uangFactual Television Trends

Successful co-productions

@ Chengfei Sun (Jim)@ Qing Shi (Julia)@ Min Zhong (Rachel)@ Chen Su (Sue)@ Mengju You (Daisy)

Illustrations

Co-productionsJIM

Background

information

Sue Advantag

es

JULIAExample 1

RACHELExample 2

DAISY Difficulties

&Conclusio

n

Co-productions Overview

International co-productionsPool financial resources

Partner's market or to a third market

Cultural benefitDesigned location and cheaper

input

Existing & Forthcoming Factual television co-productions

Frozen Planet (2011)

Planet Earth (2006)

Wild China(2008)

History of The World(2012)

The Blue Planet(2001)

Human Planet(2011)

Life Series

Rice paddies near Yangshuo, Guangxi

6-part documentary series Mysterious and wonderful

creatures that live in China's most beautiful landscapes

Total running time 6 hours

Over 25 countriesAward-winning

Photography awards of nature history documentary

The best editing award The best music award

“We want the Chinese to feel proud of their countryside and wildlife, to care about it and to seek to ensure its survival.

We also hope to redress the negative view of China's environment propagated in western media.”

Series producer BBC - Phil Chapman

Help BBC enter the Chinese documentary market

Excellent opportunity for the world to know the real china

…WHY ?

Sources of Joint Funding

Entire investment: £ 5 million ≈ 75 million RMB

50% & Over 10 million RMB

BBC & CTV

Some American and Japanese companiesThe rest of funding

Expertise of partners

Experts with rich experience and strong professional background

Executive producer Brian Leith, over 20 years experience as a producer and director

Expertise of partners

British experts with excellent background of biology

CTV established a professional research group to assist BBC

The production crew were given unprecedented access to almost all areas

Use of production facilities

CTV offers many expensive & big size facilities e.g. Aerial photograph equipment

No need to carry all of the facilities from UK

More convenient and reduce the costs

Reduce costs in programming making

What turnsA regional documentary into Something of interest overseas?

Nature &

wildlife

Local Culture

Niche&

Hyperlocal

Amazin

gAdventu

re & History

Problems and difficulties facing

Problems and difficulties facing

Collaboration for the first timeMay not have enough trust at the beginning Trust was built step by step

More sophisticated filming techniques to reveal behaviour rather than simply by observation in the wild

Supports from local government and local people

“" We have recommended this special documentary to 560 buyers in the world, it has been one of the documentaries with greatest concern.”

Chairman of the BBC - John Smith

DVDsMarketing strategiesMass media, newsletters & InternetWild China merchandise Books, albums, stamps, and calendars

Marketing & Potential in sales

“ Awesome Spectacular Humbling Exhilarating ”

“ It's one thing to have people watch, but to achieve the kind of 'water-cooler results' we got, both in the U.K. and then in America -- nothing prepared us for that. ”

Executive producer - Alastair Fothergill (2008)

11 Episodes An exploration of

The wild and beautiful parts of our planet

10-minute of behind-the-scenes

Global Epic Global view

Most expensive nature documentary series ever

First to be filmed in HD

62 Countries71 Camera crews

204 Locations2,000 Days

Over a 5-year Period (Television Week, 2008)

Sources of Joint Funding

Budget of £16 million

Co-financing60–70% of costs for HD format

£7.4 million for Earth

Discovery & NHK

BBC Worldwide

Use of Joint Funding

Problems and difficultiesFilming on location

Interesting footage of rare animals

Difficult weather conditions

Working without adequate support

Use of Joint Funding

Problems and difficultiesLanguage and culture difference

Recruit local staffs

Production facilities

Use of production facilitiesDeveloped lens and aerial cameras

Groundbreaking HD production techniques Satellite imagery

Time-lapse effects

Global appeal of a subject

A symbol for … ?

Global warmingBeautiful & fragile

world

Implications?

Attention

Sales

DVDsFilm

Books Calendar

Games

Cards

Marketing

Unique Viewing Experien

ce

Positioning focus group research (2005)

Spread the extraordinary newsReach out to and connect with viewers at key moments in television viewing

TELEVISION

“Sneak-peak” DVD inserts in subscriptionsWord of mouth

MAGAZINE

Large video units Earth Planet official websiteSocial media for feedbacks

ONLINE

Public relationsCinemaPartnership

OFFINE/OTHERS

The most watched cable event everAggressive rating on premiere airingNew heights in awareness

MARKETING OBJECTIVES

Advantages & Difficulties

Advantages of co-production

“ The potential to explore globalization processes Diversification and hybridization of cultures .” (Murdock, 1996)

Advantages of co-production

“ Enhance collaboration between countries with small production industries, which would be able to pool resources and compete in an international market.”(Taylor, 1995)

Advantages of co-productionAn opportunity to focus on a global public sphere

Fascinating insight into subjects of global appeal

Encourage debates globally

Create culturally specific materials for local markets

Advantages of co-production

Increase the exposure and distribution of films/drama/documentaries globally

A tool to finance high-quality products for distribution in the global marketplace. (Telefilm, 1999).

Difficulties in co-production

Differences in professional practices

Massive amount of paperwork that inevitably accrues when two production companies collaborate with another and their respective governments.(Kennedy, interview, June 22, 2000) 

Difficulties in co-production

Difficulties in raising funding

Potential of loosing creative control over a project due to making compromises in the treatment of a script .(Hoskins and McFadyen,1993) & (Adair, 2000) 

Recap & ConclusionsCo-productions areGlobalization and glocalization of the

economy and cultures

Affected by the expertise of partners

Recap & ConclusionsCo-productions areReasonable use of joint funding from

production companies

Advanced production facilities are one of the key successful factors

Recap & ConclusionsCo-productions are

How factual programming has been able to Take advantage of the increasingly global nature of the media…

Recap & ConclusionsCo-productions areAdvantages

Win-win situation to co-production companies

Increase brand awarenessReduce costsImprove collaboration and relationship among countries involved

Recap & ConclusionsCo-productions areDifficulties

Limited by reduction in government funding Large amount of paperwork is needed

Factual Television

Co-productions

Trends & Suggestions

Trends & SuggestionsCo-productionsYoung people

Niche Segments

“Real-life stories are hugely needed to be engaged” (Danny Cohen, 2010)

Trends & SuggestionsCo-productions

“It is helpful if offering co-productions across a variety of different platforms more flexibly and on-demand. ”(Alice Carder 2010)

“Crowd-funding” sites

Kickstarter

IndieGoGo

To raise money for projects instead of relying on commissions . (Kate Bulkley, 2010)

Future of co-productionsFactual television

Opportunities to view co-produced documentaries are growing

Entertainment push further into the mainstream

Purist, non-narrative observational documentaries will command smaller audiences

Future of co-productionsFactual television

Niche will no doubt continue

“ Television broadcast slots will remain only for the best of the best, but that is fine in my view.” (Andy Glynne, 2010)

Photo Credits• http://www.coverdude.com/blu-ray-covers/16229-wild-china-2008-dutch-r2.html• http://www.covershut.com/Blu-Ray-Covers/39316-Wild-China-2008-Dutch-Disc.html• http://gomiso.com/m/wild-china• http://www.flickr.com/photos/fatime_cn/2693618797/• http://www.abstractinfluence.com/forums/gallery/image_page.php?album_id=14&image_id

=9388• http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/04/milken_global_2.html• http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/03/polar-bear-spy-cam-eaten-by-a-polar-bear-plus-m

other-and-cub-cuteness-video.php• http://www.vustv.com/4exZtzjURa9oV• http://first-time-mommy.com/blog/2010/04/celebrate-earth-days-40th-anniversary-by-down

loading-a-free-episode-of-the-bbcs-planet-earth-on-itunes-april-12-26-2010/• http://girishkulkarni.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/planet-earth/• http://www.trcmedia.org/trcmedia/links.asp?LINKS_ID=1&menu_selected=links• http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/04/milken_global_2.html• http://www.flickr.com/photos/fatime_cn/2693618797/

Reference• Appadurai, A. (1990). “Disjuncture and Differences in the Global Cultural Economy. In

M.Featherstone (Ed.)”, Global Culture. Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, pp. 295-310. London: Sage Publications. 

• Baltruschat, D. (2002). “Globalization and International TV and Film Co-production: In Search of New Narratives” [Online] Available at: http://web.mit.edu/cms/Events/mit2/Abstracts/DorisBaltruschat.pdf (Accessed on 1 April 2011)

• Bigne, J. and Orlebar, J. (2005). The television handbook(3rd Ed.). London: Routledge. (Accessed on 1 April 2011)

• Bulkley, K. (2010). “A focus on the future of documentaries” [Online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sheffield-doc-fest/the-future-of-documentaries. (Accessed on 1 April 2011)

• Bulkley, K. (2010). “Is crowd-funding the future for documentaries?” [Online] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sheffield-doc-fest/funding-models-for-film-making?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 (Accessed on 1 April 2011) 

• BBC Science & Nature, (2008), Wild China, Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/wildchina/ 

• BBC 2, (2011), Programmes: Wild China, (Accessed on 30th, Mar, 2011). http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bv6lk

• China Expat, (2009), Wild China – a Must-See Documentary, Available at http://www.chinaexpat.com/2009/01/16/wild-china-a-must-see-documentary-2.html/. (Accessed on 30th, Mar, 2011)

Reference• Guardian (2010). “The future of documentaries”. [Online] Available at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sheffield-doc-fest/issues-facing-documentaries. (Accessed on 1 April 2011)

• Maxwell, Gavin (May 2008). "Episode 5: Land of the Panda". BBC Wildlife 26 (5)• Nicholson-Lord, D. (2006). “Planet Earth - the making of an epic series”. [Online]

Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worldwidestories/pressreleases/2006/03_march/making_planet_earth.shtml. (Accessed on 1 April 2011) 

• O'Regan, T. and Ward, S. (2006). “Experimenting with the Local and Transnational: Television Drama Production on the Gold Coast." Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies.

• Robinson, J. (2006). “BBC finds a treasure in Planet Earth”. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/apr/09/business.broadcasting1. (Accessed on 1 April 2011)

• Sherwin, A. (2005). “BBC ready to lead viewers into a vivid new world of television”. [Online] Available at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article756783.ece. (Accessed on 30 March 2011) 

• Slenske, M. (2007). “All Creatures Great, Small ... and Endangered”. [Online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/arts/television/18slen.html?_r=2&oref=slogin. (Accessed on 30 March 2011)

• Stafford, Sophie (May 2008). "Editor's letter: China's wild treasures revealed". BBC Wildlife 26 (5)

Factual Television Trends

Successful co-productions

@ Chengfei Sun (Jim)@ Qing Shi (Julia)@ Min Zhong (Rachel)@ Chen Su (Sue)@ Mengju You (Daisy)

Illustrations

THANK

YOU!