How to Break Into the French Film Music Market: Leveraging Available Film Rebates and Tax Credits in France to Your Advantage
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How to break into the French film music market: leveraging available film rebates and tax credits in France to your advantage Many music composers want to break into the French film market, which is known the world over for its steady production stream of art films, as well as its ‟cultural exception”, aimed at protecting films with a French touch. What is the state of play? What avenues can music composers explore, in order to be retained as part of the below-the-line crew on French film productions? 1. Understanding the dynamics of the French film market: a ‟how-to” guide for film music composers In 2012, Vincent Maraval, one of the founders of top dog French production and distribution companyWild Bunch, published a column in ‟Le Monde” entitled ‟French actors are paid too much!”, which got a lot of attention. In substance, Maraval decried a doomed system, in which the French above- the-line personnel (such as the director, the screenwriter and the producers) and, in particular, French actors, were benefiting from inflated salaries and remunerations, while the receipts made by French theaters on such French film productions had gone down 10 times in the last year or so. To prove his point, he cited the payment scale for French film stars (such as Vincent Cassel, Jean Reno, Marion Cotillard, Gad Elmaleh, Guillaume Canet, Audrey Tautou, Léa Seydoux), ranging from Euros 500,000 to 2 millions on French film productions, while the same actors command salaries of only Euros 50,000 to 200,000 when they work on American film productions. Apparently, French actors are among the best paid in the world, even ahead of most American movie stars. Maraval cited as culprit the direct subsidy system (pre-sales by public TV channels, advances on receipts, regional funding), to which French cinema is eligible, but most importantly the indirect subsidy system (mandatory investment by private TV channels). Seven years down the line, Maraval’s statement still rings true as nothing has changed: the above-the-line crew, in particular French actors, still syphons most of the available budget of French film productions. Indeed, in order to obtain financing from TV channels – which upper middle class managements despise the pleb’s taste for reality TV shows such as ‟La Star Ac”, yet remain slaves to it – French film producers must belly dance in front of, and prove to, the likes of France Télévisions and TF1, that bankable and locally popular French actors are attached to their film productions. The takeaway for film music composers, who are all part of the below-the-line crew, and therefore come after French actors in the pecking order, is that the financial pot is tight, on French film productions, as far as they are concerned. Therefore, what is the margin of negotiation of film music composers, when schmoozing their way with French film directors and producers, to get a job on set? 2. Being able to sell yourself as a film music composer aspiring to do work on French film projects As brilliantly explained by Anita Elberse in her book ‟Blockbusters”, the entertainment business works around a ‟winners take all” economic model, where only the 1 percent thrive. The situation described by Maraval above is a gleaming example of that, where French actors command salaries which are even higher than those paid to most American movie stars on Hollywood film projects. As a result, French film projects are uber costly, because not only do producers have to allocate at least 70 percent of their budget to salaries paid to fickle French film stars, but also production costs in France are very high (due to labour costs, in particular prohibitively expensive social security contributions, a 20 percent standard VAT rate, stiffly work regulations, etc.). As a result, music composers are left to fend for themselves when pitching for work on French film productions. They can only count on their standout back catalogues of music compositions and recordings, to advertise their skillsets, as well as their own gifts of the gab, to become part of the chosen few. Indeed, while all French actors, with the notable exception of Jean Dujardin who is managed by his own brother and lawyer, are represented by a handful of French agents, who have total and absolute control on the talent acting pool in France, film music composers struggle to get representation in other European countries and/or in Hollywood, let alone in France. Indeed, only a handful of French music composers, such as Alexandre Desplat, Nathaniel Méchaly and Evgueni Galperine have proper representation, with agents located both in Paris and Los Angeles. However, 99 percent of music composers, active on the French film market, are unrepresented and can only rely on their inner capabilities and charm, to befriend a rising French film director and/or shrewd French film producer, and hence be given the top music job. This is a hard task for most, but especially for music composers who are often introverted and socially-shy people. The attitude of French music supervisors, who work on behalf of French film production companies such asEuropaCorp , in order to get them original music scores commissioned and made per film project, does not help either. Indeed, upon receiving a new assignment, their first port of call is to contact French agents and tap their internal roster of music talent, using such agents as gatekeepers and ‟quality controllers” of the French film music market. As a result, only 1 percent of the film music composers’ pool available on the French film music market gets to participate in tenders for French film productions, leaving the remaining 99 percent out of reach … and out of their depth. 3. The winning formula: leveraging the French state subsidy system to your advantage, as a film music composer aspiring to work on French film productions When approaching French film producers, film music composers – especially foreign ones – need being completely on top-of- things, soft funding wise. As explained in my daily-read article ‟How to finance your film production?”, many nations have attractive tax and investment incentives for filmmakers, whereby individual regional and country legislation unables film producers to subsidise spent costs for production. France is no exception to that, with tax finance structured in the following manner: for non-French film productions, the Tax Rebate for International Productions (‟TRIP”) is a tax rebate which applies to projects wholly or partly made in France. It it selectively granted by the French national centre for cinema (‟CNC”) to a French production services company. TRIP amounts up to 30 percent of the qualifying expenditures incurred in France: it can total a maximum of Euros 30 millions per project. The French government refunds the applicant company, which must have its registered office in France. ‟Thor” (Marvel Studios), ‟Despicable Me” and ‟the Minions” (Universal Animation Studios), as well as ‟Inception” (Warner Bros), have benefited from TRIP. for European film co-productions, the ‟Crédit d’impôt cinéma et audiovisuel” (‟CICA”) is a tax credit that benefits French producers for expenses incurred in France for the production of films or TV programmes. The CICA tax credit is equal to 20 percent of eligible expenses – increased to 30 percent for films for which the production budget is less than Euros 4m. 3.1. TRIP: making sure to get the points needed to pass the cultural test To qualify into the TRIP, a film project must: be a fiction film (live action or animation, feature film, TV, web, VR, short film TV special, single or several episodes of a series, or a whole season, etc.); pass a cultural test, and shoot at least 5 days in France for live-action production (unless VFX/post). For film music composers, the aspect of TRIP relevant to them is the cultural test: they want to make sure that, should the film producer and director select them as music composer and author on the project, they will fulfil the criteria to pass that TRIP cultural test. The document entitled ‟9. Grille de critères de sélection pour une oeuvre de fiction” sets out that, in order to be eligible, a project must obtain at least 18 points. Criteria n. 10, on page 2, sets out that at least one of the music composers must be: a French citizen; a citizen of a European country (that includes all citizens of EU member-states), or a French resident, for the film project to score 1 point out of the 18 necessary for eligibility. Therefore, film music composers who are really serious about getting into the French film sector must meet one of the above criteria, to secure this 1 point for the TRIP’s cultural test, which is the maximum amount of points even a French citizen music composer could ever contribute towards the film project. 3.2. Co-productions: making sure to get the points needed on the French and European scales European co-productions can benefit from France’s film financing system, notably the French selective schemes, such as, inter alia: CICA, the automatic support for the French producer and distributor from French TV channels and Free-to-air networks (as Canal +, TF1, France Televisions, ARTE and M6 must invest a percentage of their annual revenues on French and European films); automatic subsidies referred to in French as ‟compte de soutien” or ‟soutien automatique”, where each qualifying movie producer or distributor receives automatic subsidies in proportion to the film’s success at the French box office, and also in video stores (a percentage of DVD bluray sales revenues) and in TV sales (a percentage of broadcasting rights sales); French regional funds, and Sofica funds (private equity).