One of the relevant topics that were reviewed during the second PRODU webinar, Medidas de Rescate de la Industria Audiovisual (Rescue Measures for the Audiovisual Industry), was the increase in production costs with reduced budgets that will come with the new normality.
The panelists were Mónica Lozano, president of the Academia de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas (Amacc) (Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences) and CEO of Alebrije; Ana Piñeres, president of the Asociación Colombiana de Productores de Cine Independiente (Asocinde) (Colombian Asociation of Independent Film Producers), of Egeda, and VP of CMO; and Diego Guebel, president of the Cámara Argentina de Productores Independientes de Televisión (Capit) (Argentine Chamber of Independent Television Producers), and of Boxfish.
Guebel said that although the crisis will not affect OTTs very much, it will affect open television companies and cable. “Television companies that depend on advertising investment are going to have some complicated movement,” he commented after stating that in Argentina they are working to obtain good stimulus to reactivate the industry.
Piñeres mentioned that in the light of lower budgets and more production costs, to produce with the same quality standards, it is necessary to review the fees paid to all the components of the chain. “I think that the industry was in a bubble of swollen prices, but everything is going to change”.
Lozano assured that production companies will have to adapt and “seeing the demand of content, we are going to find a funnel in which we will have complications to find our path because we are still immersed in the problematic.”
Piñeres added that there will have to be set up protocols for content, post-production, and providers because the new reality has impacted the entire chain.