White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 7Bagnoli, near Naples, which should becompleted in 2009.In the second example a new industrialredevelopment process, financed by theItalian government and Sicily Region,has been launched to create jobs in anarea hit by an industrial crisis: TerminiImerese, to the east of Palermo, site ofthe former Fiat factories in Sicily. Atthe end of 2007, work began onshooting a so-called docu-soap (a soapopera with more overtly “social”features, in the wake of Un posto al sole)entitled Agrodolce, broadcasted on RAI3 since 2008.7.6 Italian FilmCommissionsThere are no thoroughgoing historicalstudies reconstructing the origins anddevelopment of film commissions.Organisations of these kind aregenerally thought to have appeared forthe first time in California and theWestern United States around the1940s. They were probably a responseto the growing phenomenon ofshooting Westerns on locationincreasingly far away from Los Angeles.Local communities (business operators,city councils, chambers of commerce,etc.) began to realise there could beeconomic benefits from the presenceof film productions in the local areaand this gave rise to the first filmcommissions.In Italy the earliest film commissiondates from the 1990s and was officiallycreated by the Emilia-Romagnaregional authorities (1997). At present18 film commissions are registered withthe Coordinamento Film CommissionItaliane (“Italian Film CommissionLiaison Office”), and there is also anunspecified number (perhaps 10 to 12)of non-members.The film commissions traditionally playfour main roles:1. Promotion. This is the mainactivity in terms of marketing the localarea and, as usually pursued by thebetter organised commissions, involves“selling” the region, packaged as aproduct ready for use by theproduction companies. The featuresare rather like those of a classicalmarketing mix for traditional productsand services (products, packaging,pricing and advertising). Theseactivities are carried out with the samekind of tools now used worldwide byall film commissions: participation inthe main film festivals/markets, andtelevision and advertisingfestivals/markets, at home and abroad;direct marketing; and “fam trips” forpotential users of the region(producers, organisers, locationmanagers, etc.). Naturally much of theadvertising is done using new mediaand through tools such as websites,which have played a key role not onlyin terms of communications, but alsoin providing assistance and developinglocal professional skills.2. Assistance. This is the mostspecific activity carried out by thecommissions and consists to variousdegrees in optimising all aspects of theuse of the region by productions whichdecide to locate films in the area. Theactivities range from assistance at thefirst stage of scouting to the choice ofWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 185