4.14.2006
5.3. Spanish Cinema: the Aftermath
.
With the twentieth century left behind, the Spanish film industry entered this brave new world more than ready to defend its audiovisual share from the voracious appetite of the Hollywood majors and their film and TV divisions. Different events and strategies helped to build an industry that today operates on different battlefronts. The first and most important element was the peripheral but strategic inclusion of Spain in the exclusive club of countries that already own a majority share of the world’s resources. With Tourism – Spain’s biggest industry – taking off in the early 60’s and the financial support of the post-war Franco-German alliance, the country moved from the disdained outskirts of Europe to become one of the biggest European markets and a strategic bridge to Latin-America. Such a development triggered Spanish GDP, beyond the life and death of Franco, to the segment of high-income countries with USD839 Billion of gross domestic product in 2003, gaining factor number one for a healthy domestic film industry, market size (Lee and Bae, 2004).
As has been shown in the previous story, Spain had already gained experience in filmmaking since the early twentieth century and around the 1940’s the state, with professionals support, had already established protectionist measures for the industry, measures that varied in one way or another, according to the circumstances, but that were always in place, covering all sectors of the industry, until present times. Spanish policy was a comprehensive protectionist policy, combining restrictive measures, designed to guarantee a domestic market for domestic product (like the screen quotas and dubbing licensees), with supportive measures, financial aid designed to train professionals and guarantee a production flow (like the selective and automatic subsidies, the National Film School, and production soft-credits).
In this way, and after one hundred years, Spain managed to combine market size, market share and a sustained production flow to the point that some policy measures are not necessary anymore since the industry reached a stage in which it was able to attract private investment from banks, venture capitalists, and domestic, European and US media giants. The Spanish Cinema Institution was successfully created. A breathing organization able to produce popular domestic films and differentiated art works that thrive within narrow international markets or through national commercial windows. With a portfolio of films able to consistently keep theatrical market share at 14% domestically. With internationally recognized products that attract top Hollywood talent into collaborative projects and export key Spanish talent to Hollywood, bringing back knowledge, practices, and money in the form of salaries. An industry that begins to guaranty screen space and Spanish content delivery through Spanish media companies and major Hollywood studios distribution and exhibition partnerships, carrying the known risks for the “public interest”.
Current or new regulations will be complimentary in the process to achieve additional domestic market share. Political Resistance strategies against Hollywood domination (like distribution quotas) are more difficult to implement today, even if such political will existed, since those that would be resisted are now partners for domestic and international ventures, and have access, through those partnerships and co-productions, to domestic subsidies. Besides, the US Government (State and Commerce Departments) will be around to intervene if any territory misbehaves. The alliances with big media conglomerates from Germany, France, Japan and the US, signal a collaborative trend among the big companies, while independents remain experimenting, innovating and struggling for money and to get on the map of the industry. This is the structure of the Spanish film/audiovisual industry at the beginning of the 21st century and it seems to provide a good platform for Spain to finally start conquering a bigger share of the international audiovisual markets, with Latin-America, again, well on sight. On the other hand, Spanish audiences, whenever they want, can watch portions of themselves and of their realities on the screens. They pay for that right with taxes to the government, with attention to TV advertisers, with subscriptions to pay-TV services, and with money for tickets at the box office. In the end, it’s in their own hands to watch a Spanish film. It’s their choice.
Follow to the Next Section
.
¶ 9:16 PM With the twentieth century left behind, the Spanish film industry entered this brave new world more than ready to defend its audiovisual share from the voracious appetite of the Hollywood majors and their film and TV divisions. Different events and strategies helped to build an industry that today operates on different battlefronts. The first and most important element was the peripheral but strategic inclusion of Spain in the exclusive club of countries that already own a majority share of the world’s resources. With Tourism – Spain’s biggest industry – taking off in the early 60’s and the financial support of the post-war Franco-German alliance, the country moved from the disdained outskirts of Europe to become one of the biggest European markets and a strategic bridge to Latin-America. Such a development triggered Spanish GDP, beyond the life and death of Franco, to the segment of high-income countries with USD839 Billion of gross domestic product in 2003, gaining factor number one for a healthy domestic film industry, market size (Lee and Bae, 2004).
As has been shown in the previous story, Spain had already gained experience in filmmaking since the early twentieth century and around the 1940’s the state, with professionals support, had already established protectionist measures for the industry, measures that varied in one way or another, according to the circumstances, but that were always in place, covering all sectors of the industry, until present times. Spanish policy was a comprehensive protectionist policy, combining restrictive measures, designed to guarantee a domestic market for domestic product (like the screen quotas and dubbing licensees), with supportive measures, financial aid designed to train professionals and guarantee a production flow (like the selective and automatic subsidies, the National Film School, and production soft-credits).
In this way, and after one hundred years, Spain managed to combine market size, market share and a sustained production flow to the point that some policy measures are not necessary anymore since the industry reached a stage in which it was able to attract private investment from banks, venture capitalists, and domestic, European and US media giants. The Spanish Cinema Institution was successfully created. A breathing organization able to produce popular domestic films and differentiated art works that thrive within narrow international markets or through national commercial windows. With a portfolio of films able to consistently keep theatrical market share at 14% domestically. With internationally recognized products that attract top Hollywood talent into collaborative projects and export key Spanish talent to Hollywood, bringing back knowledge, practices, and money in the form of salaries. An industry that begins to guaranty screen space and Spanish content delivery through Spanish media companies and major Hollywood studios distribution and exhibition partnerships, carrying the known risks for the “public interest”.
Current or new regulations will be complimentary in the process to achieve additional domestic market share. Political Resistance strategies against Hollywood domination (like distribution quotas) are more difficult to implement today, even if such political will existed, since those that would be resisted are now partners for domestic and international ventures, and have access, through those partnerships and co-productions, to domestic subsidies. Besides, the US Government (State and Commerce Departments) will be around to intervene if any territory misbehaves. The alliances with big media conglomerates from Germany, France, Japan and the US, signal a collaborative trend among the big companies, while independents remain experimenting, innovating and struggling for money and to get on the map of the industry. This is the structure of the Spanish film/audiovisual industry at the beginning of the 21st century and it seems to provide a good platform for Spain to finally start conquering a bigger share of the international audiovisual markets, with Latin-America, again, well on sight. On the other hand, Spanish audiences, whenever they want, can watch portions of themselves and of their realities on the screens. They pay for that right with taxes to the government, with attention to TV advertisers, with subscriptions to pay-TV services, and with money for tickets at the box office. In the end, it’s in their own hands to watch a Spanish film. It’s their choice.
Follow to the Next Section
.
