ITV

Tag: Palais de Festivals

  • Background scores take center stage at Midem

    Background scores take center stage at Midem

    CANNES: Film soundtracks are a bum rap. And television backgrounds scores, well are they really important?

    That was an issue up for discussion at the Music for Images panel at Midem, the world’s biggest music market in the Palais de Festivals in Cannes, France. And the verdict was that it is the studios themselves who are to blame for. The three panelists, Germany’s X Film creative People’s Wolfgang Becker, Jason Bentley of Machine Head and Fox Music head Robert Kraft echoed the same sentiment.

    Caustically Kraft observed, “The studios have basically spoiled the market. Soundtracks on the whole are doing badly. After the humungous success of Titanic where we did sales of 20 million units, we had many offers. So we crowbarred bad songs in movies. The sound tracks were boneless and we ended up killing the golden goose.”

    He pointed out that major movie soundtracks have been notching sales of 15,000-100,000 or even less.

    Becker said that the sound track of international success Run Lola Run made a lot of money while that of Goodbye Lenin did not, though the composer had met with some success earlier with Ameilie.

    Kraft also pointed out that the soundtrack of a movie has to fit with its ambience, the story. “It is the last bit of creative that goes into the movie which helps enhance its storyline,” said Kraft. “You cannot just have compilations of unrelated tracks being bundled together to get a soundtrack album for sale on retail shelves.”

    He added, “Hollywood is jingoistic, insular… only now have they discovered that the volumes lie outside.” Kraft referred to a new animation movie Robot, which is resorting to singles specific for each market. For instance the US, Japan and Sweden. A ploy that was used rather unsuccessfully in Spiderman 2 in India.

    The panelists agreed that the budgets for television background scores are very limited as compared to film, but once a TV music composer plods away at TV, there will come a time when he gets that big break into Hollywood which will make his career. “TV is a great training ground,” said Kraft. He also said often it is the girlfriend of the producer and director who decided who would be deciding the person who would do the music in Hollywood.

  • Day Two: Chillingly cold but deals warm up

    Day Two: Chillingly cold but deals warm up

    CANNES: Day Two of MipTV in Cannes was unpredictably wet, soggy and well chillingly cold.. Sales of umbrellas simply soared as savvy roadside touts exploited the opportunity hawking cheap Chinese umbrellas for as much as 15 Euros. And the takers were many as the coats were brought out and everyone pulled up their coat collars to prevent the chill from getting to their bones. Needless to say sentiment for all those concerned was dampened.

    Inside the Palais de Festivals, the Americans and Canadians were celebrating with business on the upswing. According to John Helmrich an old timer attendee of MipTV, it has been a better MipTV this year than last. The previous editions were hit by the Sars scare and the Iraqi invasion. Attendance among US and Canadian companies is up and deals are being struck thanks to weakening dollar against the Euro.

    Zee TV meanwhile announced that group company Zee Institute of the Creative Arts Telefilms has bagged a $five million animation content development deal from Mallard TV, a television channel in Scotland.

    The keynote address delivered by BBC director television Jana Bennett had her reiterating the importance of public service broadcasting in an era of commercial and digital television. “I see a special place for publicly funded broadcasters to be the creative engine of television. The freedom from commercial pressures is a privilege and one we must not be afraid to capitalize on.”She however cautioned that the review of the BBC’s royal charter that is “currently underway will be crucial to determining the kind of television in the future.”

    She however pointed out that the “BBC will be more important in the digital interactive world – not less in providing information rich factual programmes, rib tickling comedy, impartial trusted news with an international perspective, and home grown drama and entertainment enhance by interactivity and with content increasingly powered by our own viewers.”The evening belonged to the finals of WorldBest, a contest to decide on the final winner from against the 11 winners of Star Academy – a format show created by Endemol – from various countries. The glitzy ceremony held at the Palais de Festival theatre was well attended by locals but was marred by some glitches, especially its audio which failed at crucial moments when select competitors were singing.

    The winner eventually was a 21-year-old French singer, Elodie Frege of France’s Star Academy, who beat out contestants from 10 countries, including a Canadian duo. Wearing a red satin dress, she crooned Celine Dion’s S’il Suffisait d’Aimer (If Loving Was Enough). To the surprise of all watching the finale, both Lionel Richie and Phil Collins came out and dished their stuff solo and with the young performers.

    The second-place winners were Wilfred and Marie-Elaine of Canada. Together, they sang Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, with parts of the song translated into French. Mexico’s Darina descended from a swing in a sleek turquoise dress and sang Mariah Carey’s song Hero for a third-place finish.

    The evening was young at 11 pm and a select few made their way to the Tantra bar in Cannes behind the Noga Hilton for Fashion TV’s private gig. The place was rocking with FTV promoter Michel Adam surrounded by a bevy of beauties and the liquor flowing easy and the music being mainly hip hop.

     

  • MipTV 2004: Day One Notes

    MipTV 2004: Day One Notes

    CANNES: Outside, the wind was blowing hard threatening to tear off the roof of the tent which houses the Press Club close to the Palais de Festivals in Cannes. The sun was bright and high in the sky, but it did not send the temperature soaring like it does in India. The ocean was a strikingly clean blue. And the croissette was more crowded than usual.

    But inside the Palais, well, there was a buzz of activity as acquisition and sales executives, large media corporations, production companies moved around in a bid to stitch co-production, format and programme syndication deals. MipTV 2004 was on in full swing. Press announcements, conferences with a session on Brands and Integrated Product Placement, cocktails at the various booths it was all happening The highlight of the market this year was the Chinese presence at the market.

    And amongst the thousands of executives from all over the world, what was heartening was the Indian presence. On the Air France flight from India this morning was the amiable Miditech founder Nikhil Alva who without much rest, just a quick change into formals, charged for the Palais. One came across Sony Entertainments Sunil Lulla and Tarun Katiyal – on the ground floor – who were brimming with energy in the wake of their tie up with Freemantle for Idols and the successful weekend block that they are developing for the channel.

    Optymystix was present in full force with Vipul D Shah, Sanjeev Sharma and Rajiv Vyas seeking out new understandings of the formats and game show business from international companies. Star Indias representation came in from Shantanu Nalvadi and a bubbly Deepak Segal.

    However the piece de resistance was the Zee Network booth  the largest an Indian company has ever taken up – which had a durbaan dressed in all the finery, a live puppet show, and even temporary tattoo (mehandi) artists. A livewire young team led by Punit Goenka, consisting of Ajay Gupta, Ashish Kaul was aggressively buying up content and promoting its DishTV DTH service. Clearly, here is a company with a mission. The network was expected to make an announcement about its alliance with Mondo TV for its group company Padmalya Telefilms. The company had planned a large scale bash with chairman Subhash Chandra, but it was called off after he could not make it.

    The Bollywood Eros Network also had a well done up booth. And one came across Achal Mehra of Fifth Avenue Media who apparently is cobbling together something new.

    The feel definitely was high energy. MipTV promises a lot and everyone was looking forward to the opening nights evening cocktail party.