Most Indian animators face the issue of finding the required finance for their movies. Addressing this key concern was a session at the ABAI Fest and KAVGC Summit 2015 in Bengaluru. Technicolor India country head and ABAI president Biren Ghose and August Media founder and CEO Jyotirmoy Saha conducted a session on how to try out co-productions that will ease out the tax burden on the Indian partner.
Jyotirmoy started off with giving his example as to how he set up his company in Singapore since it is a market that is easily accepted across the world for partnerships as well as the country itself is immigrant friendly and business friendly. Europe is a tough market to get through since the countries there usually have rules which state that near about 70 per cent of the content that is shown on screen must be produced in the European Union countries with the worst being in France with about 93 per cent. So the best way would be register an office in a European company to evade these problems.
However if someone is unable to have offices in various places, Jyotirmoy says that co-productions are a good option to consider. His advice for choosing a co-production country apart from looking at the finances would be to also look at the talent that is available in the country and the tax relief provided. “Once you find a good partner, hold on to it till as long as you can and make best use of it,” he says.
Biren said that the disadvantage India has is that it is a late entrant in the sector due to which others view it as a ‘weaker partner’. He had an earlier experience wherein a show that he had co-produced with a Canadian company was refused by Indian broadcasters because the story was entirely Canadian.
According to Jyotirmoy, Singapore was one of the best places to open a company because it has international treaties with almost all the important countries such as the US and EU that usually have high barriers of entry. This apart, with countries such as Australia or China, despite content being made in Singapore, is considered as Australian or Chinese.
The first thing to remember, Jyotirmoy says, is the potential of the show you are co-producing. “If a co-producing partner promises you more than $2.5 million in TV sales, don’t believe him/her. There are only 23 main broadcasters in the world and they all have different content requirements and giving only $20,000 an episode. Your show won’t fit all of it,” he said.
Asian co-productions are easier to execute because of the similarity of values that can be easily identifiable. While he was with Hungama, Jyotirmoy got Japanese shows to India, which till date are highly successful such as Doraemon, Ninja Hattori and Shin Chan, among others.