An EFM industry talk confronted the need for indie film producers to diversify into working with streaming platforms and on television series as a means for survival.
UK producer Farah Abushwesha admitted that, prior to working with streaming platforms and branching out from film into TV, “I don’t know how I lived.”
She continued: “Between being a line producer, lecturing, working on small independent films and doing budgeting and scheduling for people, trying to make a living was exceptionally hard. I’ll always be a [film] producer, but I wasn’t making a living out of it. For me, going into television was extraordinary.” Abushwesha worked with Netflix on 2018 feature Irreplaceable You, an experience she described as “really wonderful”.
Abushwesha was joined by German producer Henning Kamm, who produced Netflix series Unorthodox. “We had a great working experience with Netflix,” he said. “It made financial sense to do it that way. We could have made it for somebody else, but it would have taken a lot longer to finance and set it up.”
The talk, which took place on Friday 11 and was titled ‘How can producers survive and thrive in 2022?’, also featured the executive director of London-based entertainment analysis firm Ampere Analysis, Guy Bisson.
He warned of the streamers’ dependence on ownership of intellectual property (IP) as problematic for producers.
“You go to conferences and events and Netflix commissioners say there is no one deal type,” said Bisson. “Producers often tell you something different – they are being forced to give up all rights and all IP.
“If you speak to most small independent producers, they are saying they are not able to hold onto rights in the way they perhaps were when the business was predominantly with broadcasters.”
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