12 Spotlight

Screen
burn
Maria Roberts speaks to IMZ secretary general Franz Patay about
the growing interest in performing arts films and the Dance Screen
festival competition taking place in London in 2016

IMZ International Music + Media Centre is an international organisation

for the promotion of the performing arts on screen. Covering film
productions of dance and classical and contemporary music, members
works are broadcast on TV and shown at film festivals worldwide.
Participants work across the cultural film industry and include production companies, distributors and broadcasters, as well as new media
teams that create cultural audiovisual products for orchestras, opera
houses and concert halls. In addition to reaching out to consumers, IMZ
also provides services for business promotion, such as connecting up
producers with buyers to maximize efficiency and reduce overheads.
Who are your current members?
The IMZ promotes 140 international members from the US and Canada,
throughout Central and Eastern Europe to Japan, India, Russia and
Australia. Organisations include major international production
companies like EuroArts Music International, DEF Media, THIRTEEN
Productions for WNET and Rhombus Media, as well as distributors like
Unitel, C Major Entertainment and Opus Arte of the Royal Opera House.
Then there are also public and private broadcasters like the BBC, ARTE,
ZDF and NHK.
We also work with opera houses and concert halls such as
the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Opra National de Paris;
educational institutions including the Royal Conservatoire of The
Hague; orchestras such as San Francisco Symphony; and music labels
like Universal Music International, Red Bull Media House and Arthaus
Musik. Its not just the major companies that we work with as our membership options include services for smaller dance companies, film
festivals, and individuals or entrepreneurs such as directors,
scriptwriters and artists.
Above: Aloft, a film by
director Kate Duhamel
(Fountain 3 Films) and
choreographer by Yuri
Zhukov, shot by Golden
Gate 3D
Opposite: Speakers
and members mingle
at Avant Premire
2015

How exactly do you support your members?

As a framework, we help to save on costs related to acquisition, pitching,
networking and so on. We connect film producers with buyers and
distributors, and we offer an almost complete overview of the latest
films available for programme editors and broadcasters. Our members
also use our events to find co-producers or funding for future projects,
to share experiences and information, or simply to stay updated on the
industry.
We take care to assemble resources so that our members can avoid long
trips around the world, thus saving time and money. New members appreciate being connected to a large body of potential business partners; its
often the case that after a just a short time with IMZ they become known.
Do you think relative newcomers, particularly independents or
entrepreneurs, feel out of their depth in the company of giants like
Universal or the BBC?
Parallel to the promotion of professional businesses, IMZ increasingly

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focusses on the promotion of young and aspiring filmmakers. One way

we do this is through the IMZ Academy, a series of one-to-one expert
sessions held at both Avant Premire and the Dance Screen festival and
competition. These are initiatives that allow for the expertise assembled
among IMZ members to be passed on to the next generation, via
hands-on-workshops or pitching opportunities.
Its true that advice, training and coaching are expensive for young
people, and furthermore that their budgets for marketing are usually
limited. What counts most in our work with them is enabling them to
get connected to the big brands and decision makers, so that they can
showcase their work and make early progress.
How does engagement with the IMZ translate directly into business
opportunities for members?
Members and participants film productions are also entered into the
IMZ database, which we use for the programming of music film festivals
around the world. Our members habitually make use of our large online
database and our archive of over 25,000 listed films gives instant information on what has been produced so far. IMZs directory also features
direct contact details for all of its members.
What are your flagship events?
Avant Premire Music + Media Market Berlin is an annual gathering and
trade fair for the cultural film industry. It takes place during the Berlinale
Film Festival in cooperation with the European Film Market, and in 2015
we also linked up with Berlinale Talents.
2015s edition saw 550 films shown as Avant Premire screenings.
The screenings are the main focus of the four-day programme and
attract a lot of demand, because they offer an exclusive preview of work
that is brand new or in current production.
Added to this are the expert panel discussions: this years speakers
included Jan Younghusband (BBC); music documentary and video
director Julien Temple; Andrew Winter (Eagle Rock Entertainment);
Jan Mojto (Unitel); and Mark Wilkinson (Deutsche Grammophon),
among many others. For the first time, we also hosted one-to-one
expert sessions where representatives from the BBC, C Major
Entertainment, Eagle Rock Entertainment, Motor Entertainment, Red
Bull Media House and ZDF gave specific feedback and coaching to
young filmmakers.
Avant Premire also featured a special strand based around
Berliner Philharmoniker, which included full-length evening screenings held in a festive atmosphere. We welcomed Daniel Barenboim,
Plcido Domingo and stage director Philipp Stlzl, who personally
presented a recording of Il Trovatore performed and recorded at
Staatsoper Berlin in 2014. The 2Cellos also presented their concert
recording of 2Cellos live at Arena Pula, paired with an incredible live
recital at the event.

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Do you focus mainly on art forms such as dance, opera and classical
music, or do contemporary genres rate just as highly?
In 2015 we presented a special focus on pop music, complementing our
general focal point on classical music, as well as on technology for the
performing arts. Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute installed a mobile
TiME Lab a new technology for panoramic projection at ultra-high
resolution, with an interactive sound system at Avant Premire. It
offers new incentives to cultural institutions and film producers to
create innovative media experiences, and to reach out to new and
larger audiences around the world.
We also presented our Avant Premire Virtual Market, a new online
tool that allows participants to see who is coming in advance and to
effectively arrange meetings so that they can make the most of their
time. The next Avant Premire will take place from 16-19 February 2016.
We are currently working on the focal points for 2016, but were pretty
sure that opportunities for young filmmakers as well more general
matchmaking formats will feature quite prominently.

PHOTOS: MARCUS GAERTNER / KATE DUHAMEL, COURTESY OF IMZ

How have audiences changed with the technology?

This is an interesting question, and in fact one which has kept us busy
since the IMZs formation in 1961. Our members always strive to keep up
with the latest technologies, in order to be able to provide the most
authentic picture: from film formats to TV, through VHS, DVD, laser discs
and Blue Ray, to 3D, HD and live streaming, weve recognised there has
been an exhilarating rate of technological progress which has always
brought with it new challenges for producers.
At the same time, independently of this, we have observed certain
changes on the audience side: today, more people buy a ticket for the
cinema than for the Metropolitan Opera, and this has been the really big
change larger audiences are now consuming performances in front of a
screen in 2D, as compared with the numbers of spectators experiencing a
concert live on site.
Is the bulk of the IMZs work based on distributing existing recordings
made for stage or do you commission productions yourselves?
Actually, rather than commissioning film productions or being active
in the distribution of products per se, the IMZ provides a platform
and specific services for international enterprises to do so themselves in reality, this is mainly film producers, distributors and
broadcasters. Our activities focus on the specific needs of those
branches, while regarding the dynamics of this specialised
market segment.
All productions are created with the ultimate aim of being screened
and broadcast. Thus, they are recorded in a decidedly respective
format and aimed at particular audiences, while following the presets
of their individual TV slots and the policies of their broadcasting
stations.

Looking back on the past three years of productions that have been
traded through the IMZ, we see the largest proportion has been made up
of live recordings of concerts, operas or dance performances (48 per
cent). The second biggest fraction (22 per cent) has been documentaries
and artist portraits.
Can you talk us through the Dance Screen festival and competition
taking place in London? How did you select the companies?
Dance Screen 2016 will take place from 8-12 June 2016 in London, in
cooperation with one of our members, BalletBoyz, a young and innovative all-male dance company based in London. Dance Screen is a dance
film festival and a competition around 300 submissions reach us for
each edition, all of which are reviewed by a professional jury.
The competition itself is divided into four categories: capture of a
live dance performance; adaptation of an existing choreography;
choreographic work specially created for the screen; and finally dance
documentary. Eventually there is an overall Jury Award given, as well as a
Student Award. Moreover, throughout the festival the young competitors
have the opportunity to get in touch with experts in dance and film
production, in order to participate in pitching sessions and to have their
films screened at the festival and possibly beyond.
What would you say are the key trends evolving in the industry at the
moment, and what would you like to see more of?
We notice that live streaming is an important topic across all branches.
Likewise, it seems that tools designed to facilitate greater interaction
with audiences in contrast to unilateral forms of entertainment are
a growing trend: social media plays an essential role in this and adds to
the discussion around ideas of the second screen. Todays opera houses,
concert halls and artists seem to really like the fact that they can now
connect and promote themselves in totally new ways.
Of course, we also need to look at the technical conditions of online
platforms, and the different approaches for organising and structuring
them individually or collectively. Our goal, after all, is to promote cultural
content and the arts even more effectively, using new audiovisual media
in order to widen access to audiences, reach new areas of the public, and
to create new fans. We also hope to increase social awareness of the
relevance and the value of cultural assets through these ever-developing
audiovisual media and platforms.
Another particular aim of ours is to continue to filter international
innovation in technology and new media, while keeping an eye on
those gradual shifts in audience demands. Doing this allows us to
both create perfect products and strengthen our strategies for producing, distributing and promoting the performing arts around
the world.
imz.at / dancescreen.com
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