By Nicole Rivard

Recently Storm Films, London, and Garage Films, Barcelona, called upon Utopia Films, Rio de Janeiro, to collaborate on worldwide campaigns for Emirates Airlines and Banco Santander. Both projects required several countries but neither client had the budget to travel to a variety of places. So they used the varied landscapes and multi-ethnic talent of Brazil to replicate the various countries, according to Justin Bird, executive producer at Utopia, who points out they also took advantage of the small crews, natural light, street casting and documentary-style filmmaking that is so popular at the moment.
    It’s no surprise that the diversity of locations in countries like Brazil and Argentina continues to drive people to bring their commercial productions to Latin America. Plus as Harry Tracosas, owner of Los Angeles-based production services company Global Production Network, puts it, they’re getting “more bang for their buck.” The Argentine Peso is currently 3:1 with the USD and the Brazilian Real is roughly 2.4:1, he explains.
    But in addition to the obvious reasons for shooting in Brazil and Argentina, what’s beginning to equally impress the industry are the high standards of commercial production that have developed in those countries and the pool of talented actors, directors, DPs creatives and crews that has grown as a result.
    “Both Brazil and Argentina have become very sophisticated markets. The equipment, the crews, they are just as experienced as anywhere else in the world,” says Karen Watts, owner of Shoot Latin America, a liaison between Latin American production services companies and international producers.
    “U.S. companies that come the first time for budget or location reasons only come back to Argentina again and again. They are always very impressed,” adds Georgos Nicolaides, executive producer of Benito Cine in Argentina. “They say the rental house in Buenos Aires looks like NASA, it’s very organized and has more than 58 cameras. We are actually producing the 2007 campaign for Cotton Inc. USA. They came last year and they are all coming back: director Pam Thomas, Moxie Pictures, DDB New York and Cotton Inc.”
    Recently he produced the new Flomax campaign for Grey Worldwide. Directed by Stan Schofield of Schofield Films, New York, the spot demanded dramatic landscapes, which were found in Salta. “They knew that was here before coming; the good surprise for them was the talent freshness. Since its foundation, Buenos Aires has been a city full of theaters and acting schools. They are good actors, and directors appreciate how spontaneous they are.”
    Film Planet, with offices in Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, works with a casting director from Brazil in its U.S. office. “Their familiarity with the variety of casting options helps our clients to recognize the advantages of working in South America,” says Karin Stuckenschmidt, international executive producer.  She says her Buenos Aires  office has been busy non stop this season as clients recognize the location, talent buyout and favorable exchange benefits offered by the city.
    Nicolaides says Radke Film Group, Toronto, has been producing a lot in Argentina. Recent work includes a big job for Capital One, directed by Jeff Gorman of bicoastal Sandwick Films. “We had to build seven sets in a very short period of time. When they first came onto the stage, they couldn’t believe it. They all said that the sets were like the best ones in North America,” says Nicolaides.

Brazilian Boom    As more people are being exposed to the high standards of the production industry in Brazil, more projects that do not stick to the typical Brazilian label of beach, palm trees and Carnival are coming in.
    “Due to the high standards of production companies in Brazil, they have created a pool of highly trained professionals that allow for a wide range of productions to be shot here,” says Hank Levine, executive producer of o2 Filmes, Rio de Janeiro/ Sao Paulo.
    “o2 Filmes is a reference of this standard and has been bringing in projects that were to be shot in the snow, the streets of New York, futuristic settings, timeless sets, the villages of Cuba and studio work, just to mention a few.”
    He says the Brazilian boom has had its effect on the local market and nowadays rental houses and labs are up-to-date with the latest technology and equipment. Larger production service companies have also gathered professionals who are perfectly trained and have comparable skills to any foreign operator.
    Since last year, o2 Filmes has been approached to develop a couple of projects for branded marketing. They have been in the form of documentaries, usually with subtle reminders of the brand “sponsoring” the project. They include “Ginga — The Soul of Brazilian Football,” which focuses on the beauty and playability of Brazilian soccer and has been sponsored by Nike. Similar branded marketing content has been for the Brazilian beer Brahma and for the Brazilian liquor brand Sagatiba.
    “This is a new approach to traditional productions usually made for the foreign market and to be shown at very specific media/places such as airplanes, airports and events,” Levine says.
    He also highlights a recent $2 million dollar project for Nike China. For this project, Nike and Wieden + Kennedy chose to work with the o2 Filmes crew in China.
“Although this project was not done in Brazil, it represents the trust that foreign companies already have on local production companies,” says Levine. “Often, production companies have combined reasons to shoot in Brazil and lately the top reasons are: location, cost, talent, state-of-the-art technology and highly trained professionals that can compete with international standards. The creativity and capabilities known to Brazilian advertising are an extension of the great work of our directors, which have become a decisive factor on why projects are brought here.”
    Argentinian directors are also making an excellent name for themselves. Watts points out that they are attracting more attention at festivals, particularly at Cannes.  “And with that recognition, agencies are going straight to the production company and the director and shooting the spot,” Watts says.
    Grey New York tapped Charlie Mainardi of Buenes Aires-based production company Huinca Cine last year for two Procter & Gamble spots. “They chose our director after evaluating his reel and his treatment on the boards. The spots were shot on a set in Buenos Aires for three days,” says Mariana Biquard, executive producer at Huinca Cine.
    In addition to giving kudos to Argentinian directors, Massimo Martinotti of Mia Films, a production company based in Florida with offices in Mexico, Costa Rica and Buenos Aires, notes the level of creativity at local agencies as well. “The Argentinian creativity is very much humor oriented. There is a lot of comedy–very sarcastic comedy. Agencies in Buenos Aires are very brave in that sense,” Martinotti says. He cites the spots Mia Films director Chanel shot for Repsol YPF out of Young & Rubicam and for BGH appliances out of Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi.
    Pablo Gil, executive creative director of Grey Argentina, says that Argentina becoming a “movie set for the world” over the last few years has really nourished local advertising.
    “The market’s opening brought mind opening as well. In our country, today you may find a lot of talent and also a solid level of production with international standards. From that development local advertising has evolved both in the ideas and in the production. Each time there are better, interesting and bigger ideas that for the consumer are more like little stories than TV commercials,” says Gil.
    An example is a recent spot the agency did for Magistral Dishwash, which was directed by Sebastian Valinio of Palermo Films, Buenos Aires.
    The spot follows people in different locations partaking in daily activities, showering, brushing their teeth, eating a bag of chips, etc.–but they are using products that are supersized. The bar of soap, toothpaste and potato chips are almost as big as the people themselves. At the end of the spot, viewers see a checkout line at a grocery store where an oversized carton of milk is rung up followed by a normal size bottle of Magistral. The words, “Longer lasting doesn’t mean larger sizing,” appear on the screen.
    “Our objective is to increase the creativity level in the home care category and this execution shows a fresh idea with a very interesting production level. We selected each location very carefully so the film as well as the vignettes would feel large and important,” says Gil. “In addition, manufacturing the in-scale ‘products’ was a difficult task, one that took special effects and production specialists over a month to put together.”

Looking Ahead: Hot, Hot, Hot
    Watts says Shoot Latin America pays close attention particularly to what film commissions in Latin America are doing to boost Brazilian and Argentinian shoots. She says there is a big push to form more film commissions to work more closely with commercial production as these countries recognize that is where most of the business is coming from.  
   “We are at a moment in which Brazil is asserting itself as an excellent option for international production. With the support of the Brazilian government, a group of production, equipment and sound companies joined together in 2003 to form Filmbrazil in order to promote Brazil as a commercial production destination,” explains João Roni Garcia, executive producer of Ocean Films, a production services company headquartered in Florianópolis with offices in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
    “Last year the Association of Brazilian Film Commissions (ABRAFIC) was formed to create a network of film commissions throughout the country. ABRAFIC, headquartered in Brasilia, also has as its mandate to make Brazil more competitive by reducing taxes on the importation of equipment, making temporary importation of this equipment easier and lobbying for tax credits for producers who want to come and work in Brazil.”
    Besides getting more support from the government, he believes that production services companies like his that work seriously to understand the different ways clients  handle the production process in their own countries is also key to Brazil’s commercial production success. USA is totally different from Europe for example. And the U.K. is totally different from Italy. All of them have their own characteristics of work,” he says.
    Likewise, Barbara Factorovich, executive producer of Palermo Films, says her company tries to be her clients’ home away from home. “We are definitely doing things correctly, because some of our usual clients are sometimes coming all the way to Buenos Aires for shooting one day on stage.” She said most of her business is coming from the United States and the U.K.
    Since Tracosas began handling U.S. representation for Ocean Films, the number of productions coming from the stateside market has increased dramatically, to the point that today it is the company’s largest source of business. The second largest is England, followed by Germany and Argentina.
    In February Ocean Films completed two commercials. The first was a Brahma beer commercial for Anonymous Content and McGarry Bowen, directed by Argentine Armando Bo. The second was for Dow Chemical and DraftFCB Chicago directed by Ian Mackenzie.
    “We were responsible for all of the South American locations, including the Amazon, Bahia and the Atacama desert in Chile. On the boards for March, we have just signed on with the British production company Stink for a project with the Publicis Paris agency to be directed by Psyop. We were able to solve all their location and studio needs in Rio de Janeiro,” Garcia says.
    He feels that producers, creatives and directors have a better idea today of what Brazil has to offer than they did just a few years ago. Many projects, he says, are put together drawing from previous experiences in Brazil. It is now common, for example, for directors to send treatments that already have references to specific Brazilian locations, situations and looks.
    “Brazil and Argentina are hot and only going to get hotter,” says Watts, “Europeans have been going down there and working for years, but I think the United States has just begun to tap the potential those two countries have.”

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