Producers have been urged to exit the “doom loop” linked to their belief global streamers will continue “conservative” commissioning trends.
Steve Matthews, Head of Scripted, Creative at Banijay, told an audience at the MIA Market today that there are actually reasons to be cheerful about the mood beat in drama commissioning and that producers should be supporting their writers’ more ambitious visions.
“There is optimism at the moment in terms of a little creative risk,” he said during a panel session on packaging projects. “Things are not as grim as it was.” Matthews added feedback from recent conversations with global streamers was that “they are saying they’re not so conservative.”
The Banijay exec said it is time to close a “doom loop” in international production circles. This sees producers assume an inherent “conservatism” in buying trends and tailor their ideas to fit.
Matthews was joined on stage by the likes of Brendan Fitzgerald, CEO of Spain’s Secuoya Studios, who said the programs that are selling are either very small stories that we’ve all experienced – grandfather and grandchild – or enormous stories that none of us have experienced. Game of Thrones is a case in point.
“The ones that fall into the middle are the ones we label provincial or that won’t travel. That’s helpful framework when dealing with a writer,” he said, adding with a quip: “Avatar or a divorce.”
Larry Grimaldi, Creative Affairs and Original Movies, Senior Vice President, Fox Entertainment Studios bemoaned the reliance on ‘the face in the box’ streamer shorthand for casting actors whose thumbnails encourage consumers to click through and view.
“TV used to be a place where you discovered new actors and writers, and it’s a shame we’ve put all this stock in the easy bets,” he added.
Elsewhere in the session, execs such as Miso Film Sweden’s Christian Rank and Tesha Crawford, Tesha Crawford, EVP and Head of International Television at New Regency in the UK, both pointed to the elements that allowed Netflix hits Baby Reindeer and Adolescence to break through.
Rank, whose company recently remade Ingmar Bergsson classic film Faithless as a European TV series, praised Adolescence for matching up the genre beats of a crime story with the higher concepts around criminality and family, and the one-shot filming techniques.
“When the story and concept doesn’t match, it doesn’t work, but when you find those matches you have something really strong,” he said.
Crawford noted that Baby Reindeer had been “very local and specific but with something to say about the cycle of trauma and abuse.”
MIA Market is currently into its second day. It will run all week at the grand Cinema Barberini complex in central Rome.
About the Author
