Archive for September, 2009

This is our press release story for magazines – our PR campaign which we are starting this fall.

“LEAVING SERBIA”

In the Beginning

1984 originally started as a bourbon fuelled idea in Camps Bay, Cape Town several years ago.

I was working as a facilitation Producer at the time, servicing foreign production companies and Ivo, my friend and now partner, was putting the finishing touches to a web site for McCann Erickson which eventually won him an award at the Loeries that year.

The idea or thought of starting a production company in Belgrade was first proposed by Ivo on that same day while watching the sun set fire to the Atlantic Ocean at some café in Camps Bay. The notion seemed romantic, but at the time wholly unrealistic. Serbia was still reeling from the aftermath of NATO’s bombings in 1999 and the economic sanctions that had been enforced by most of Europe and North America for several years. There was of course a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the country’s social, economic and political future.

All in all, the feasibility and circumstances for establishing a production company; or any company for that matter, were generally quite inadequate. And so we finished our drinks, turned our conversation to rugby or cricket, enjoyed what remained of the day and left the idea alone until two years later.

Two Years Later

I used to go to Serbia for summer holidays almost every year over a period of approximately ten years. Approximately two years after that late afternoon bourbon in Cape Town I returned to Belgrade again for summer holidays.

To my surprise I discovered that quite a bit had changed in the country in a very short period of time. There appeared to a be a kind of optimism related to a variety of issues that had not been present in the past, in addition to this, there were clear and evident signs of both political and economic development that had not been apparent previously. One needed only to look at the construction cranes dotted all across the city or to notice the arrival of foreign banks, the re emergence of  financial institutions and the obvious influx of previously non existent commercial and business entities to realize that things were beginning to develop in the country.

At the time, Ivo had already launched his Internet Consultancy Company, New Page and which still operates today. I decided to spend two months with him in Belgrade taking the time to research the market, environment and the feasibility of starting up a production company in Serbia. To my surprise I found a relatively well developed and well organized film making infrastructure. There were several studios available, a number of gear houses, post production facilities and even a film laboratory. It then occurred to me that this was not surprising – considering that the former Yugoslavia did in fact have one of the most flamboyant film industries in Europe between the end of the Second World War and the early 80’s. Not to mention the fact that it had produced a string of award winning feature film directors including the internationally acclaimed Emir Kusturica. And so it stood to reason that that a long standing tradition of film making had existed in the region for quite some time already and it further stood to reason that as a result one should be able to find the human resources and infrastructure necessary to be able to sustain a production company.

One of the benefits of having come from South Africa and having been presented with the situation that was occurring at that time was being able to identify certain similarities between what had occurred in South Africa in the Mid Nineties and what was going on in Serbia. After South Africa had emerged from the post apartheid era there was an economic and social revolution that occurred and which attracted a great deal of foreign interest and investment from foreign investors. We assumed that the same could possibly be true for Serbia and especially considering the fact that the cost of production was considerably less there than in most of Europe.

And so, with very little to think about, we decided there and then to launch what would become 1984 Productions a little more than a year later in the hope of being able to exploit the existing infrastructure and cheap prices and in so doing attracting potential foreign clients.

A Little More than a Year later

And so a little more than a year later, I packed up my life in South Africa and headed off to Belgrade, Serbia to start a little film production company with my friend and partner Ivo and two other local producers. Our initial operation moved between the confines of a small, hot and humid office in an old car museum in Belgrade and Ivo’s studio at New Page. The first few months were typically uneventful, notwithstanding a small facilitation job we did for Monty Python’s Michael Palin – this of course, come to think about it is quite eventful.

Then, one day and quite suddenly everything exploded. Through an act of god and of course a great deal of hard work, we managed to pick up three projects for Telenor Serbia. The projects were a great success. This of course also had a lot to do with the fact that there was, at the time in Serbia, a great deal of opportunity for being able to break new ground and especially because of its medium term socio – political history. Advertising, or at least contemporary trends and fashions within broadcast advertising were quite undeveloped and this of course allowed us to make a big impact on the industry and within a very short period of time.

So it wasn’t surprising to us that we began receiving a series of consecutive commercials to produce – more than 40 to be specific and this all in the space of just over a year and a half.

In the space of just over a year and a half.

And so it came to pass that with our new found fame and fortune came the television interviews, the newspaper articles, money, rock and roll, new Mac lap tops, designed Italian furniture, the lamps by Stark, Ray Ban sunglasses, Cuban Cigars and of course our brand new office. The first year was an absolute fairy tale.

And that’s precisely what it turned out to be eventually – nothing more than a fairy tale. Because it wasn’t long before the tiny little cracks began to show themselves and it wasn’t long before these cracks became crevasses. Conventional wisdom has us believe that any entity should take time to slowly and methodically build itself in order to create a solid, permanent core and base. The same is true for a business. There is little to gain from a meteoric rise, not unless you are prodigious enough and are capable enough of processing the copious amounts of data and information required to make sane and rational judgments while the world around you is erupting in a crescendo of activity, change and even sometimes total devastation. Above and beyond this, the company began to lose sight of why it was that it had originally been formed and the spirit in which it had been created – to export Serbia as a shooting destination to foreign clients.

So it wasn’t surprising when one day the cracks that became crevasses eventually led to the demise and dissolution of the company. As a result the partners split and Ivo and I continued with 1984.

Continuing with 1984

I think it was probably one of the hottest summers in recorded history. Temperatures were reaching an aggravating 40 – 45 degrees Celsius – almost enough to fry an egg on an exposed car bonnet. Of course this is precisely when our air conditioners broke down and so we found ourselves working in an office that was warm enough to bake bread in. With the old partnership in tatters and with a company that was practically on its final hand full of dimes, we began putting the pieces back together again.

We started with redesigning the entire brand and image of the company. Trying to move it away from its somewhat naïve roots and towards a more contemporary, simple format. It was during the catastrophic heat and the uncertainty of the period that we developed the “More for Less” viral campaign and which practically set the tone for the branding and image of the company.  We invented a series of characters which we accompanied with stories, web sites and movie clips and which slowly and methodically spread amongst the agencies and production companies in the region. The project I think had less to do with us feeling that we needed something like this to facilitate our brand and almost everything to do with us developing a distraction and a project that would help to keep our minds off the fact that we didn’t have enough money to buy toilet paper and coffee.

But the beauty of the whole thing, other that the entertainment value that it offered us, was the scale and complexity of the project and the fact that it was done for practically no money. We were always very privileged as a company to have a remarkable pool of very young and multi faceted individuals who have always been capable of moving between genres and across disciplines. It was precisely this project and this period of time that not only showed the remarkable talent available to us, but also proved to us in a variety of different ways that we were kind of on the right track – turn 180 degrees is sometimes a gut wrenching experience and one always needs all the affirmations one can get.  We had found ours – it was the people we had working for us.

A little bit later

Our new beginning set off to a relatively slow start. Gone were the days of us having a queue of agencies offering work. You see, a great deal had changed in a very short period of time. The industry went through a slow down and at precisely that point the world recession reared its ugly head. It’s funny, but advertising and luxuries are always the first things to get cut and production companies; being at the bottom of the food chain, very often get to feel the brunt of god’s wrath on man and his money machine.

Yet, there’s always something optimistic and wonderful that can come out of or be produced during times like these. And for us, it was the calling card we needed to finally lay rest our efforts on the Serbian market and to turn in earnest and when dealing with the Serbian market, to still have the rare privilege of being able to work on very creative work. It’s astounding how the head works and equally astounding how creative one can be and does become when the dollars and the euros are lacking. And this was one of the great things to have emerged in the short term – creativity, intelligence and the emergence the type of courage that is needed to endure and persevere.

You learn about who you are and more importantly, who you’re surrounded by.

Leaving Serbia

Ivo and myself always talk about leaving Serbia. Not literally, but figuratively. To be literal would be ironic, considering the fact that we left South Africa to come here.

You see, there’s something about being in a place that’s untouched and undeveloped that is both magnificent and profoundly frustrating at the same time. Magnificent because of what can be achieved and frustrating because sometimes in places like that, the people who come from there simply can not see the virtues and wonders of that place. Serbia is precisely on such place. Untouched, unexplored and illogical. It possesses all the characteristics of a dark comedy. Yet, there is so much that makes it so remarkably plausible and so overtly feasible as a location for one to have a production company.

And so, each day for the foreseeable future is going to be spent trying to leave Serbia while trying to get people to come here.