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Third Workshop Report — 17 to 19 September, 2013 — Château de Limelette (Belgium)

Module 6 – Selection criteria

Introduction

Selective funds aim to support “quality” projects that will gain public recognition, reach audiences, be selected by major festivals and, most often, service broadcast demand. To reach these targets, funds are often opposed to multi-functional selection criteria.

• What are the objectives of the funds?
• How can a balance be achieved between a project’s financial and cultural aspects?
• What kind of funding schemes?
• How should “quality” be evaluated?
• How should selection criteria be evaluated?

Presentation of selected funds

1. Croatian Audiovisual Center (HAVRC), presented by Sanja Ravlic

General objectives

• It is very important for the Fund to define its goals and vision of what the Croatian cinema is expected to look like in 2-5 years.
• The definition of those goals needs a big consensus of all stakeholders within the sector, although there are always people who are going to be dissatisfied with our decisions.
• The better we define our overall strategic goals, the better we can explain to people why a certain project wasn’t supported. We need more transparency and clarity about what we are doing, giving us a better understanding of how the other side—producers and directors—sees things.

Funding Schemes

The HAVRC is entirely financed by the Ministry of Culture and manages only selective schemes (the only automatic scheme is actually the cash rebate scheme, which is run by a separate department):

• The Selective Scheme: support to feature films (fiction and documentary), experimental, shorts, and animation films. The selection criteria are designed for feature films, which is always the most demanding segment.
• The Consultancy scheme has been recently introduced as an attempt not to look only at the project, but to consider the wider picture. The major goal of the consultants (kind of commissioners) is to support the films that will travel around, participate in the festivals, win awards and, at the same time, generate big box-office revenue. For quite a long time we wanted all our films, especially feature films, to do both. Now, we are trying to support a slate of projects that will strike a balance between films with strong audience potential and films with strong festival potential.
• We also have the Support Scheme for First-time Filmmakers within which we support one first film a year. Also, we have a dedicated policy towards female filmmakers.

Definition of “quality”?

• This is our first selection criterion. “Quality” is mostly defined by how the films we supported perform in cinemas, and on the festival circuit.

Selection criteria

• Projects we support must reflect the diversity of the country as well as European diversity.
• Ours is an auteur-driven cinema, and we are slowly moving towards producers´ cinema. Right now we are somewhere in the middle.

2. Norwegian Film Institute, presented by Ivar Kohn

General objectives

Our goal is based on finding potential in a project, the ability and ambition of its team to realize that potential and reach the audience. At the end of the day, it is always the audience that decides what quality is. Audiences seek something that fulfills their needs. The marketing process for the film is based on showing that it can fulfill the audience's need.

Definition of “quality”?

Quality unifies originality, ambition and talent.

Funding Schemes and selection criteria

The Norwegian support system is very strategic. It breaks down the goals into a number of schemes and agendas. The selection of our films is based on our main goal of supporting films that reach and communicate with audiences, and that have artistic and festival potential. We make 20-25 films a year, and there are different schemes with different criteria designed to fulfill different goals:

• The Commissioners scheme is designed to support of 6-7 films per year, preferably artistic films. It is a very liberal scheme. Commissioners are free to choose whether a film is to be selected only on its artistic merits or on the basis of its big audience potential.
• The Market scheme is designed to support films that will perform well in the movie theaters. About 4-5 films are financed per year. There is a professional selection committee that advises us in this regard, and usually we follow their advice, which mostly concerns the potential audience for each project. This scheme functions very well. The 4-5 films supported by NFI through this scheme have raised the market share of Norwegian films up to 15-20%.
• The Slate fund allocates the money to a production company (only experienced producers and a talented directors) to make two or three films during a period of 3-4 years. It is a very open scheme. It is the producer who decides which films he/she wants to make with that money, and who lets us know how much it is going to cost.
• The Automatic support scheme is designed for films that sell over ten thousand tickets in the movie theaters in Norway. In such cases, we double the producer’s income for that film. This scheme helps those producers who want to avoid the bureaucratic, administrative work and obtain money directly for their next film. There is neither a selection committee nor commissioners.
• The Co-production scheme's main goal is to attract films that will have a big audience, and not only films that bring local spending in Norway. There is no content evaluation, since this scheme relies on the fact that the film is already supported by another national film fund. If a Norwegian producer is attached, we trust their evaluation of the content. However, we expect of co-productions either that they have a great potential in Norway (we consider the assigned distributor and the market plan) or great festival potential (a famous director assigned). We also want these productions to use Norwegian talent and be shot on Norwegian locations.
• The Talent scheme is designed for newcomers and young talent.

3. Film i Vast, presented by Katarina Krave, CFO

General objectives

• We are a regional fund and we act as both co-producer and equity investor, which mean that we are more involved in the projects than many other public funds across Europe.
• Our goal is to invest in high-quality films, build a better infrastructure in the region, and develop talent.
• The regional impact is also important. We demand that every project we support, regardless of whether it is an auteur or commercial film, spend the allocated amount in our region.

Definition of “quality”

According to our goals, quality can be either artistic quality or audience-related quality. Artistic quality is assigned to the films that entered the international film festival circuit. The audience-oriented movies are more difficult to identify, because we do not collect enough relevant data. We have information only on movie theater tickets, TV and DVD, and not on any other platforms.

Selection criteria

• To judge a film's quality, we first read its script. Several persons do this instead of just one. They discuss whether the film has any interesting potential in terms of festival success or big audiences.
• We also examine other complementary information (producers’ biographies, directors’ biographies, production company profile, etc.).
• We check out the financing plan – how many parties are willing to invest and how much money is entailed.
• We also check the distributor, and whether their financing includes a big MG.
• It is very important what kind of sales agent is attached to the project. We prefer sales agents that appear on the film festival A List.
• Although we support both artistic and commercial quality, if a project possesses only artistic quality, that is enough for us.

Evaluation of supported projects

Since the quality of a project is elusive, we also try to evaluate how successful we are at choosing high-quality projects. Thus, we have developed our own evaluation method. It is based on a point system. Each film is given a score. We consider the following elements:

• Which festivals each film entered. A film on the festival circuit A List and within the official competition will obtain a high score. The prizes awarded bring the most points to a project.
• We set as a goal that the average admission of a film we support should not be lower than 200'000 in Sweden, and we check that out.
• We also try to find out as many details as possible from the other countries that our co-productions come from.
• We check the sales on the international markets.
• In evaluating projects, we use two point systems. One is for festivals and the other for revenues. Revenues are important to us, but are not the crucial criterion.
• We do not publish these evaluations, but only the selection results, which can be found on our website in Swedish.
• Performing the evaluation process before you support a project is good because then you know if it conforms to and fits in with the Fund's strategic plans.

Outcome of the group discussions

Definitions of “quality”

• The quality of the projects is assessed through the evaluation of their Artistic quality (script, synopsis, director’s statement, treatment, visual material, the assigned director's previous works, etc.) and Production quality (technical and artistic collaboration between co-producers, circulation potential and financing) (Eurimages).
• The quality of a project is measured through internal elements (social relevance, aesthetics, content, USPs, innovation, magic, craftsmanship, etc.), external elements (fulfillment of different funding criteria) and press and audience response (commercial value, festival participation, prizes, etc.) (Nordmedia).
• Quality is evaluated through three criteria: success at the German and international box office, creation of a certain cultural brand and success at festivals (FFA).
• Quality is defined first by the inner quality (originality, social relevance, communicative potential, subjective impressions of evaluators) and outer quality (the budget, financing, former projects by the same authors, etc.) (Norwegian Film Institute).
• Quality is defined first in terms of the creative content (script, director’s point of view, topic and objectives of the story, dialogues, etc. followed by the financial criteria (credibility of the budget, co-production partners, other sources of financing) (Centre national du Cinema).

Evaluation of Selection Criteria

It appeared during the discussion that the selection criteria used by committee members or commissioners are mostly evaluated when the film is finished, released or even in production. This is a way for funds to evaluate themselves but also for the members of the selection committees to measure the concrete results of their decisions.

Some examples:

• Use every meeting to talk about supported projects, their movie theater release and how they performed (Austrian Film Institute).
• Evaluation of a certain number of films from the application stage to the movie theater release and distribution with the production team (director, scriptwriter, producer, distributor), representatives of the fund and a neutral moderator. Depending on how the project evolved, the fund can be asked what persuaded it to choose and support certain projects (Netherlands Film Fund).
• Evaluation of the fund decisions every two years. Also to give the selection committee an overview of what film has been supported and why, a report with the results and decision criteria of all films that have been approved for funding is presented to them at each session. The evaluation is not about the quality of the project but about the expected results (German Federal Filmboard/FFA).
• Use of a dot diagram (see picture). The vertical line measures each film's quality (media reviews, selection in A-list festivals, awards, etc; the horizontal line concerns audience (admissions). The main idea is to aim for films whose quality exceeds 3 (5 is the maximum), that have a large audience and a unique story. This evaluation is done once a year, eventually with the distributor if the film has not performed as estimated. During this process, the pre-selection guess is compared with what happens afterwards. There is also a discussion about whether diversity has been achieved, goals fulfilled, etc. For the commissioners, it is also a way to measure how their own estimates went (Swedish Film Institute).
  Please also see the “SFI-Evaluation Cross” (PDF)
• Avoiding the dichotomy between certain selection criteria. For instance, a film's circulation potential can take two types of circulation into consideration at once (both festival and cinema circulation).

Balance between a project’s financial and cultural elements

• Both elements are considered as basic criteria and are treated on the same level. The rest is based on an individual judgment of the project, in terms of “relevance” (Austrian Film Institute).
• The balancing act differs from project to project (especially within the commissioner’s scheme), but the selection committee members should be aware of and informed about the wider context, such as our policies to support slate projects. (Croatian Audiovisual Center).
• To do our best to maintain as much as possible the 50/50 balance of arthouse and commercial projects, because all types of projects are equally important and necessary. (Film I Vast).
• A balance is achieved on the basis that committee members come from both creative and commercial backgrounds and discuss every project thoroughly. This democratic approach fosters the balance between the funding of cultural and commercial projects, even though the FFA by nature has an affinity for commercial projects. (German Federal Filmboard/FFA).

Impact of Digital in Film Business and Production

• Introduction — The Perfect Storm/The Workshop Method — PEST analysis
• Module 1 — Should we support less films for an overcrowded market, or focus on ensuring that the films we select find audiences on new platforms?
• Module 2 — How does the dramatic increase in audience data and a demand-driven economy affect our decision-making processes?
• Module 3 — How far do we need to adapt to new business models, and how far can we seek to protect traditional industrial structures?
• Module 4 — Conclusions

Decision Making Processes

• Module 5 — Goals and selection processes/methods
• Module 6 — Selection criteria
• Module 7 — Profiles of experts, consultants, selection committee members
• Module 8 — Relations with higher authorities and producers

• List of Participants (PDF)
• MEDICI Third Workshop Full Report (PDF)

Illustrations by Jean-Philippe Legrand – called "Aster"

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