13 times lucky

It is when maturity comes that you can speak about some of your achievements. When it all began – some 13 editions ago, in 2007 – Production Value was like a mirage: would we be able to create a place where assistant directors and line producers can be properly trained at a European level? Would a scheduling and budgeting masterclass at all be possible? There was no syllabus, it had never been attempted.

When Swiss film writer and director Denis Rabaglia (below, wearing glasses) designed the original concept, it was therefore quite experimental. But all the ingredients that were necessary for the success of Production Value were already there: talented juniors, experienced seniors, real-life projects, enough time to examine them, team efforts. And a philosophy: the European film industry should not think about ADs and LPs in terms of “operational partners” anymore, but value them for their creative contributions. ADs and LPs should also roll up their sleeves and take part in the collaborative process of taking the right decisions for the film to come instead of executing decisions imposed on them.

Edition 13 was not the unluckiest at all. Head of Studies Kaare Storemyr (below, wearing a beard) – a Norwegian line producer who had acted seven times as senior line producer and once as Head of Studies in past editions of Production Value – had the opportunity to choose the 12 juniors amongst 85 applications coming from 26 countries. The highest rate in the history of the workshop!

For this 13^th edition, Kaare Storemyr gathered some regular seniors from the previous workshops. From the beginning of Production Value, most seniors tutoring the workshop have returned on a regular basis:

• Stuart Renfrew (England) (second from the left) has been with Production Value for the last 12 editions as senior assistant director, bringing in his vast experience as one of the leading first ADs in the UK.
• Marco Valerio Pugini (Italy) (on the left) participated for the 7^th time in Production Value in his capacity as senior line producer.
• Michael Schwarz (Germany) (on the right) another long-standing senior line producer, was with Production Value for the 6^th time.
• Frank Schlegel (Germany) (second from the right) returned to Production Value in the central capacity of VFX Supervisor for the 7^th time, supporting all projects with his creative and technical knowledge. He made it possible for our complex projects to be properly broken down in terms of visual effects.

But he also invited some newcomers:

• Udo Happel (Germany) (on the left) was with
   Production Value as senior line producer for the
   2^nd time, after PV15 in Finland.
• Mike Lundin (Sweden) (on the right) is a unique case.
   The AD was a junior at PV12 in Malta. He has
   gathered so much experience since that he was
   promoted to senior for this edition.
 
 

Now that streamline platforms have become more than common, limited series are THE new format in filmmaking. The audience seems to love this format. From the ADs’ and the LPs’ point of view, it brings up specific challenges, mostly because schedules and budgets must be drafted before all the scripts are written. In most cases, only a ‘bible’ and a couple of episodes are available at that point, and yet, series are getting greenlit and cast and crew hired.

PV18 was the first edition where limited series were taken into account. Seniors had to adapt the training that they had refined over the previous editions. They selected two very different Norwegian series:

THE LIONESS is a mid-1300 epic, telling the story of a wealthy noblewoman who becomes a feared pirate when her husband is beheaded. The magnitude of the project was massive since many shooting options were possible. This gave the Austrian Junior Assistant Director Katinka Siegert Lotherington (left) and Swedish Junior line producer Eva Akergren (right) the opportunity to design a masterplan and a tentative budget for this ambitious 6 x 50-minute series.
 
 
The team assigned to CAMP CENTURY, brought in by the Norwegian production company PARADOX (4th participation in Production Value with a project), had to face an unexpected tragic event: the screenwriter of the project died a couple of days before the workshop, and the producer therefore had to cancel his presence. Nonetheless, Romanian Junior Assistant Director Mihai Chirilai (right, in the middle) and British Junior Line Producer Pam Roberts (left) provided excellent options and results on how to approach this ambitious 8 x 45-minute limited series, set up in Greenland, for a young adult audience.

Projects containing actions that cannot be shot where they are supposed to take place are one of the “classics” that Production Value has to deal with. In this year’s edition, two projects were giving a headache to the teams assigned to them:
 
CLIMBER tells the story of a famous British mountain climber who was a legend in his day. The film contains numerous mountain-climbing scenes that can obviously not be shot on the real locations. Making the whole project consistent and feasible was the job of Spanish Junior Assistant Director Marta Almarcha Miñarro (on the right, at left) and Swiss Junior Line Producer Aminta Iseppi (right).
How do you fake a post-apocalyptic New York on a medium-size budget and without setting your foot on the other side of the Atlantic? That was the challenge assigned to Lithuanian Junior Assistant Director Lukas Kudapcenka (on the left, at right) and Finnish Junior Line Producer Tiina Pesonen (left) with the project RAY AND MOLLY, an intimate love story in the backdrop of a destroyed world. Thanks to intense location research, they were able to propose a consistent plan to the producers.
 
 

It is one of the findings of Production Value that, whether big or small, each complex project requests a methodological approach if you want to produce a reliable schedule and budget. In this sense, provided that a certain level of complexity is included, the experience of all juniors within Production Value is roughly the same, whatever the scope of the project assigned to them. The last two projects presented here are indeed at each end of the financing spectrum:
 
BIRDS is a European road-movie to be shot in different countries, respecting the location changes and language mix. It was a rather small project, but to put all the pieces together requested intense brainstorming from Ukrainian Junior Assistant Director Yanina Kucher (right) and Latvian Junior Line Producer Renate Barone (in the middle) an intense brainstorming.
 
Last but not least, ISLAND BLUE was one of the largest projects ever undertaken within Production Value; its budget came near to 30 million Euros. This children’s film with a magical touch and extraordinary imagery was the task of Dutch Junior Assistant Director Paul Zomerhuis (left) and Norwegian Junior Line Producer Tor Arne Oevreboe (right). They had to extrapolate some design for the film in order to make a proper schedule and budget, that actually reached a figure lower than the one expected by the producers.
 

13 editions of Production Value means 13 times lucky to have had brave and committed juniors working with generous and experienced seniors on extremely complex projects brought by daring and passionate producers and directors. 13 times that the wind of a possible new professional relationship around scheduling and budgeting blows over the European film industry.

Projects

Photo Gallery

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Production Value 2018 was proposed by
FOCAL resource
FOCAL
Norwegian Film Institute
Swedish Film Institute
Finnish Film Foundation
with the support of
Creative Europe
Apulia Film Commission