In ten years, the technological landscape has changed significantly. Today, one of the key issues is the mastery of digital distribution: what will propel our Walloon companies to the forefront of the international market is their ability to distribute their productions!
Naturally, the cinema remains the flagship of the audiovisual fleet. This is true in terms of public image, but also in terms of production budget. Wallimage therefore proposes, within the framework of Creative Wallonia, to initiate a line that will encourage film producers to develop in Wallonia cross-media tools linked to their films, documentaries, fiction or animation series!
These new aids will be divided into two categories: Digital Promotion and Digital Extension. Each of these 2 lines will be endowed in 2011 with an amount of € 400,000
Digital Promotion
If we look at the marketing of the American cinema, the most efficient one, we notice that more and more movies are released accompanied, or even preceded, by their video games, their iPhone application or, at least, their Facebook page… Why not be inspired by it?
The principle would therefore be that any work that has obtained co-production support from the Wallimage fund can apply for additional support in the form of a cross media promo development grant. This is Digital Promotion.
It can take several forms: a page on a social network (it costs nothing to create, but you still have to finance the salary of a Community Manager), a Web 2.0 (or even 3.0) site, an i-Phone, iPad or Android application, an AdverGame (a small promotional game with a limited life span)
A production company, as long as it clearly identifies its Walloon service providers and proves the commitment of its expenses (cf. Wallimage mechanism), will be able to ask us to contribute to the launch on digital media of one of its creations.
The Digital Extension
But that’s not all: more and more classic projects are now spilling over into new digital media. Such a documentary encourages its viewers to become spect’actors by deepening the theme via a website or a social network. The author can even ask them to enrich the reflection with their own videos (this is called “U.G.C.” production = Users Generated Contents). A TV show makes its characters live between two episodes in a virtual world or develops their personality through “webisodes” specific to the net. Here again, the viewer can get involved in the fictional action by searching for hidden clues in his city, for example, to advance the police investigation carried out in the soap opera (this is called an “A.R.G.” = Augmented Reality Game).
Via Wallimage Cross Media we intend to encourage this kind of experimentation. This is the Digital Extension
How it works
The Working Method is specific to each of the lines and will be explained this week to all producers concerned. For the Digital Promotion, we will proceed by call for projects. Given the total novelty of this mechanism, there will be only one session in 2011. It is necessary to give professionals time to identify their suppliers. This initiative was initiated at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, May 13 by Jean-Claude Marcourt, the Minister in charge. The deadline for submission of applications is August 29.
The Digital Extension can be activated at each of the 6 investment sessions scheduled annually. It will be reserved for projects already approved at a previous session or to be examined during the same session.
As usual, in both cases, it is the Board of Directors of Wallimage that will evaluate the relevance and feasibility of the project as well as the relative height and structuring dimension of the audiovisual expenses envisaged in Wallonia.
Here we go
Wallonia offers today many excellent works, most of the Walloon technicians and actors have finally enough work to live from their passion, the companies linked to the sector have been created and developed. Wallimage Cross Media will allow a whole series of new creative artists to find their place in the sun. And the entire region will benefit from the economic spin-offs of this emerging sector. As for producers, they will be able to increase the attraction potential of their films.
A great initiative, don’t you think?
