PRODUCTION POWOW

1/ APPARITIONS - Marion

TIMELINE

* Pre production
< Januari 2017 >
- strategy global production
- flemish subs
- partners

* Amicale / SPIN consolidation
<June 18>
- start  production
- planning other funds / subs

* Modules
June18 -January 2019

* Pre Sale / Distribution
June 18 - Feb 2019

* Avant-première
June 2019

* Prémiere BUDA
Oct 2019

PRODUCTION PARTNERS

exceptionelle partner : subsidy City of Rennes

SPIN connection partners
request and connect to venues that already collaborated with Diederik, and those that programmed the modules (apparitions)
and
AMICALE connection partners
(+ strategic requests to local smaller partners - as a relational maintenance even if you know they don't have enough money to participate)

Most of them are French or Belgian. The bigger part of the partners or netwerk is related to SPIN as well as to Amicale.
(connected to same partners)

in numbers
- coproductions 31%
- Subsidies 54%
- Fonds Propres SPIN 10%
- Distribution modules 5%

(in retrospect
When applying for the VG subsidy there weren't as many coproductions confirmed)
There were higher expectations in relation to the amount of coproductions. 
Marion expected with two structure it would be easier. 


SPIN/AMICALE
The convention was prepared by Amicale and Ingrid. Consolidated mid / Summer 2017.

The percentages for both structure are specified in the convention:
SPIN
3%  (*) the percentage is not applied to the propres fonds of SPIN in the Budget. (BUDA/Artist Pot)

AMICALE
Production 8%
logistique: 5%
Admini: 2%
coop: 2%
Total: 17%

How does this total percentage relate to the actual work conditions and financial support from Amicale?
Hermes subsidy didn't come through=>
Risk now shared with Amicale, and in this case it was them that 'suffered' the most from the missing subsidies (5000€ shortage), which affected Marion's wage.

BUDGET
200.000 total budget
> 34.000€ production costs Amicale
> 91.000€ Final creation budget / 5 core team / but total 11 people employed in this projects

Final creation budget
91.000 of the total budget is allocated for the final creation 
The modules had a more modest budget. The VG subsidy application didn't estimate the modules realistically (needed more means for modules)

DISTRIBUTION
Fee calculations
> Prix normal (Maxi)
> Prix mini  (cuts in déchargement wages)
Strategy to ask for the minimum first, when starting to do the pre sale. 
Strategy to ask for 2 x min prix
3300-3900€ for one show / 5900€ for two shows > 5 in the team (2 perf / 2 tech / producer) / 1 day set up (may be short)
real cost 3200€ / 400€ percentages / 300€ margin

Pre-sales started way in adance which was a new possibility, and hopefully has good effects - to be seen 


2/ CELESTINO / Katrien 

Long process starting 2014? Involving transition towards new form / film - in both production & artistic form
Katrien joined 18 months ago

film set may become an installation afterwards (possibility to tour)

Project is split between VAF & Kunstendecreet - these are totally split, so crossover is not possible - this is a restriction and also an opportunity (2 fundings)


TIMELINE

- development (2014 - 2018)
- financing / pre -prod (2018 - 2019)

confirmation income


- shoot April-June 2020
- prod + post-prod (2020)


SPIN/MOUNTAIN VIEW
New discovery about what film producers do (or not)
time management is a big focus - Gert was not very available time-wise during the preparations, but there was clarity about what he could do or not. 

Lexcion: Producers (responsible person) vs Delegate Producer (executing)

The agreement
- tbd the 7,5% overhead procent; division between Mountain View / SPIN 
- tbd and confirmed: right now the income from the Mexican partners is included, but if this money doesn't flow through the Belgian structures this percentage needs to be recalculated
(minus Mexican budget)

(same in other words):
Still need to discuss how the 2x 7,5% of producer fees will be split between SPIN / Mountain
Discussion about where the money flows through - eg. if mexican money stays in mexico, this will not be considered for the %'s that come through SPIN / Mountain
Resulting in 3 budgets? Mexico / SPIN / Mountain View. SPIN has smalllest part because most it's contibution is already spent on the development period.


BUDGET

Subsidy VAF 'Film Lab': 
    - request for production subsidy (65.000), the project already received 25.000 for scenario development.
- Restrictions on where te spend it. Specific percentage of costs need to be made in Flanders.

Tax Shelter: 50.000 > Katrein feels this is a risk, and more commercially oriented > Mountain View is more confident that it's possible. 
(Discussion about the difficulty of stage projects gettting tax shelter, very complex technically. Restrictions on where and how you can spend it.)

Participation of SPIN currently 26,72%
includes BUDA money, Artist pot money, VAF development subsidy 
and partners for this project Beurs, Vooruit, 
+ VAF %  applied for SPIN'S Overhead and Producer



CHALLENGES

- Wage ethic BE - MXN
- Budget complexity
- Time limits for set and movie
- Including the crossover potentials

(from Hans)
- de financiering in Mexico. Er is veel good will van Wannes, maar er is nog geen concrete strategie. Wannes werpt zich op als line producer en locale producent, maar beschikt niet over het legale orgaan (lees: een productie huis dat aan de voorwaarden voldoet bvb. verschillende langspeelfilms geproduceerd te hebben) om uit eigen naam de aanvraag bij Eficine te kunnen doen. We moeten dus nog op zoek naar een productiehuis die in onze plaats het dossier wilt indienen. Het productiehuis dat in het VAF dossier vermeld staat ‘Santa Clara’ deed dat slechts pro forma. 
- 23000€ inbreng SPIN: these costs have been assigned within my artist pot, but they have been assigned differently in the VAF budget. Which budget to follow? 
- ethical approach in dealing with wages. Wage difference between Mexico and Europe is huge. How to handle this in a production with a mixed crew? 
- communication and clear task division and responsibilities between SPIN, Mountain View en Mexican Producer. This will especially be important at the time of shooting. Who can take decisions? Who keeps the overview of the entire budget? Who can manage which part of the budget? etc...



3/ KATE PROJECTS / Sarah

Development practice 2017
- IMH end of 2016, finalizes the particpatory triptic cycle (Worktable & All Ears)
- IMH three years of touring
- Worktable installation has toured under the radar until 2015. A budget for the publciation has been build the last years
Touring increased last years, a team was build to do this touring. (independetly from Kate's schedule)
Touring simultaneously is possible. 
12.000 => 20.000 (? tbc)  margin build up to do the Worktable publication


Financial strategies Kate Projects
- Application for Worktable publication wasn't granted
- Touring focus to 1. pay honest wages and 2. build reserves for future project investment
- Closed two project accounts positive (Dark Matter, and soon Alle Ears)
- The reserve build is allocated for the new project. (So the creation timeline can start independently from the VG Subsidy application rounds). 

Touring life = 25 weeks / year
- Heavy/intesne time preoccupations => coping mechanism: touring blocks and efficient advance work 
- => Allows Producer to recover and crew to engage in other projects


Worktable Fee strategies
- Keeping it high (meaning profit/reserve margins & paying fair wages)
- Other contexts: Museum installations, not sure how to calculate

IMH touring
- idea of a second cast that could  keep the show on the road, while Kate is in creation
- (Marion: sometimes asks the venue to pay for the rehearsel, so they become a post-production coproducers) 
- Complexity of IMH: low capacity of audience + two days of set up (excl rehearsal) + very high fee


NEW PROJECT

Budget

* Research period 21087,22  (self funded by reserves)
reseach in Berlin (2 periods) + Vooruit 
* Total projected IN 265.000
* NPN subsidy (via Sarah German Tax registr) 

Producer's fees
- Development, (cross)productionwork, Distribution ... => Artist Pot: 12.500 
- Touring fees
- 3.900 from new project (research period). 


TIMELINE
(17 weeks of creation period)

March 2019 application VG
Autum 2020 première

CREW
Wages for performer 200/Day 
Sarah negotiates the wages / contracts now, to consolidate this numbers.

Creation partners / coproducers
=> looked for partners with a lot of technical resources (human/ facilaties)
=> If there needs to be a budget reallocation / cuts: technical collaborators can be lowered in the periods when there is a big technical aid via partners 


Targets team
- 2019: new French partners
- 2017/18 American partners (Ingrid invested in these relations and was futher fertilized) 
- Context of presentation: programming the pieces in big visibility contexts (festivals, etc)

Idea for French distribution of SPIN
To present SPIN projects to several French institutions/partners, instead of per project independtly 



4/ SPETHICS trajectory

goals: to exchange practices and work towards a SPIN based methodology/ethics
how: specific sessions dedicated to practice topics (like wage, distribution, contractual agreements, database, long term financial strategies of SPIN artist trajectory etc)
this could lead to consolidate the conclusions of such a session as a chapter to THE BOOK (guidelines for SPIN collaborators)
Importance for SPIN: potential threat of decentralisation is the leaking of information and losing of expertise
Spethics budget: can finance the work/time 

Brainstorm topics
- Marion: database distribution (currently no knowledge of what other SPIN / producers are in conversation about with venues)
Marion has a tool/database to solve that gap. Proposes to introduce this during a SPETHICS day.
(example: in France 12 different organisations use the same database)

Is spethics usefull for you? (producers around the table)
- Sarah: pro Wages & Institutional relationships. First spend time between producers, to understand the needs of each others practices. And than build a technology that would work for all the projects. (No urgencies or big interest for other topics because of timing of own work cycle)
- Diederik: insterested in sharing of knowledge and distribution exchange

SPETHICS could cover 3 separate things:
= share knowledge within SPIN / build shared tools / leave traces within SPIN
relationships that are project based vs. longterm > makes for very different relation to SPIN general
Difference between working for 1 artist, or working for a several artists or projects. 
Find a balance between autonomy for the project and shared resources

Be realistic about the time there is this year to dedicate to that. 1 or 2 meetings per year. SPIN works in 2019 on new bookkeeping system, new bookkeeper, restauration of website. For Sarah Database in 2019 is not possible. 
For Marion & Diederik Database is a priority now. (because they are now working on distribution) 
Sarah: call for ad-hoc meetings on something concrete, called by the producers (not spin) 
Sarah: there is a wealth of shared knowledge in the dropbox, it's a responsibility to keep it clean and available to the idea of someone coming in. (that is an archive, not a tool)

Spetics = co-defining an ethic code of SPIN (wages...)  < > sharing of knowledge of expertise (in the present, not as an archive)

proposal Marion: one folder in Dropbox which is the place where there are a few specific documents that we share.

give introduction to the dropbox folders of each other. (or to interns or new collaborators) > how to take care of hosting new people (producers) > this is partly Laura's task

Could SPIN articulate this clearly to all collaborators: the Responsibility to keep their work available, transparent, clean and readable - ie expecting everyone to be able to read and share in the work at any time…  
In this way a culture and possibility of sharing information is the base underlying - and this may mitigate the problem of ‘adding work’ in order to make separate efforts towards shared files…..  
> ethos of accessability 

Could also ask for periodic reports and email archives as a way to leave longterm knowledge traces.