Tuesday, September 6, 2011

BAI Sound & Vision Round 11 drama results

Announced today. Drama projects listed here by: Title, production company, language, genre, broadcaster- public or commercial, amount, max percentage of total budget. Interesting that At Swim Two Birds is with TG4.

An Bronntanas
ROSG
Irish
Drama
Contemporary Society
TG4 Public
€725,000.00 (26%)

At Swim Two Birds
Parallel Films
English
Drama
Arts/Culture
TG4 Public
€500,000.00 (8%)

In Denial
Fubar Ltd
English
Drama
Contemporary Society
TV3 Commercial
€155,000.00 (85%)

Life's A Breeze
Fastnet Films
English
Drama
Contemporary Society
Setanta Sports Commercial
€420,000.00 (21%)

Oícheanta Sí
Abú Media Teo
Bi-lingual
Drama
Arts/Culture
TG4 Public
€375,000.00 (30%)

Scup
Stirling Film and TV Productions Limited
Irish
Drama
Contemporary Society
TG4 Public
€225,000.00 (22%)

Trivia - Series 2
Grand Pictures
English
Drama
Contemporary Society
RTÉ Public
€320,000.00 (32%)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes that IS interesting. And if At Swim Two Birds' budget is 6m plus, as suggested by the 8% in brackets, it suggests that Mr. Gleeson has managed to attract significant private funding for the project -- as EU regulations limit state aid to >€3m projects to 50% of the total budget. Unless, as I suspect, the film has been classified as 'difficult', which would exempt it from these limits...

It's also interesting that TG4 is the 'committed broadcaster' on four of the seven projects (and substantially budgeted projects they are too, in the main). There is no requirement, as far as I'm aware, for the committed broadcaster to put in any substantial funding. Is this just a blip, I wonder, or is there anything in the funding mix at the moment that is favouring Irish language or bilingual projects?

irish film portal said...

I think the 50% limitation is, as they say, more honoured in the breach than the observance.

The question might be which broadcaster would producers rather get a commitment from, and for what reasons? And we cannot assume that each broadcaster is in the market for every kind of drama project. One might have expected TG4 to be in the market for Irish language material only.

Perhaps Setanta's involvement in a €2m drama (from Lance Daly) is the most surprising item on the list. Have they previously committed to a drama project?

Anonymous said...

Well yes, that is notable too. Setanta was involved in the football comedy series Fran and Fran 2, also with BAI assistance, so not unprecedented. Is there a sports angle to the Lance Daly project?

Anonymous said...

Whatever about the 50 percent rule, I would imagine Gleeson's courting of pretty much the entire range of Irish actors with international name recognition is done with securing distribution in advance, which would be welcome if it is in fact true.