White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 7location, the creation of a specificoffice for obtaining permits, and all theliasing with the various localinstitutions during the pre-productionand production stages. In some casesassistance also includes organisingspecial agreements for the supply ofservices on behalf of the producers.This brings us to a critical pointintrinsic in the relations betweenprivate professional resources (locationscouts, location managers and services)who operate in the field and theactivity, by definition, non-profit,carried out by most of the filmcommissions. Several solutions havebeen adopted to this issue in Italy: thefilm commissions “withdraw” from thefield (but they lose leverage in thecompetition), or they make the privateprofessionals “public” by hiring orgiving appointments to private businessoperators.3. Training. Film commissionsincreasingly operate in various way inthe field of education or professionaltraining for the audiovisual sector.Training is considered crucial in termsof making a region competitive and inattracting exogenous investments tothe sector. The training activities takethe form of professional courses,seminars and workshops, organisedboth as preparation for the variousprofessions and trades in the filmindustry and for specialisation courses.4. Making the most of localprofessional skills. This is another ofthe principal activities pursued by filmcommissions. The logic is naturally todevelop groups of professionals andservice companies at local level in orderto be more competitive (reducing theneed for productions to bring theirown technicians or use otherproduction centres) and so limit the socalledleakage of funds whichproductions could spend on the localregion instead of involving externalproduction factors. Highlighting localskills is usually done through the meansof a Production Guide, a kind ofdirectory created by film commissionsfor the benefit of outside productioncompanies.From the point of view of futuredevelopments, film commissions couldplay new more interesting roles andadopt further action strategies. Here wewill simply list a few of them:• create local development agents,formed by fostering and creatingenterprises;• implement regional and localproduct placement• develop film tourism, i.e. a morecomplete and appropriateexploitation of tourist flowspotentially generated by films andtelevision series• provide funding.WHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 186