Reports Previous Workshops
Seventh Workshop – 27 to 29 September 2017 – Finstadjordet, Norway
The role of funds in professionalizing actors in the audiovisual industry
Introduction
The support of public funds is the key to financing European audiovisual projects. The question is whether their role goes beyond that of being solely a financial partner and also consists in offering tools to accompany and professionalise the sector enabling it to remain competitive in a market increasingly open to the world.
Presentation of the study “Current state of investment of national and regional public funds in Europe for professional training”
Joëlle Levie, project leader of MEDICI/ FOCAL
Please also see Joëlle Levie’s presentation (PDF)
This study came out of the discussion about professional training during the previous MEDICI workshop in Switzerland.
The objectives of the study are:
- To analyze the current state of investment of public funds in the EU:
- What is their role in professionalizing the industry? Following up MEDICI discussion about Professional Training (PT) in 2016, within Module 7, we ask if training is part of funds’ professional development strategy.
- To get information on:
- Financial resources dedicated to PT
- Categories of supported actions
- Actions to be inspired by
And raise many questions:
- Do funds have a role in the professionalization of the industry?
- Do the existing PT offers meet the needs?
- Could PT funding be sustainable like other support schemes?
- Is PT understood as part of the global production process or as a separate track?
Previous studies
The European Audiovisual Observatory
The European Audiovisual Observatory published in 2016 the study on “Public Financing for film and television content – the state of soft money in Europe”).
- They define professional training as part of the “other” supported activities by the funds (inc. awards, archives, media education, training, research, audience research, etc.)
- Average of 2% of over 2 billion/year (33 countries – period 2010-2014). But this number is only an estimate.
But,
- The study does not offer a clear definition of professional training (workshop, co-production market, programme within the fund, etc.) and was not even introduced as such in the study.
Creative Europe – MEDIA
In 2017, Creative Europe’s MEDIA programme made a report on performance of their professional training programmes. The report is titled “Contribution of the CE programme to fostering Creativity and Skills Development in the audiovisual Sector”. It identifies “the need to operate internationally” and addresses the following challenges:
- Craft-specific and ICT/digital skills
- Business management skills, leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship
- Interpersonal, social and cross-cultural skills.
The study also evaluated the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of the MEDIA training actions. There is a high degree of satisfaction shown in the study. The report-makers interviewed a lot of people, trainers, producers, scriptwriters….. who participated in MEDIA-financed training activities. However, there are the following challenges:
- The lack of room for young professionals. It is almost always for experienced people.
- Lack of sustainability of PT structures. Many programmes would just die if MEDIA did not support them.
- Consider combining Training Actions and Access to Market Actions
The report’s main conclusion and recommendation is: “raising the awareness about the importance of training will remain high on the political agenda since many workers and their employees do not (sufficiently) invest in training”.
The study
Structure
- The study consists of two parts:
- Data per country/per fund/per professional training (PT) categories.
- Global data and outcomes.
Data per country/per fund/per PT categories
- The study includes data from 67 funds (33 national, 34 regional) in 32 countries.
- It does not include France and the UK because the PTs are not within public film funds (CNC and BFI), but within other structures.
- Data are from 2015 and sometimes 2016
- The study divides PTs into the following five categories to encompass the diversity of definitions covered by the funds:
- Professional training strategy/policy
- Professional training provider itself (with or without specific programme)
- Support to national and/or foreign professional training programs/activities
- Structural support to professional training organizations/institutions in the country
- Individual professional training support (scholarship, internship, mentorship)
Global data
- 4 countries invest between 4% and 6% of their budget in professional training.
- 5 countries invest between 3% and 4%
- 11 countries between 1% and 2%
- 11 countries less than 1%.
- In terms of budget:
- Approximately 1.76% of the budget of all 67 funds in question is dedicated to PT.
- For national funds (33 in total) it is approximately 1.35%,
- For regional funds (34 of them), it is approximately 2.84%.
- Approximately 30% of the entire PT financing in Europe is provided by the Creative Europe – MEDIA programme.
- If we look at the support categories defined above:
- 71% of 67 analyzed funds support national/foreign PT programmes and activities
- 60% have individual PT support (scholarship, mentorship, internships)
- 55% provide PT themselves
- 45% have professional training strategy/policy
- 12% provide structural support to PT organizations/institutions in the country.
- These numbers are different if we break it down into the two categories of national and regional funds:
- National funds see it as a priority to support national and foreign PT activities, and
- regional funds organize a lot of PT activities themselves and are more concerned with strategy and policy.
- Structural support is equally significant in both types of funds.
- The PT funding champions among the national funds are OFC (Switzerland), IFB (Ireland), CCA-VAF (Belgium), Georgian Film Center and Hungarian Film Foundation. When it comes to regional funds, it is Italian and Norwegian regional funds, followed by the German MDM.
Main outcomes of the study
- No correlation between the budget allocated to film projects and PT projects
- % of investment is very low (1.76%) for no-risk/high benefit support
- Differences between national and regional funds:
- Objectives
- Financial resources
- Supported categories
But,
- same ranks of priority:
- 1st position: support to national and/or foreign professional training programmes/activities => short term commitment
- 5th position: structural support => long term commitment and €€€
- Almost no communication or cooperation among funds at national and international level
- No measure or indicator to determine the right level of funds investment in PT
Challenges
- Would it be possible to have a clear definition of PT?
- Do public funds need to have a role in the professionalization of the industry?
- Must it be a part of their mandate or a voluntary commitment?
- How defines PT priorities and how is it done?
- Does the existing PT offer meet the needs?
- Should public funds invest more in PT in comparison to other industrial sectors?
- Must PT funding be sustainable like other support schemes?
- Should funding of PT become a part of the legal mandatory mechanisms?
Possible future steps
- Validation and update of data, and resolving the methodological challenge posed by the unavailability of data related to PT programmes supported by public funds
- Establishing a universal platform for PT programmes
- Define shared parameters when it comes to PT
Questions from the audience
- How did you collect data?
- The only way to collect data is to call the funds one by one. It is a long and exhausting process and you never know if you have all the data.
- What is the main difference between national and regional funds in terms of PT?
- Regional funds are more active and engaged in education and training simply because they need to teach local people to service foreign productions.
- Is MEDICI a PT programme?
- According to MEDIA, it is not. MEDIA rejected Medici because they did not see it as industry programme, but a programme for the funds. They assumed that the funds had to finance MEDICI themselves. PT is only for industry events.
The Role of Public Film Funds in the Future
- Introduction
- Module 1 – What are the essential and relevant core values of public funds?
- Module 2 – How to design funding programs today?
- Module 3 – How to take risk and experiment?
- Module 4 – Is diversity essential for reaching the audiences? Are there tools for evaluating the diversity of audiences?
- Presentation of the study “Current state of investment of national and regional public funds in Europe for professional training”
- Module 5 – How to integrate new technologies and players in the value chain?
- Module 6 – Distribution and Promotion Schemes
- Module 7 – Engaging with Future