The Venice takeaway: What we learned from La Mostra and Eurovod
It’s hard to believe the last time people physically got together for an organised film festival was at the Berlinale all the way back in late February. Soon after, the pandemic reached Europe’s shores and quickly brought in-person cultural activities to a halt.
What followed were an overly quiet few months for CCS professionals—a notoriously sociable bunch—and that includes us here at TrueMotion.
So when we heard that both the 77th International Venice Film Festival (La Mostra, 2-12 September) and the European VoD Meetings (Eurovod 1-4 September) were actually going to happen in Venice, we jumped at the chance to spend some sun-drenched days in Italy, catching up with colleagues, discussing the latest trends in the audiovisual (AV) sector and seeing some amazing films to boot.
Now, back at our desks in the Netherlands and already missing our morning vaporetto rides, we bring you our top five takeaways from both events.
1
Real-world festivals are coming back as blended experiences
When the pandemic hit Europe and began to spread at an alarming pace, there was a real fear that large gatherings like festivals and conferences would simply no longer be feasible.
Fast forward to this month and La Mostra—one of the first international organised post-COVID events—has certainly gone a long way in allaying that fear.
While no one expected La Biennale to get it perfect, La Mostra was overall a successful effort, a verdict that could be attributed as much to the organisers implementing digital innovations, like livestreamed press conferences and exclusively online ticketing systems, as to the stringent protection measures, like face masks and fewer seats at screenings.
With restricted physical access meaning fewer participants, festivals will now have to focus on offering a blended experience. In other words, organisers will have to facilitate both physical and virtual participation to achieve optimal outreach. At La Mostra, this was done fairly well using widely available digital event planning tools (video conferencing, livestreaming, VR, etc.)
“Organisers will have to facilitate both physical and virtual participation to achieve optimal outreach”
2
Film stars are becoming less accessible to fans
The news is less optimistic for fans attending festivals hoping to spot their favourite celebrities.
Whether they miss being asked to sign an autograph every few steps is of course not for us to say, but it’s clear that celebrities being approached in public are a thing of the past.
The barriers between celebrities and the public were noticeably higher in Venice. And we mean that literally.
On our first night attending a screening, we came across a three-metre-high wall that separated the audience from the red carpet. Even more disappointing to the celeb-spotting crowd was the scarcity of actual film stars at the event. With Hollywood still in lockdown, La Mostra was understandably short on A-listers.
3
The future of VOD is bright
Away from the glitz and glamour of the film festival, we also attended a series of meetings organised by Eurovod, a network of independent and European video on demand (VOD) platforms.
The main takeaway from the meetings: VOD is now a top growth sector in TV and film distribution. Audiences are increasingly consuming productions from home, a trend that was on an upward trajectory even before the pandemic. As a result, VOD is now projected to reach—and likely surpass—TV viewership within the next four years.
We discussed some emerging distribution trends to keep an eye on, for example, subscription stacking (households subscribing to three or more SVOD services), which opens up the potential for more niche streaming platforms to succeed in the marketplace.
Next, stakeholders at Eurovod spoke about moving away from a “value chain” and towards an “ecosystem”: Old thinking considered VOD releases to be somewhere towards the end of a film and TV industry value chain in which a production’s exploitation value progressively diminished.
In reality, VOD is taking its place as a distribution channel equal to those more traditionally valued like cinema and DVD releases.
“VOD is now projected to reach—and likely surpass—TV viewership within the next four years.”
This is in large part due to the fact that the pandemic is keeping more people at home and away from festivals and theatres. With an increasingly pressured film industry finally coming round to listening to its audiences about where and how they want to watch films (i.e. at home, and increasingly via streaming platforms), the landscape is changing fast.
Data transparency and smarter knowledge-sharing across segments of the AV sector are the final essential VOD trend to look out for. Many stakeholders stressed that, to ensure the sustainability of film production and distribution, global audience stats on the performance of cinema, TV and VOD releases will need to be made accessible to both producers and investors.
4
Fewer productions, but a wider audience reach
Our second takeaway from the Eurovod workshops was that, as counterintuitive as it might seem, reducing the volume of output can actually benefit the AV sector in the coming years.
Over the last 10 years, Europe offered its independent and mainstream film companies plenty of funding incentives, which has resulted in a massive increase in film production.
But quantity does not always mean quality, especially when it comes to distribution and reach. While more than 2,400 films are made by European filmmakers on a yearly basis, most of these never make the jump from (usually tiny) festivals to cinemas, TV or VOD.
The future ecosystem of film should therefore aim for fewer productions, while using audience data and diverse digital distribution channels to reach a larger public and by consequence bring in larger revenues.
For proof of just such an ecosystem, you don’t need to look any further than the Nordic quality-over-quantity model, where investment has focused on digital distribution policy.
5
Silos are on their way out
To navigate the shift towards this new kind of ecosystem, one ingredient emerged as key for sector players: collaboration. As the silos, or walls, break down between the distribution channels, different segments of the AV sector must learn from and work with each other.
For many, the prospect of the industry adopting hybrid models will trigger fears of job losses, so a proactive approach to establish sustainable and mutually beneficial collaborations is critical.
There’s plenty of potential for a sector moving away from the traditional value chain to explore: many alternative models are now being launched and tested (for example, cinema at home, VOD premieres, data-driven marketing, etc.).
Above all, the sector must collaboratively invest in audience intelligence: they need to get a better grasp of what consumers actually want and expect and then base future strategies on those needs and expectations. By making better connections between audiences and their productions, the European AV sector will not only increase cultural participation by Europeans, it will also widen audience reach and see more profits.
What’s next for the AV sector?
We loved networking with our colleagues, and getting a real feel for what’s happening in the film sector, but it was the radical new VOD trends that made a lasting impression and now have us thinking about new directions for EU-funded project proposals.
Of course, we’ve been proponents of VOD for a few years now, helping initiatives like OUTtv and ODMedia get funded. We knew it was an area that was likely to see growth. Eurovod discussions confirmed this trajectory, but also underlined the transformation the sector has to undergo in order to sustain successful business models.
Arne van Vliet is the Creative Director of TrueMotion. He’s passionate about the creative arts and specialises in finding funding for innovative creative projects that are reshaping the arts landscape in Europe.