Water Cooler

By Dom Serafini

The recently concluded American Film Market (AFM) started with an historical event on November 5, the election of the first black American president, and ended on November 12 with another historical event — at least for the 29 year old market — a decline on all fronts: fewer buyers, fewer exhibitors and fewer participants.

Indeed the corridors were mostly deserted at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica, California, whose suites were turned into sales offices for the AFM. However, Jonathan Wolf, managing director of the AFM, explained that all was perfectly cool. “I’m worried when I see crowded halls because it indicates that [buyers] are not at the screening places,” he said, adding that one of AFM’s greatest features is the high number of world premieres (102 films) it offers since “buyers are always looking for new product [to screen].”

This AFM made perfectly clear that it is primarily a DVD market, and a few buyers, such as Mario Pimentel of Portugal’s MPA, actually skipped MIPCOM this year for that reason. It was this DVD sales potential that that brought a number of exhibitors to the AFM for the first time, as well. Said Andrew Schreiber of U.K.’s Power: “ We’re here for the first time to expand our presence in the DVD market.” Another first-timer was Jill Keenleyside of Canada’s CCI, who reported brisk sales for Alice Upside Down, with an all-rights deal concluded in the U.K., and with negotiations conducted with Germany, Latin America and the Middle East.

Another AFM characteristic is the opportunity for pre-sale agreements that filmmakers give to banks as guarantees to secure production money.

Nonetheless, the close proximity of the powerful Cannes-based MIPCOM with the Santa Monica event aggravated by the sad state of the world’s finances, had a negative effect on sales at the AFM for many exhibitors.

Ironically, the bad state of the world economy, which was a recurrent theme at AFM seminars and in the corridors, is proving a boon for DVD rentals. Blockbuster has already recorded an increase in rentals and it has projected further gains in the coming months.

But more than the poor economy, on the mind of many sellers was the problem of too many movies chasing too few dollars. The glut of completed movies seemed to be the real economy at the AFM even though some disagreed. “Each territory has its own preference,” commented one distributor. “There are countries that prefer action and horror and others that favor romantic comedies. The quality might vary, however.” In any case, help is on the way. At one of the many AFM conferences, it was pointed out that the credit crisis will result in fewer movies being produced — at least for the next five years.

Also facing the indies are issues such as companies’ stock prices going down, the credit crunch, the critical financial status of countries like Iceland, the threat of a Screen Actors Guild strike, budget cuts, and the end-of-year budget cycle. The latter is a recurrent end-of the-year syndrome, when acquisition executives run out of money and go to the AFM to shop instead of buy. An acquisition boost is expected at the beginning of 2009, but then it would be NATPE (late January in Las Vegas), the Berlin Film Festival (in Germany in mid-February) and MIP-TV (in Cannes, late March) that would benefit.

According to ACI’s George Shamieh, buyers dried up their budgets three months prior the AFM. However, Chevonne O’Shaughnessy added that at the AFM, ACI completed sales of its miniseries Jack Hunter to TV Azteca, CineCanal, Channel 12 Uruguay and RCTV. And for the company’s success in Latin America, she credited VideoAge.

Similarly, it was said that the improving dollar exchange rate is favoring non-U.S. distributors’ sales and making locations outside the U.S. more appealing to American producers. At the same time however, the dollar gain “burned” up what was left in non- U.S. buyers’ budgets.

As for the buying contingent, according to market organizers, a good number were recorded from Asia, especially Japan. A total of 1,527 buyers representing 65 countries were in attendance, 100 fewer than last year.

Overall attendance at the AFM was 7,903, a 5.3 percent decrease from 2007. A total of 409 companies from 36 countries exhibited at the AFM, a two percent reduction from last year. Additionally, 527 films in 35 languages were screened during the AFM.

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Asia’s willingness to embrace new technologies such as mobile platforms is a factor that sets it apart from other regions, where the technology has yet to be fully adopted. According to a recent study by Multimedia Intelligence, Asia has the vast majority of mobile television subscribers. Christopher Chia, CEO of Singapore’s Media Development Authority (MDA) and company consider the “prospects for growth in the mobile TV market to be very promising.” This forward-thinking trend and others will be reflected at the upcoming ninth annual Asia TV Forum (ATF), which will be held in Singapore.

This year, ATF will take place December 10-12 at the Suntec Centre — a new venue, and a larger one — which was necessary to house the growing number of attendees. While past editions of the market have been suite-based at the Shangri-La hotel, ATF 2008 will take on a more typical conference style.

“We outgrew the maximum capacity at the [hotel], thus the need to move into a bigger venue,” said Yeow Hui Leng, Project director for Reed Exhibitions Singapore. “The change to a more open exhibition format is based on industry surveys. More clients have been telling us they would like to do the exhibition format for a change and we take their feedback [into account]. Suntec addresses both issues of capacity and the desire for a more open concept.” In addition, Suntec is more centrally located than the Shangri-La, and is in close proximity to a number of hotels, shopping malls, restaurants and clubs.

“I really like the idea of it being more of a convention than a suite-based event,” said Sabrina Toledo, vice president, Sales and Marketing for Norwalk, Connecticut-based CABLEready. “It increases the chance of walk-by clients. Also, with a suite-based convention, it’s a bit of a challenge to walk into a suite and not feel like you’re interrupting — especially in the Asian culture, where respect is so important.”

In addition to meeting with clients and presenting a slate of children’s programming, Patrick Elmendorff, managing director of Munich-based Studio100 Media, plans on making sure his firm’s presence is felt in Singapore. “Studio100 has been in operation for just over a year and in that time, the company has grown significantly,” said Elmendorff. “With the recent acquisition of EM.Entertainment, we would like to present the new company as we now boast an extensive library of new programming.” In addition, added Elmendorff: “ATF is important to us as it’s a young and vibrant market which continues to grow each year. It gives us the opportunity to meet with clients from all over the region, including Southeast Asia and India.”

Although the Asia TV Forum (ATF) is the only “show in town,” for some companies, it is not yet the “best show” in town. In addition to difficulties dealing with Asian program buyers, the market suffers from a need for top-level acquisition executives. Reportedly, the ATF has not yet been able to offer exhibition companies the kind of support mechanism that a difficult territory, such as Asia, would require. For this reason, companies that are not participating in ATF are embarking on a more grueling, if more rewarding, market by market visit. It has been pointed out that DISCOP, the market for Central and Eastern Europe, faced the same problems, and that only time was able to resolve that market’s main issues.

While numbers for the 2008 event are still up in the air, last year’s ATF drew 4,700 people from 50 countries, with strong representation from Australia, France, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, South Korea and Taiwan. Estimated deals concluded as a result of the 2007 event increased to $62.7 million, up from $47.1 million in 2006. Attendance is expected to be similar this year.

In addition to the usual wheeling and dealing, ATF participants can look forward to keynotes from Shine Group and Electronic Arts. A full day seminar in conjunction with the U.S. Motion Picture Association will address Asia’s growing piracy problem and an awards ceremony will bring the three-day event to a close.

This story was jointly written by Leah Hochbaum Rosner and Erin Somers.

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By Dom Serafini

Recently, I called the Milan Fair press office and the Milan Fair Foundation to get some information about Michele Guido Franci, the Fair’s president from 1978 until 1984.The information was needed for an article I was writing for Italian TV trade magazine, Millecanali. Some readers might remember “Doctor” Franci as the secretary general of MIFED, the world’s first audiovisual market and, for many years, the leading film trade show, which he created in 1960.

To my absolute astonishment, the Fair did not have anything on Franci except for the report that he was its third post-war president. That was it!

A Google search also produced little information, like the fact that he had been president of Italy’s Culinary Academy from 1962 to 1983, and that he wrote the book Christianity in Postal Stamps.

How could it be that such a prominent leader, one that was an innovator and headed one of Italy’s largest enterprises, could be so totally forgotten?

At that point, totally dumbfounded, I resolved to write a biography of Franci myself. Unfortunately, his publishing house did not have any information on file, while the Culinary Academy was only able to send me an Eco della Stampa newspaper clip from 1983, where Franci revealed a few tidbits about himself; and a clip of his obituary in Italy’s main daily, Il Corriere della Sera following his death in 1991 at the age of 87, headlined: “The Father of Milan Fair Has Died.”

But Michele Guido Franci wasn’t just the father and president of Milan Fair, he was a trendsetter. Looking through old copies of Television/Radio Age International, a trade magazine where I served as editor, and, later, early issues of VideoAge, a picture of Franci emerged as an eccentric, fastidious, demanding and severe man; but also as someone who was ahead of his time and who got things done without fanfare.

After creating MIFED, in 1977 he added to the trade show a festival called “The Child in Our Time,” the first event to bring awareness to the plight of children in third-world countries. For his efforts, he received an award from United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim.

In 1983, a year after the word “Internet” was coined, Franci announced, “soon trade shows will no longer need large stands, especially for heavy equipment, because all transactions will be done through computers connected via satellite.”

In 1984, before becoming “honorary president” of the Fair, at 80 years of age, Franci sent to the office of VideoAge in New York a cast-iron medal by sculptor Tommaso Gismondi, made to commemorate Franci’s 1979 Milan Fair Energy Saving Plan. In terms of renewable energy, Franci was ahead of former U.S. vice president Al Gore by about a quarter of a century.

Even MIFED was created with the innovative concept of “suites” instead of stands. This concept was later adopted by NATPE and the AFM in the U.S. and other film-TV trade shows, such as the Monte Carlo TV Market and, recently, DISCOP.

MIFED also set the business model for other audiovisual trade shows, such as MIP-TV and MIPCOM, with two yearly appointments: in the spring and in the fall.

In addition, Franci was appreciated for his high standards: Restaurants at the MIFED building had to be no less than Michelin Guide-approved, with a maitre d’ and gloved waiters. “Meeting points” and bar areas were also Franci’s obsessions.

Not too open to criticism, Franci always, nevertheless, had an ear for my comments, both in the form of articles and those I made in person. Famous were his calls over MIFED’s PA system as soon he’d spot me on the monitors of his closed-circuit TV cameras walking in the corridors: “Serafini, to me.” Of course I learned soon enough what “to me” meant!

He then would say, pointing to a page of VideoAge with a few lines highlighted by a yellow marker: “Serafini, you’re like a son to me, why do you write such things?”

Routinely I’d explain that VideoAge was like a mirror reflecting what the industry was projecting. “We cannot distort the news,” I’d say, “because those who give the news to us are the same people who advertise with us!”

How times don’t change, though! Even today, we often get into trouble with NATPE, AFM and other markets’ organizers because they object to VideoAge’s straightforward reporting. Indeed, in this respect, Franci was the precursor of all other market organizers, who got upset with VideoAge, but admired our honesty, incisiveness and thoroughness. One such person was MIP-TV’s Bernard Chevry, who, contrary to Franci, would find ways to punish VideoAge for its reporting, even though those bursts of anger were short-lived.

Even though Franci controlled a vast enterprise (Milan Fair, a large walled area, had its own representatives from various countries, its own customs offices and a police force), he lived modestly. He was a resident of Rome, where he’d go on weekends. In Milan, he rented a room at a hotel near the fairgrounds.

He stayed on as MIFED’s secretary general until his retirement in 1986. The following year film producer Alfredo Bini was called upon to run MIFED. Soon after, all traces of Michele Guido Franci were lost, to the point where the new staff wasn’t even aware of who he was.

Franci loved the audiovisual industry with a passion, which turned into a virtue with the creation of MIFED, a market, that, after Franci, even MBAs from the best universities weren’t able to keep alive.

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