www.lionsdailynews.com friday, june 24 , 2011

In addition to low production cost and great crews, djokic
talks up the locations: “we shoot in montenegro, the mountains,
the seaside, everywhere. the good thing is that all of
the locations are very easy to reach from belgrade. serbia is
an unbelievably film-friendly community; licences, helicopters,
closing down of streets, squares, tunnels, getting planes,
it’s easily attainable.”
one person well placed to judge the competing claims of
locations is laurent grousset, a senior consultant with bird
bonette stauderman. grousset, an expert on production practices
and cost management, has not yet visited serbia, but he
has been working in other former yugoslavian territories such
as slovenia and croatia. “the first thing you always think about
is the story, but after that it’s the cost and the quality of the
crews. for me, slovenia and croatia have both been good locations.”
other markets grousset has visited in the last couple of
years include romania, bulgaria and ukraine. the last is particularly
interesting, because it has in recent years started emerging
from the shadow of the old soviet union. today it is home
to a handful of top-notch production companies including psbfilms,
a 10-year veteran which has produced domestic and
international spots for the likes of p&g, samsung, pepsi, stella
artois, kraft foods, unilever, danone and toyota.
based in kiev and odessa, just two hours from any west
european city, psb offers production service in english, german,
french and hebrew.
arthur fleshtor, at another leading ukrainian commercials
producer, gulliver, expands on the market’s appeal: “foreign
companies like to work with us because of the balance
between quality and price. at gulliver, we have the equipment
base to suit any demands. we also have many local directors,
dops and good post-production, all of which makes ukraine
attractive.”
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“If cars are parked on the streets,
they move them wIth an enormous
machIne, then put them back on
theIr orIgInal posItIons”
rob pritts, backyard
In addition, fleshtor believes that ukraine has an advantage
in locations. “our territory is quite large, so it goes across
different climate regions. we have the carpathian mountains,
the black sea, beautiful cities and nature. all of these elements
mean that you can find any solution for any shoot.”
among other former soviet satellites attracting attention
is latvia. emerge film solutions, a commercials production
consultancy, is positive about the baltic state, calling it “a filmfriendly
country where permits take usually no more than a
week”.
with a variety of rural and urban locations on offer, latvia,
emerge says, is a head-turning 40% cheaper than the czech
republic. In terms of locations, part of latvia’s appeal is capital
riga’s historic city centre, which can double as paris or vienna.
like ukraine, it can also offer stark soviet-style architecture.
not to be overlooked, either, is the remote beauty of its
countryside.
In 2009, when creative agency nitro and producer academy
films wanted a scottish location for a drambuie spot, they
chose latvia because of its low costs and good production values.
with the help of local service company baltic pine films,
the ad was shot near kishezers, a major lake on the outskirts of
capital riga.
other companies operating out of riga include film angels,
FRIDAY, JUNE 24,2011