Projects need money and love – and co-production deals

A few buzzwords kept cropping up during sessions at the TV Drama Vision 2024, now back at a completely renewed Draken in central Gothenburg, offering two stages for parallel programming.

This year’s conversations on stage and in hallways centred on creative processes, but also on creating more content for the same money, accepting and adapting to AI as a factor of work-life, and attracting new money through an open mindset towards co-productions, also outside the Nordic region.

To set the strategic and financial scene for the two-day event, Executive Director of Ampere, Guy Bisson, laid out the industry in a longer perspective, painting a relatively encouraging picture for TV productions. One factor is that advertising money is flowing into streamers as a supplement to subscriptions.

However, Bisson’s fairly bright global outlook does not necessarily translate into a new scripted boom. There is a lurking shift in content demand.

“The greater trend is the rise of unscripted TV, which is ideal for lots of episodes, easy to localise, and appeals to the younger demographic; those are the audiences that streamers need to retain,” Bisson said.

That said, there is significant scripted Nordic activity in 2024, due to project delays, and the prognosis was that the market may enter a more stable and sustainable phase in about 18 months.

There were no easy answers available in Gothenburg on how to cope with the slowdown in output. In the session titled “Drama Production Mayhem”, the panel, including Anna Croneman from SVT, reached some consensus on the fact that tough times inevitably lead to postponed projects and turn-arounds, and that the answer is working smarter and together. Moving on, it seems like the industry is gravitating toward higher-quality productions with lower budgets enabled by new technology. Medium-budget shows are struggling, while high-end flagship projects and low-budget productions are thriving.

Although growth has slowed in more established markets such as the Nordics, the upside is that shows are now reaching a wider audience than ever before,

In January 2023, coming out of a high inflation year, the need for more co-productions was already the prevailing buzzword at TV Drama Vision. This year it was more than just talk. Two new initiatives will undoubtedly drive more co-production between countries and broadcaster-streamers. Not that Nordic broadcasters haven’t talked before, but both “New8” and “The Scandi Alliance” will facilitate many more concrete meetings and discussions, leading to projects across borders.

New8's first cases are “Push” and “Elixir”, and it seems that Scandi Alliance, which received 70 applications in the fall, is ready to reveal its first project in a matter of days.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) was a given buzzword in Gothenburg. With the continuous advancements in technology, AI is not only enhancing storytelling but is also on the brink of producing visuals suitable for the big screen. This raises questions about the skills needed to harness these technologies, the future of filmmaking, and how to balance fear with opportunity.

To illuminate the intricate “AI” issue, the audience, and Content Executive at Banijay, Steve Matthews, were treated to a very enlightening onstage exercise in how AI quickly deals with creative writing for treatments, character development, suggested plot structure, etc.

This year, TV Drama Vision explored alternative territories, incorporating a full focus on Flanders - a production environment worth exploring for the Nordic projects - and through several sessions with an eye-opening look at eastern European countries and opportunities, moderator Marike Muselaers noted.

In times of lower output, TV Drama Vision participants were encouraged by countless examples of stellar creative work in terms of themes, plot, and production value. Several projects “in production” or on the brink of premiere stood out, and proved what seemed to be TV Drama Vision’s unofficial catchphrase: “All projects need money and love.”

An interesting surprise was the rather dark first Nordic original drama from Disney+, produced by Anagram Sweden. Far from a cosy family affair, the first glimpse of the murder mystery series To Cook a Bear caught the audience’s attention with its production value and northern location, that confirmed Disney’s Nordic creative ambitions and financial muscles.

The anticipated Ronja the Robber’s Daughter was already the big talk last year. This year, the audience was treated to a longer appetiser with breathtaking visuals and sound. It will be on Netflix some time in 2024, and Netflix’s VP of Nordic Content Jenny Stjernströmmer was on stage, genuinely proud that Netflix was able to pick up the prestigious project after Viaplay.

Other titles in early development once again accentuated creative Nordic storytelling, like the period piece The Swedish Muse, produced by Cinenic, about the girl who 300 years ago became the muse of Sweden’s greatest music artist at the time, Carl Bellmann. The Draken theatre almost gasped for a moment as visitors heard the premise for TV2/ Denmark’s Tivoli, which is underway at Nordisk Film, and deals with people of colour on public exhibition.

All Nordic countries were featured in content sessions at TV Drama Vision 2024, introducing a great variety of styles and genres. The boom years are also over in Finland, but Development Manager Janne Vakio from MTV blew the audience out of their seats with an intense trailer for the present-day war drama Conflict. Never has so much heavy military hardware rolled across the screen in the course of two minutes at TV Drama.

Prime Video’s Karin Lindström confirmed the US streamer’s no-slow-down policy, and offered the audience a peek at Black Out - the first scripted Nordic project from Prime.

For a change of pace, Head of International Media Res Lars Blomgren had invited actor and producer Sarah Lancashirefor a longer session on production, actors, and insights in her career and many prolific roles.

She generously shared her experiences, especially from working on the long-running three Happy Valley seasons, and about leaving beloved characters and series behind.

“My dad used to say: ‘Your happiest times when owning a boat is the day you buy it and the day you sell it.’ I feel the same about my projects,” Lancashire said.

The session with Lancaster attracted a large audience in the big cinema hall, as did most of the sessions, which sometimes put pressure on filling the smaller Drama Hall stage. But all in all, TV Drama Vision worked extremely well in its renewed location Draken.

To read more about New 8: CLICK HERE and Scandi Alliance: CLICK HERE.