GENRE FOCUS TV MOVIES
kind of event television. This means them put- ting up a healthy licence fee, he says. Waddell agrees. “They realise that they are going to have to do that if they want this prod- uct. Going forward we intend to invest in big- ger and better standout content.” Power plans to coproduce two new minis- eries with RHI later this year based on best- sellers by British thriller writer Alistair MacLean. Air Force One and The Dark Crusaderare both 2x2 hours and will enter pro- duction later this year
It is also coproducing cyber terrorism offer-
ing Blackoutwith RHI Entertainment, which is now in post-production. It stars Anne Heche, James Brolin and Billy Zane. Another popular strand is bestselling crime novels. Following on from its success co-pro- ducing the crime bestsellers of Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, ZDF is co-producing four-part miniseries Falcón with Canal Plus Espana and Sky Atlantic in the UK, based on the Robert Wilson novels. The difficulty that free-to-air broadcasters in the UK and elsewhere in Europe face, says Waddell, is finding space to schedule the minis- eries. In the UK this is often on a Sunday evening as seen with the recent BBC/NBC co- production Birdsong. But Waddell says the tightness of slots does dampen the market. It’s a problem that makers of TV movies face as well. Most countries broadcast made-for-tel- evision movies in the afternoon.
This affects the kinds of subject matter suit- able for TV movies. If it’s woman-in-peril — traditionally a staple of the TV movie — then the scares cannot be too dark, the peril can’t be too life-threatening. Often there are children watching these movies after school. TV movies made for afternoon slots need to be shot differently too. Colours need to be brighter, says Richter,they cannot be photographed darkly like Hollywood thrillers. And yet it is in these afternoon slots where Richter sees the most demand from US broadcasters going forward, especially during the summer months as viewers’ tire of wall-to- wall reruns.
SevenOne International’s The Revenge of the Travelling Whore
60 TBI April/May 2012
Despite the restrictions on the kinds of TV movies you can make, the way that they are shot and the increasingly difficulty in getting them financed, they are still a genre which Cordoni loves. Says Cordoni, “My ideal scenario has always been ‘big picture, small screen’.” TBI
For the latest in TV programming news visit
TBIVISION.COM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100