4.14.2006
2. Research Topic
.
Films are understood as dual objects: on the one hand they are seen as economic commodities, on the other, as cultural goods, that is, as manifestations of the “culture” of origin of the creators. As a sellable commodity films from a national industry compete internationally against other National Film Industries (including the US and its powerful Hollywood oligopoly). As an industry it is in the best interest of a smaller National Film Industry (its institutions and related individuals) to expand the understanding of the factors that play a role in stopping its growth or in expanding it. The health of a National Film Industry is linked to economic dimensions like employment, international trade balances, and the gross national product.
As it will be shown in other sections of this research, a key element for many National Film Industries is the support and subsidies they receive through different forms of state intervention. This means that National Film Industries usually generate national “costs” instead of national “profits.” In spite of this, many nation states keep financing their “economically inefficient” National Film Industries. Especially under the current and dominant socio-economic trends, state support for the film industry has been achieved and maintained through varying sets of “cultural arguments” although behind them there’s always strong activism from professionals that want to make films or to improve the economic conditions and safety nets of those attempting to make films. These arguments, which frame National Film Industry products as important expressions of the National Culture and Identity, as cultural goods to be to be protected, have had some degree of success with policymakers in different countries and obtained different degrees of support through different policy formats.
The order of the value dimensions of film – first economic and then cultural – is not random. The material existence of a film, its production, is a prior, necessary condition to its capacity to engender any ideological effects when films are decoded by the individuals in the audience. Before film can be considered as a cultural object, it must first be conceived as an industry (Moran, 1996, p. 1). Therefore, any kind of “cultural” effect or representation embedded in a film’s content depends on the economic possibility to produce it. The focus of this work is on how to improve the economic conditions required to guarantee more national films and more audiences to them in a way in which economic deficits can be minimized and therefore opposition to film policies on the basis of economic inefficiencies can be minimized as well.
This economic essence of film set the context for the research question that drive this project:
What are the strategic conditions and the positive and negative factors that by being – respectively – expanded, corrected and developed will allow a National Film Industry to grow?
Four key sub-questions can be derived in order to support and guide the research trajectory:
- How do the relationships between governments and the professionals and representatives of a national film sector operate?
- What arguments have been used, by the different agents involved, in order to create policy and industrial support for their National Film Industry?
- Which support instruments and sector actions have been applied and with what effect?
- What kind of structural restrictions/challenges do National Film Sectors face in their attempts to grow?
A National Film Industry refers to a “Domestic Film Industry”, to the industrial chain of production, distribution and exhibition of movies, involving private companies, government agencies, film laws, film institutions, professional associations and unions, and competition with foreign Film Industries within the boundaries of a nation state and internationally (Moran, 1996, p. 8-9).
National Film Industries (and also the whole of the audiovisual industries) are frequently analyzed in terms of the trade imbalances or uneven proportions of imported and domestically produced films that are shown to local audiences. The concern is not only one of trade-deficit in a determined industrial sector, it is also about the cultural implications of a deficit in the objects that are supposed to cinematically express and imaginatively project a ‘national community’ or the thoughts of a ‘national community’ (Moran, 1996, p. 9). Whatever the resulting ‘expressive objects’ are, they can only exist if economic terrain, that is, film market share is won by national companies or national agents. If national agents are economically excluded from the production of the films national audiences watch, then no ‘national expressive objects’ will ever be decoded. The research question of the present project aims at understanding the social processes behind such economic struggle.
Beyond the final findings offered by this exploration of film as National Film Industry, there is, of course, a personal interest. National Film Industries exist because there are always men and women impassioned about in making movies. That is a precondition for any National Industry to exist. Without that desire no film would ever be made, no National Film Industry could be developed. I’m personally committed to be part of the Colombian and Latin-American film/audiovisual sector, and to help in its expansion and improvement as a vehicle of change and of expression of the lived complexities and violent conflicts of my country’s National life. This research project is already a step to go in that direction and to focus on and learn more about a subject that has always been a passion for me. The information and ideas and evidence gathered as a result of this research work should also be useful for film professionals working in Colombia and interested in expanding the economic possibilities of the national industry and in creating and strengthening its links to strategic film industries like Hollywood, France and Spain, in order to gain a competitive edge, increase the amount of films produced and the salaries and wealth of everyone involved in such projects. Hopefully, this project will also be another step in my personal walk to a professional sphere where I can feel at ease.
This research project would not have been possible without the support of Andrea Roth, from the School of Communication (ASCOR) at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and Marijke de Valck, from the Department of Film Studies at UvA. I want to thank them for their helpful advise throughout this knowledge process. Other than that, the content of this document has been the responsibility of the author.
. ¶ 9:28 PM
Films are understood as dual objects: on the one hand they are seen as economic commodities, on the other, as cultural goods, that is, as manifestations of the “culture” of origin of the creators. As a sellable commodity films from a national industry compete internationally against other National Film Industries (including the US and its powerful Hollywood oligopoly). As an industry it is in the best interest of a smaller National Film Industry (its institutions and related individuals) to expand the understanding of the factors that play a role in stopping its growth or in expanding it. The health of a National Film Industry is linked to economic dimensions like employment, international trade balances, and the gross national product.
As it will be shown in other sections of this research, a key element for many National Film Industries is the support and subsidies they receive through different forms of state intervention. This means that National Film Industries usually generate national “costs” instead of national “profits.” In spite of this, many nation states keep financing their “economically inefficient” National Film Industries. Especially under the current and dominant socio-economic trends, state support for the film industry has been achieved and maintained through varying sets of “cultural arguments” although behind them there’s always strong activism from professionals that want to make films or to improve the economic conditions and safety nets of those attempting to make films. These arguments, which frame National Film Industry products as important expressions of the National Culture and Identity, as cultural goods to be to be protected, have had some degree of success with policymakers in different countries and obtained different degrees of support through different policy formats.
The order of the value dimensions of film – first economic and then cultural – is not random. The material existence of a film, its production, is a prior, necessary condition to its capacity to engender any ideological effects when films are decoded by the individuals in the audience. Before film can be considered as a cultural object, it must first be conceived as an industry (Moran, 1996, p. 1). Therefore, any kind of “cultural” effect or representation embedded in a film’s content depends on the economic possibility to produce it. The focus of this work is on how to improve the economic conditions required to guarantee more national films and more audiences to them in a way in which economic deficits can be minimized and therefore opposition to film policies on the basis of economic inefficiencies can be minimized as well.
This economic essence of film set the context for the research question that drive this project:
What are the strategic conditions and the positive and negative factors that by being – respectively – expanded, corrected and developed will allow a National Film Industry to grow?
Four key sub-questions can be derived in order to support and guide the research trajectory:
- How do the relationships between governments and the professionals and representatives of a national film sector operate?
- What arguments have been used, by the different agents involved, in order to create policy and industrial support for their National Film Industry?
- Which support instruments and sector actions have been applied and with what effect?
- What kind of structural restrictions/challenges do National Film Sectors face in their attempts to grow?
A National Film Industry refers to a “Domestic Film Industry”, to the industrial chain of production, distribution and exhibition of movies, involving private companies, government agencies, film laws, film institutions, professional associations and unions, and competition with foreign Film Industries within the boundaries of a nation state and internationally (Moran, 1996, p. 8-9).
National Film Industries (and also the whole of the audiovisual industries) are frequently analyzed in terms of the trade imbalances or uneven proportions of imported and domestically produced films that are shown to local audiences. The concern is not only one of trade-deficit in a determined industrial sector, it is also about the cultural implications of a deficit in the objects that are supposed to cinematically express and imaginatively project a ‘national community’ or the thoughts of a ‘national community’ (Moran, 1996, p. 9). Whatever the resulting ‘expressive objects’ are, they can only exist if economic terrain, that is, film market share is won by national companies or national agents. If national agents are economically excluded from the production of the films national audiences watch, then no ‘national expressive objects’ will ever be decoded. The research question of the present project aims at understanding the social processes behind such economic struggle.
Beyond the final findings offered by this exploration of film as National Film Industry, there is, of course, a personal interest. National Film Industries exist because there are always men and women impassioned about in making movies. That is a precondition for any National Industry to exist. Without that desire no film would ever be made, no National Film Industry could be developed. I’m personally committed to be part of the Colombian and Latin-American film/audiovisual sector, and to help in its expansion and improvement as a vehicle of change and of expression of the lived complexities and violent conflicts of my country’s National life. This research project is already a step to go in that direction and to focus on and learn more about a subject that has always been a passion for me. The information and ideas and evidence gathered as a result of this research work should also be useful for film professionals working in Colombia and interested in expanding the economic possibilities of the national industry and in creating and strengthening its links to strategic film industries like Hollywood, France and Spain, in order to gain a competitive edge, increase the amount of films produced and the salaries and wealth of everyone involved in such projects. Hopefully, this project will also be another step in my personal walk to a professional sphere where I can feel at ease.
This research project would not have been possible without the support of Andrea Roth, from the School of Communication (ASCOR) at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and Marijke de Valck, from the Department of Film Studies at UvA. I want to thank them for their helpful advise throughout this knowledge process. Other than that, the content of this document has been the responsibility of the author.
. ¶ 9:28 PM
