JONATHAN OLSBERG – A WORLD CLASS FILM CONSULTANT

Actually Jonathan Olsberg is not working very much with independent producers. He is mainly working for big organizations and film funds.
But despite that Jonathan is still a thrill to listen to if you’re an independent producer trying to know more about creating a successful film business.

We have had the pleasure of having Jonathan as a consultant when I did The Copenhagen Film Mentor program a couple of years back.
Jonathan and his colleagues at SPI has done a lot of research demystified the success factors of building a sustainable film business.
The conclusion we snapped up can be put down to a few bullet points:

• A successful film company has the ability to make successful content and share in revenues (read: produce good films and be a owner of the films)
• A successful film business diversify revenue streams across different activities with different risk parameters (read: have different income streams; for instance feature film production AND commercial production. Or maybe also be a distributor).
• Think outside your comfort zone; be a strong entrepreneurial leader (Read; don’t be afraid of thinking and acting outside the box).
• Have an international network –especially with bigger corporate media players (Read, the more successful you are, the more these players will want to know you)
• Get a consistent and reliable relationship to the public support bodies (Read; no way around it; soft money is almost free money: you’re crazy not to pick them up!)
• Have a lot of luck..!

The short interview here with Jonathan is meant as a quick introduction to him and his company SPI.
I strongly recommend that if you’re an independent producer or an independent production company, you have to go ahead and see if you can get to a course that Jonathan is a part of.
You’ll get very inspired by all knowledge you get and in the end you can use it as guidelines in turning your film production company into a sustainable and fruitful one…

Jonathan in short…
Jonathan Olsberg started out as a UK producer, sales agent and distributor. In 1992 he founded SPI – a consultant company that advises public and private film and media companies all over the world. They’re focussed on pushing their clients forward with the right growth strategies.
Read more about Jonathan and SPI on www.o-spi.com

TAKING A TIME OUT...

- but as Arnie so eloquently put it – “I’ll be back!”

With 9 projects lined up on our development slate – 5 of which could be ready to go before the cameras within a few months – the lack of financing and generally poor economic situation in the film industry means that I will be going on an extended leave from Zeitgeist Film.

Since first joining the company in 2002 as a script reader who hardly knew any Danish, I have read hundreds of scripts, met with a large number of exceptional writers and been involved in active development on more than 30 projects.

Some of them held fast and became a permanent entry on our slate, jostling for position with the others to see which film would be the next to be greenlit.

The problem comes when there are too few resources available and a minor hiccup in one production can cause a chain reaction right the way down the line.

Well, that hiccup (in the form of an investor who backed out of ‘Det grå guld’ (Grey Gold) at the last minute) happened a little over a year ago, and now we have a slate that is full to bursting point.

To take on and begin to develop any more projects would not only be unfair to the writers of those new projects, but also to the very patient and understanding writers and directors we have already attached to the projects on our slate.

Now that post-production on ‘Det grå guld’ is about to finish, Zeitgeist Film can go into production on 2 more films this year and then the momentum we had a few years ago will return.

In the meantime, I am taking an extended leave to go off and do some developing. I have created a website called scriptguyphil.com, which should be live within a couple of weeks. Developing scripts is what I do best and its what I enjoy the most.

Whilst I undertake the challenge of getting scriptguyphil.com up to speed, it will give Zeitgeist Film a chance to make some movies without me adding to the backlog, and then we can finally aim for our goal of making two films a year – every year!

Happy writing (and see you soon!)

FORTJENER DANMARK MERE AF FILMBRANCHEN I 2011..?

Så er vi kommet et par uger ind i 2011. Og her ved et årsskifte er der jo tradition for at tænke på det forgangne år, og på hvad der kan gøre bedre i det nye.

2010 var noget af et skæbne år for dansk film.
Det var året, at det for alvor gik op for det fleste, at dansk film var i krise, og at der skulle gøres noget. Helt op til midt december tegnede det til at dansk film igen ville få et sløjt år med under 20 % markedsandel.
Men puha KLOVN reddede os alle på målstregen - og kombineret med at det generelle biograftal faldt - nåede dansk film så op på 22 %. Bedre en forventet - men stadig et stykke fra de seneste års 25-30 % markedsandel.

Peter Ålbæk var da også ude i Politiken i forrige uge og sige, at ’vi godt kunne afblæse krisen i dansk film’. Og han gentager det nok nu hvor Susanne Bier lige har fået en ’Gloden Globe’.
Som etableret spiller i filmbranchen SKAL han selvfølgelig sige det.
Men i vores objektiv svarer det til, at man som diagnosticeret kræftpatient ønsker at holde op med sin behandling!

Der er stadig krise i dansk film. Punktum!
Men med det nye filmforlig er der mulighed for, at krisen kan overvindes. Men det afhænger af, at Det Danske Filminstitut lever op til det store ansvar det bliver at administrere det nye filmforlig, så de små, de nye og de mindre filmselskaber får den plads som innovation og nytænkning i enhver branche kræver.

I 2011 bliver det nemlig vigtigere end nogen sinde at HELE forretningen Danmark for alvor kommer til at skabe originale og innovative forretningskoncepter, som vi alle kan leve af i fremtiden.

Og et af de områder mange politikere er fokuseret på, når vi taler fremtidens erhverv i Danmark, er det der med en stort ord hedder ’Oplevelsesøkonomi’.
Gennem de sidste 10 år har der derfor været talt en del om de kreative industrier så som kunst, mode, reklame, musik – & film, fordi netop de industrier har det store potentiale til at blive det Danmark skal leve af i fremtiden.

Os der arbejder i de brancher har hele tiden været rygende enige om, at det både var en god ide og helt rigtigt set.

Men indtil nu har der ikke ligefrem været mange gode ’cases’ på det – det skal da lige være musikbranchens succeser som AQUA og ALFABEAT.

Men hvor bliver filmbranchens AQUA og ALFABEAT af?

Og er det overhovedet muligt at lave en god forretning ud af det at producere film i Danmark?
Nogen vil sige, at Lars von Trier & Zentropa da allerede er en god filmforretning, men uden at gå i detaljer her, så er de nok Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen i den sammenligning. International kunstnerisk anerkendt - men kommercielt er der ikke så meget at prale af - på globalt plan…

Men her i Zeitgeist Film tror vi på, det kan lade sig gøre at lave en AQUA i den danske filmbranche. Og vi glæder os til 2011, hvor vi for alvor vil prøve kræfter med et helt nyt film forretningskoncept.
Et koncept, som vi faktisk har arbejdet på de sidste par år, men som hele tiden har haft brug for at have tidsånden med sig – specielt DFI’s støtte muligheder.
Og nu har filmforliget skabt de muligheder. Så hvis Filminstituttet og den danske filmbranche vitterligt ønsker fornyelse og innovation, så er vi nogle i branchens udkant der ønsker at gå forrest. Men vi har brug for Filminstituttet og resten af branchens hjælp…

Tidsånden smager stadig af ’finanskrise’.
Men det er netop i ’nedgangstider’ at det nye og innovative skabes. Det er der, hvor gamle dogmer rives ned og traditionsbundne regler opløses.

Og Danmark fortjener da helt klart mere af filmbranchen!
Den danske filmbranche kan nemlig blive en god kommerciel forretning ud over at være en god kultur forretning.
Det nye filmforlig åbner op for en internationalisering; en bevidst eksport og de mange nye digitale muligheder vil gøre det muligt for os i filmbranchen at gøre dansk film til en god kommerciel forretning.

Men det kræver, at den danske filmbranche løfter i flok, så vi er mega spændte på hvilke initiativer Det Danske Filminstitut helt konkret vil gennemfører i forhold til det nye filmforlig.
Hvordan kommer markedsordningen til at se ud? Og hvordan bliver den administreret? Vil den tilgodese alt det der for alvor kan få os ud af krisen?

Her på bloggen vil vi ugentligt i 2011 helt åbent fortælle om VORES planer.

For selvfølgelig fortjener Danmark mere af filmbranchen – men lad os starte med at høre hvilke tanker DFI, politikerne og producentforeningen har….

BULLHEAD goes to Berlin!

Matthias Schoenaerts, Michaël R. Roskam, Nicolas Karakatsanis Photo: M. Vanden Abeele

In February of 2008 I read a script by Belgian writer Michaël Roskam called The Fields. I liked it a lot, and Michaël thought the feedback I gave him was useful enough that the production company, Savage Film, took me on as a script consultant.

The following two years proved challenging and enjoyable, and last year the film was shot.
Now called Rundskop (Bullhead) it will be released in Belgium on February 2nd, almost three years after my first involvement.

However, a couple of days ago, Michaël called to tell me that the film has been accepted onto the World Cinema section Panorama at the Berlin Film Festival.

Apart from being very happy for Michaël, I felt a sense of pride that the hard work that we did on the script is paying dividends.

And we needed to work very hard...

Rundskop (Bullhead) is a complex crime story set in the world of illegal growth hormones for cattle, but it is also a moving story about how a traumatic incident in their childhood has put two friends on opposite sides of the law.

The script contains a parallel structure as we follow the present day crime story intercutting with flashbacks from the boys’ childhood. Where and when to make those cuts was discussed, debated and argued about throughout the development process. These cuts were, of course, refined and adjusted in the cutting room, but if Michaël and I hadn’t spent many hours on this challenging problem at the script stage, the editing would have taken much longer and been a much tougher task that it already was. It is also more cost effective to do it at the script stage, which is something I wish more producers would take into consideration more often.

Despite having a clear main character, the script also has more than a dozen large supporting roles. As the film needed to be brought in at around the 2 hour mark, it was essential that all the supporting characters were clearly defined and multilayered as economically as possible – especially considering that some very important characters had such a limited screen time. We brainstormed them all working out how best to make these characters real and avoid cliché and stereotype.

All of the development work we did was via e-mail and most importantly Skype. There was many an evening where we would both sit in the dark in our respective houses in our respective countries talking about how to make the script better. In this digital age it means that people from all over the world can work together, whenever. I think this really helped in this case as Michaël and I worked well together and plan to do so again on Michaël’s next film.

What I am looking forward to now is, finally, at long last, meeting Michaël face to face in Berlin, and getting to see Rundskop on the big screen.

For the international trailer, go to:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZnPqAHd1_4

and for more information on the film, visit the production company’s website.

http://www.savagefilm.be/home/

Happy writing.