South America is more than lush rain forests and beautiful beachfront locales. It is a land of many looks—big urban centers, small towns, mountains, forests, rivers, beaches—and many U.S. companies have been flying south to utilize them for spots.
Mojo@A Band Apart, Los Angeles, recently finished "Cheesemaker," a spot for the Johnny Carinos restaurant chain directed by Leonardo Ricagni, for The Richards Group, Dallas. The city of Montevideo, Uruguay, had a location that doubled for a village in Italy. "It felt like small town Italy," observes Jeff Armstrong, managing director of commercials and music videos at A Band Apart.
Several U.S.-based production shops have entered into arrangements with companies in the region. For example, A Band Apart launched Mojo@A Band Apart, a Hispanic division. It takes advantage of the connections made by Mojo Film, Montevideo, a company owned by Ricagni, who is on the roster of A Band Apart. Production company The Ebeling Group, Los Angeles, has opened an office in Brazil, which handles Nakd, a director/design collective based in Rio de Janeiro, and Lobo, which is based in São Paulo. FilmBrazil is an association of production and post companies, as well as other facilities in the commercial business, which work together to promote production in the country and help facilitate work.
Others are heading south, too. Director Henning Winklemann of bicoastal MacGuffin Films recently shot "Isabella," a Dos Equis beer spot out of McCann-Erickson, New York, in Buenos Aires. A new Polaroid package, "Laughter," directed by Nick Jones of Rogue Films, London, out of Euro RSCG MVBMS, New York, was also shot in Argentina.
Why Latin and South America? Why now? Variety of location is cited as the main on-camera lure. "The area, in general, is very diverse," says Sam Wool, the executive producer on "Isabella," the company’s first foray into Latin America. "Buenos Aires has a heavy Italian and French look—a very European influence, as well as some looks that could be New York. Then, thirty minutes outside the city, you’re in beautiful farmland and mountains. For the spot, we had three scenarios: a gypsy camp which could have been anywhere; a street fair, which was supposed to feel like somewhere in Latin America; and a lounge-y type club. All those things were pretty easy to come by there."
"We really enjoy shooting in Rio," adds Nando Costa, creative director of Nakd. "Besides being a great city, it has beach locations, mountain scenes, and city areas within minutes of each other."
Off-camera, however, it is the strong dollar that is often the deciding factor in bringing work to the region. "We saw that in Montevideo, you can produce work for a third of what it costs in Buenos Aires," says Armstrong.
"The low costs of shooting locally have been a great influence since it allows us to produce so much more than if we were shooting in the U.S.," agrees Costa.
Adds Ramiro Mazzeo, executive producer at Flehner Films SA, Buenos Aires: "Shooting today in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, or Brazil, when you compare costs with Europe or the U.S.A., is absolutely convenient."
Other elements are the crews and equipment, which are formidable. "We have been amazed at the talent of the Brazilian crews. We can get every toy, tool and lens we need, the permit process is remarkably easy, and there is a near limitless range of locations," says Mateus Santos, owner/creative director at Lobo. "The other benefit that is often overlooked is the fact that although Brazil is approximately nine to twelve hours from the U.S., the time difference is never greater than a few hours."
Lobo boasts a full-service studio, shooting and preparing all animation and postproduction in-house. It has two Flames, an Inferno, three edit suites, 20 CG/Maya seats, 15 design and animation stations, and a render farm. "We are directors that execute our ideas primarily in animation and CG," Santos says. "We don’t offer production services."
Nakd offers not only equipment, but creative solutions as well. "When we initially established the company, our intention was to focus mostly on solutions that were purely graphic," says Costa. "But immediately after our first few jobs, clients started to show more interest in having us handle all sides of the project. We would start with creating the concept and then move on to shooting, designing and animating the graphics that would later be combined with the live-action elements. Since the beginning, this has basically been our work pattern regarding our projects that contain live action. We offer services ranging from initial design and concept for projects, to incorporating graphics into existing work that needs a well-designed boost, to taking a full project combining live action with graphics to finishing and final delivery."
Flehner Films, which opened in ’85, offers full-service production. "You, as a production company, could bring only a shooting board, your director, agency and client, and we would take care of everything else," Mazzeo says. "Or you can hire one of our own directors and we would give you a full production. Our ability and strength today is focused in solving big and small issues that might arise before production. Production services today are a large part of any production company in Argentina. The balance for this is our business producing commercials with our directors oriented to Latin America and the Hispanic market of the U.S. I feel we are technically prepared for the challenges the projects pose on the production companies." Recent clients have included UPS, Bacardi, K-Mart, ADT and JanSport.
Mazzeo adds that the region’s production companies are becoming more aware of the international business and servicing it, "while at the same time looking for new business abroad, not as a temporary move but as a trend. Due to the improvement in advertising investments in 2003 and what goes for 2004, local production companies are busy today also working for local agencies."
"It’s quite busy here right now," agrees Santos. "Around twelve hundred spots are produced every year just in the São Paulo market alone."
Casting
Casting is another consideration that draws work to the region. Although cost was a consideration when Euro RSCG MVBMS was shopping locales for the Polaroid "Laughter" campaign, casting was the crucial element, says agency executive producer Joe Guyt. "We considered Eastern Europe and South Africa as well," he notes. "But what drove us to Argentina was ethnic diversity. We shot six spots and had a diverse cast. We did a casting session just to see what we’d get and we were very encouraged. That pretty much made the decision for us."
Some note that going south is about tapping into new markets. For example, when Armstrong joined A Band Apart, he felt "there were opportunities that we were not capitalizing on. One of those was that we were not repped in the Hispanic market in the U.S. It’s the fastest growing segment of advertising in the U.S. today," he points out. "But looking around, I didn’t want to make the kind of mistakes that other companies had made: they open a division without putting any research into it, like figuring out who the agencies are, what kind of work is being done, who the directors are, what the relationships are, etc."
In his research, Armstrong met Ricagni, who hailed from Uruguay and also ran his own company, Mojo Films. "The more we talked, the more I felt it was an incredible opportunity to merge his company with A Band Apart," Armstrong related. Since Mojo@A Band Apart was launched a year ago, the division has been busy, shooting work with its own stable of directors and also offering production services.
For the future, Santos says the biggest attraction will be the quality of the work. "Ultimately, we see clients working with who is doing the best work."
Some are even calling the region "the next Australia." "The editor who worked on our spot told me that a lot of people were shooting in Latin America, which doesn’t surprise me," says Wool. "Argentina sounds to me like what Australia was five years ago and what South Africa was three years ago. Agencies are making these trips because the talent is good and production is available inexpensively. And it is a different place. People have a lot of interest in shooting down there."
