there are many examples of specific forms of co-operation between the funding bodies of the different countries, often to facilitate the work of co-productions between countries.

The Franco-German Film Academy is a good example of this. In addition to an annual conference and various training events, it offers funding for Franco-German co-productions, which is provided jointly by the French “Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée” (CNC), the BKM and the German Federal Film Board.

Other examples include the German-Polish Co-Development Fund, organised by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and the Polish Film Institute, as well as the German-Turkish Co-Production Development Fund and the German-Russian Co-Development Fund.

DP: How is funding developing in general?

Susan Newman: With the information collected in the Korda database, we have an overview of the general trend of funding in the film promotion sector. This covers not only the expenditure that film funding distributes, but also the amounts that are directly invested in other activities that benefit the film industry. The Observatory recently published a report entitled “Public funding of film and television works in Europe”. The report shows that in 2009, almost 2.1 billion euros flowed into the film and television sector from film funding in Europe. Although the amount of funding distributed by the funding organisations had risen continuously for ten years up to 2008, there was a change in 2009. There was no growth in the amount of funding, even with a de facto minimal reduction. This can obviously be attributed to the changes in the economic situation in Europe, in which many film funding organisations were faced with cuts in their budgets. Although the data for 2010 and 2011 is not yet available, it is unlikely that the situation has improved significantly. DP: How do filmmakers get funding for their work? Do you have any tips for the best way? Susan Newman: In general, it depends on what stage the director or producer is at with the project and what kind of project they want to make.

For young directors who want to make a short film, there are various sources of funding, from traditional film funding to more specific culturally orientated funding at the local political level. Some countries have dedicated websites that offer resources for short film makers. They usually list various events across Europe that help these filmmakers to network and gain experience. For experienced directors, a good relationship with a producer is generally the key to success, along with the strength of the project.

For animation projects, early promotion of the project in forums such as CARTOON can be very helpful. And it certainly doesn’t hurt for young companies to establish themselves in media clusters, as these can help to open certain doors.

DP: A concrete example: How can a German director proceed if he wants to get funding for the film he wants to shoot in France?

Susan Newman: Provided this German director already has a German producer for his project, there are two main ways to find funding for a project in France.

The first is to make a co-production with a French producer, which under certain circumstances can open the door to the French film funding system. The Franco-German Film Academy would be a special funding opportunity in the case of a Franco-German co-production. An alternative, if the film is shot in France, would be to use the French international tax credit system known as the “TAX Rebate for International Production” (TRIP).

This can be used for animation projects if there is a line producer from France and a minimum of one million euros in eligible expenditure in France. In this case, however, the project would not be eligible to apply for production funding from CNC.

DP: Which projects or themes are generally most likely to be funded?

Susan Newman: Of course, everyone would like to know the universal answer to this question, but unfortunately there isn’t one. The fact is that there are far more projects seeking support than there is film funding available.

Each film funding organisation sets its own criteria that a project usually has to meet in order to be considered for support. Similarly, film funding organisations use selection criteria that act as guidelines to choose between suitable projects.

These guidelines are usually designed to ensure that projects are supported that help achieve the objectives of the film funding. These can range from the development of a sustainable local film industry, to the promotion of young talent, to the support of artistically ambitious works that are not expected to be commercially exploited.

DP: What do the funding organisations expect from the filmmakers in return for their expenditure?

Susan Newman: Funding organisations can make very different demands in return for their support.

The most important are things like the integration of a local producer and a prescribed number of shooting days and level of expenditure in the country or region providing the support. Usually these requirements are already part of the eligibility or selection criteria.

Another important point is that the funding awarded is very often not a pure cash grant, but a loan that must be repaid under various conditions from the income generated by the project. Funding funds therefore often require reporting on income and the conditional repayment of their loans. For larger project budgets, certain countries insist that the producer hires a collection agent to centralise the film revenues and their distribution. Some funds also expect a share of the project income over and above the initial grant.

Aside from these key points, there are many other types of requirements that are detailed in the funding agreements. These usually include the mention of the film funding support in the film credits and on promotional material, but can also include the employment of local trainees or the organisation of the premiere of the film in the respective region.

DP: What does the future of film funding look like?

Susan Newman: 2012 is an important year for film funding at a political level, as the guidelines used by the European Commission to evaluate whether funding measures comply with European competition law are being revised. This is being done in preparation for a new communication on the film industry in 2013.

A new version of the European Union’s MEDIA programme is also in preparation, which will be part of a larger Creative Europe umbrella in the future and will be published in 2014. At all funding levels, the growing importance of new distribution channels for audio-visual content and their impact on how projects are made and distributed has led to film funding organisations actively working on how they can best support this change. This is particularly the case with the digitisation of European cinemas, which has given rise to a whole series of new funding programmes.

A second aspect of this development is the expansion of the funding programmes’ areas of responsibility, which is very evident in the funds provided by the German federal states, which are changing to become integrated media funding with digital content. The Filmstiftung NRW, for example, integrated the Mediencluster NRW in 2011, the Filmfernsehfonds Bayern now includes the audiovisual media cluster and the Filmförderung Baden-Württemberg has initiated the Animation Media Cluster Region Stutt gart.

These are just a few examples in Germany, but they point to a more intensive integration of film into the wider context of digital production and exploitation.

The post Korda database first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Mirja Fürst.