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It's expensive going for the Oscars
Porcelain Horse from Ecuador had US$120,000 for its Oscar campaign.
Elevating a foreign-language film hopeful to a contender costs, but win or lose, it may be a worthwhile investment
New York - Director Drasko Djurovic is very grateful to be part of the Academy Awards.
"We're not a big country," he said from his home in Montenegro. "We're like the Bronx." He added about being in the Oscars: "It means great opportunities for future projects."
Peruvian director Adrian Saba agreed. "People hear 'Oscar' and everything changes." The same goes for Ecuador, said film-maker Javier Andrade: "That word sort of drives people crazy. But it's healthy for us."
Not one of these men has actually won an Academy Award for foreign-language film. Or been nominated. Or even made the shortlist that the Academy released this month in advance of the upcoming announcement of its five nominees.
But their movies - Ace Of Spades: Bad Destiny from Montenegro, El Limpiador (The Cleaner) from Peru and Porcelain Horse from Ecuador - were named their countries' official submissions to the 86th annual Oscars. That can lead to great things.
As Mr Tom Bernard, a co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, put it: "An Oscar nomination is incredibly important for the country that the film comes from. And if they win, they celebrate like it's the World Cup."
It is also expensive. Elevating a hopeful to a real contender takes money and film-makers from poorer nations often go hat in hand to national film organisations, producers, agents, festivals, even tourism boards, to find the money to underwrite their chances.
"A decent campaign is US$50,000" said Ms Tatiana Detlofson, a Los Angeles publicist who has been handling foreign Oscar campaigns for 13 years, including five this season. "The really good ones, from countries like Belgium or Germany, are US$200,000. And the money is usually eaten by the ads."
Advertisments in trade papers such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are de rigueur. As Ms Detlofson put it, "a couple of half-pages and a couple of full-page ads, and it's one third of the budget."
Then there are screenings. While members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can see every every Oscar submission at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Hollywood, there are options for further exposure. Variety, The Los Angeles Times and the website The Wrap all run high-profile series for Oscar hopefuls, each charging about US$10,000 a film, which includes post-screening question-and-answer sessions and advertising. There are fees for publicists, invitations, on-site staff, even tchotchkes like key chains.
Saba said the budget provided by PromPeru, an organisation that promotes Peruvian culture, was US$32,000. Andrade said his budget from Ecuador was about US$120,000. Djurovic had enough for a screening held during the American Film Market in Los Angeles (a little over US$2,000) and round-trip airfare from Montenegro (where his film is the first Oscar submission ever).
Is a campaign for an Oscar you're not going to win worth more than US$100,000? Probably not, said Ms Kathleen McInnis, a Los Angeles festival strategist and publicity consultant who handled Saba's film. "Is it worth US$50,000? Probably yes, if you're investing in your film-maker's career."
The Ecuadorean budget was "reasonable for a campaign to mean anything", she said. "But is that too much to get some attention? There's your sticky wicket." The other question is whether the outlay does any good.
"I don't believe I've ever seen an ad campaign help a foreign film get to the shortlist," said Mr Michael Barker, the co-president with Bernard of Sony Pictures Classics. The two men are the big kahunas of the foreign-language field (with 12 wins and 32 nominations over their 33 years at the company). "It's a very different category. I don't think that that kind of campaign works."
Mr Bernard added: "There aren't a lot of people in the foreign-language business, but there are a lot of people in the foreign-language Oscar business." Whether all the tub thumping translates into awards would seem to be negated by the Academy's rules.
"The rest of Academy voting is specifically designed to reward passion," Ms Cyntthia Swartz, a veteran Oscar campaigner and president of the New York-based Strategy PR, said, referring to the preferential voting system used for best picture nominees, for instance.
That is not the case in the foreign race (or its cousin, documentary). The early voting there is based on the average score, on a scale of 1 to 10, as determined by those Academy members who watch the 76 films submitted from around the world - not by the kind of weighted ballot used in other categories, where a film can be nominated for best picture even if only 5 per cent of the voters rank it No 1.
Having a lot of people see your best picture hopeful, therefore, makes sense. In foreign, not so much. Hypothetically, if you had just one screening with just onw viewer, and that viewer gave the film a 10, you should stop showing anyone your film because your average score would be 10.
"The Academy says, 'Submit your film', even through only 10 of them are going to be what the membership is talking about," Ms McInnis said. "So what the point of submitting? Well, there's the tiny sliver of a possibility you could get a 10. But it's also the time of year when Hollywood is paying attention to foreign film. Which means I can get my film-maker in front of audiences who might otherwise never see his film, get him meetings with agents and managers because he was his country's official selection. I can get him in front of people, not so much for this film, but to help other films."
New York Times.
Porcelain Horse from Ecuador had US$120,000 for its Oscar campaign.
Elevating a foreign-language film hopeful to a contender costs, but win or lose, it may be a worthwhile investment
New York - Director Drasko Djurovic is very grateful to be part of the Academy Awards.
"We're not a big country," he said from his home in Montenegro. "We're like the Bronx." He added about being in the Oscars: "It means great opportunities for future projects."
Peruvian director Adrian Saba agreed. "People hear 'Oscar' and everything changes." The same goes for Ecuador, said film-maker Javier Andrade: "That word sort of drives people crazy. But it's healthy for us."
Not one of these men has actually won an Academy Award for foreign-language film. Or been nominated. Or even made the shortlist that the Academy released this month in advance of the upcoming announcement of its five nominees.
But their movies - Ace Of Spades: Bad Destiny from Montenegro, El Limpiador (The Cleaner) from Peru and Porcelain Horse from Ecuador - were named their countries' official submissions to the 86th annual Oscars. That can lead to great things.
As Mr Tom Bernard, a co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, put it: "An Oscar nomination is incredibly important for the country that the film comes from. And if they win, they celebrate like it's the World Cup."
It is also expensive. Elevating a hopeful to a real contender takes money and film-makers from poorer nations often go hat in hand to national film organisations, producers, agents, festivals, even tourism boards, to find the money to underwrite their chances.
"A decent campaign is US$50,000" said Ms Tatiana Detlofson, a Los Angeles publicist who has been handling foreign Oscar campaigns for 13 years, including five this season. "The really good ones, from countries like Belgium or Germany, are US$200,000. And the money is usually eaten by the ads."
Advertisments in trade papers such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are de rigueur. As Ms Detlofson put it, "a couple of half-pages and a couple of full-page ads, and it's one third of the budget."
Then there are screenings. While members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can see every every Oscar submission at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Hollywood, there are options for further exposure. Variety, The Los Angeles Times and the website The Wrap all run high-profile series for Oscar hopefuls, each charging about US$10,000 a film, which includes post-screening question-and-answer sessions and advertising. There are fees for publicists, invitations, on-site staff, even tchotchkes like key chains.
Saba said the budget provided by PromPeru, an organisation that promotes Peruvian culture, was US$32,000. Andrade said his budget from Ecuador was about US$120,000. Djurovic had enough for a screening held during the American Film Market in Los Angeles (a little over US$2,000) and round-trip airfare from Montenegro (where his film is the first Oscar submission ever).
Is a campaign for an Oscar you're not going to win worth more than US$100,000? Probably not, said Ms Kathleen McInnis, a Los Angeles festival strategist and publicity consultant who handled Saba's film. "Is it worth US$50,000? Probably yes, if you're investing in your film-maker's career."
The Ecuadorean budget was "reasonable for a campaign to mean anything", she said. "But is that too much to get some attention? There's your sticky wicket." The other question is whether the outlay does any good.
"I don't believe I've ever seen an ad campaign help a foreign film get to the shortlist," said Mr Michael Barker, the co-president with Bernard of Sony Pictures Classics. The two men are the big kahunas of the foreign-language field (with 12 wins and 32 nominations over their 33 years at the company). "It's a very different category. I don't think that that kind of campaign works."
Mr Bernard added: "There aren't a lot of people in the foreign-language business, but there are a lot of people in the foreign-language Oscar business." Whether all the tub thumping translates into awards would seem to be negated by the Academy's rules.
"The rest of Academy voting is specifically designed to reward passion," Ms Cyntthia Swartz, a veteran Oscar campaigner and president of the New York-based Strategy PR, said, referring to the preferential voting system used for best picture nominees, for instance.
That is not the case in the foreign race (or its cousin, documentary). The early voting there is based on the average score, on a scale of 1 to 10, as determined by those Academy members who watch the 76 films submitted from around the world - not by the kind of weighted ballot used in other categories, where a film can be nominated for best picture even if only 5 per cent of the voters rank it No 1.
Having a lot of people see your best picture hopeful, therefore, makes sense. In foreign, not so much. Hypothetically, if you had just one screening with just onw viewer, and that viewer gave the film a 10, you should stop showing anyone your film because your average score would be 10.
"The Academy says, 'Submit your film', even through only 10 of them are going to be what the membership is talking about," Ms McInnis said. "So what the point of submitting? Well, there's the tiny sliver of a possibility you could get a 10. But it's also the time of year when Hollywood is paying attention to foreign film. Which means I can get my film-maker in front of audiences who might otherwise never see his film, get him meetings with agents and managers because he was his country's official selection. I can get him in front of people, not so much for this film, but to help other films."
New York Times.
