The Big Boys on the Eastern Block

If you’ve been following this series, you’ve learned the production resources in Eastern and Central Europe offer smart producers in other parts of the world, especially the US, some interesting possibilities. So far I’ve talked about the general scheme of things and smaller outfits, but if you’re working on a large project with heavy requirements, you’re going to want to investigate what I call the big boys. They vary in actual size, but they all have a well-established reputation for delivery. I’m going to talk about two here. I found one in the Czech Republic and One in Bulgaria.

Part 1: Eastern Europe Production/Post on the Rise

Part 2: Eastern Europe on the Rise: Boutiques

If you’re working on a fairly large production you may be involved with a completion bond company. I’m told that having large portions of the production handled by unknown Eastern Europe companies can make them nervous. They’re going to want a track record of on-time and quality delivery to US production companies. You’ll find that the more established studios have lots of experience working with US productions and can provide that kind of assurance. Cold Mountain was shot in Romania at the huge Castel Films studio, just north of Bucharest. I understand the producers saved more than $30 million by doing it that way.

Prague is like the Hollywood of Europe these days. There you will find studio back-lots, well trained crews and all the equipment and post production facilities you are likely to need for a major production. There are loads of facilities including some run by former Hollywood types like Sherry Baumgart’s Bohemian Pictures (www.expats.cz/prague/czech/film-services/bohemianpictures/) that specialize in helping American producers by, according to Sherry: “Providing western-style production at Eastern European prices.”

Emmy nominated casting director Nancy Bishop has moved to Prague where she offers freelance casting services. Heck my old friend Brian Wade, Emmy winning makeup artist and character sculptor (he created the original Stuart Little maquette used for the movie) moved to Prague after experiencing it while working on Van Helsing. The town overflows with American Expats in the film business. If you’ll feel better working with an American run outfit, you can find most of them listed at www.expats.cz/prague/directory/film-services/0/

Avion Postproduction (www.avion.net) doesn’t have a back-lot, nor do they do much shooting, because they stick to post. Two years ago I introduced Avion at the Job Marketplace at FMX and was impressed. I asked CEO Jan Maxa to describe their facilities: “Avion is one of the leading digital post production studios in Prague. We provide complete post production for Czech and international clients in the film, TV, advertising and music industries. We can provide offline editing, color grading, visual effects, 3D/2D animation, cartoon animation and film recording, as well as sound post production. We also fully support digital intermediate workflow in uncompressed 2K resolution.”

But we all know, it’s the people who make a studio work. Maxa is even more proud of his people. “We strive to combine a creative and friendly work environment with talented, professional staff of more than 40 people. We have English-speaking (native or fluent) operators available for every type of service that we offer.”

Their studio, located near the center of Prague and next to the Gallery of Modern Art is so very posh, with its own club and restaurant where clients relax and conference. The studio’s amazing interior design seems to be influenced by the Gallery, and is an indication, of the artistry in residence here.

Avion is nowhere near as cheap as the smaller houses I’ve written about, but by US standards they’re very reasonable for a high-end house. If you’re timid about stepping across that big pond, you might want to try a well established outfit like Avion. It may cost you more, but there will be less of a learning curve. They use the really high end stuff like Quantel, Flame, Avid, Softimage XSI, Maya and other such systems you’re used to dealing with. As an example of what you’ll pay for an hour of Flame or Quantel IQ, you’re looking at only about $460.00/hour for the suite and the operator. Whereas 3D work and VFX work runs a mere $1300/day and the Avid Composer suite and operator runs less than a hundred bucks an hour. Try doing that in Venice…California.

Sophia is of course the Hollywood of Bulgaria. Don’t laugh, situated on almost 80 acres, they have one of the biggest studio back-lots around and it’s run by Americans. The story about how they managed to get control of Boyana Studios is a harrowing one that you can Google to find out more.

Nu Image/Millenium Films in Beverly Hills has made an art out of making money on B films. They can find more ways to make films on the cheap than anyone else in Hollywood, bar none. As a result they’ve made some 41 films in Bulgaria since 1999. Much of their stuff is direct to video, but lately they’ve been reaching higher with bigger stars. Still, if you want to make money in film these days, and you’re not a major studio, you have to manage costs big time. They set up a presence in Bulgaria to tap the cheap talent of Eastern Europe. To accomplish this, they sent Hollywood VFX veteran Scott Coulter over to start a small VFX studio (Wolrdwide FX, which started with only six people), train local talent and put out reasonably good FX at unbelievably low cost. Coulter did a good job and Worldwide was born and has been growing ever since. Over the years they expanded to over 150 employees and started taking in post work and VFX from other producers as well.

With the success of Worldwide, the folks back in Beverly Hills put their eye on the former Bulgarian state studios Boyana, with its large back-lot, numerous sound stages and other buildings. The studios were somewhat in disrepair though still in operation. In fact a number of major productions have been shot there over the years including Brian De Palma's recent Black Dahlia. You can rent a good sized sound stage at Boyana (about 600 square meters) for less than $2,000 a week and all the support equipment and crew you need at equally low rates.

Nu Image has been trying to buy the studio for some time. The situation has been a bit tricky as Nu Image actually won the bid for Boyana at the bargain price of $7.4 million, but certain privatization officials have been dragging their feet, most likely in hopes of finding special consideration for their efforts. In the mean time Nu Image/Millennium has moved in their Bulgarian operations lock stock and barrel. They’ve also relocated Worldwide FX onto the studio grounds. Worldwide alone is a huge operation with nearly 150 employees. From what I’ve garnered, they will operate as separate entities with Coulter in charge of Worldwide and David Varod in charge of the Studio and Back lot.

Varod has an eye for production: he used to be a set-designer who graduated to producer at Nu Image. David admits to having big plans for the studio, hoping to make it the most important studio in Europe. One of the most ironic plans in the works is to build an LA street on the back-lot. Imagine building Sunset in old-world Europe…kind of the opposite of Universal’s back-lot with its old world Europe streets. Another big asset is the large specially built orchestral sound stage that is completely sound proof. Rumor has it that the prop department is a cache of interesting props including a priceless collection of medieval armor.

I had dinner with Coulter in Stuttgart this spring and we talked about Worldwide FX. We’ve kept in touch on it since. He tells me: “I am actually the first entity to be moving into Boyana. Since my department represents the largest investment (in terms of manpower and equipment) we were selected to be the guinea pigs. Remodeling started last week (early Oct), and our first workstations will be there in a few weeks.” He seems pretty excited about it; if a bit exhausted. I asked him about the size of his operation. “Our facility began 6 years ago and we have really grown. At this time we have about 150 people, and I expect to be 250-300 after next year.”

To keep that many people employed they must be doing one heck of a lot of American work. Coulter tells me that they do not exploit their people. He hated the crazy work hours back in LA and so he’s set up things differently at Worldwide. He pays his people well; about three times the local average salary. He also insists that they actually have dinner with their families as often as possible, and they almost always take weekends off. Imagine that.

Coulter lives in Sophia, but maintains an apartment in Hollywood where he spends about two months a year in order to stay on top of things there. I asked him about the credibility of Worldwide FX: “Our strength within the industry has increased in large part due to Nu Images' larger films as of late. But also, WWFX has been around enough now that we have become a known commodity. Bond companies know us and trust us, that helps. Also, production companies know we’re not going out of business anytime soon. This has given us the ability to make more investments in our operation and we’re growing rapidly.” I asked him where his work comes from other than Nu Image’s: “Right now most of our work still comes from America, but were starting to see more interest here in Eastern Europe and I think things will evolve in that direction.”

They recently expanded their Maya department to 30 workstations, while the Lightwave department was increased to 32 workstations. This is substantially larger than any of the other post/VFX houses we’ve looked at. Coulter tells me that he’ll be installing a sophisticated MoCap stage at Boyana next year. He also mentioned that he’s working on the Day of the Dead remake and The Gene Generation, which he says is going to be an excellent release. Currently they have three editing rooms and in the new facility they’ll have 12-15. In addition to the MoCap Stage they’ll also be developing a dedicated VFX stage as well. The really big news is that they’ll be adding a character animation facility that is expected to grow to 150 animators in the next few years.

Having gotten mixed signals from various Eastern European studios on how the time zone differences impact production, I asked Scott for his honest appraisal: “I’d say the time zone thing impacts us surprisingly, little. It's really a discipline thing more than anything else. For example, Los Angeles is 10 hours behind Bulgaria. Therefore phone calls have to be scheduled for 8pm (10am in LA) or video conferences need to be organized around that same time. Notes usually arrive in the evening while we are sleeping, and animators organize their day when they come in and drink their coffee. It requires a bit of understanding on both sides, but it seems to work fine.” Clearly this is very different from other opinions. I’m wondering if it has to do with attitude and some proprietary software developed at Worldwide to streamlining asset and project management. Their proprietary system facilitates the phone and video conference meetings among other things.

So Boyana and Worldwide FX prove the point that Americans can do business in Eastern Europe successfully and very profitably. The key ingredients are patience, trust, research, due diligence, persistence, and personality. By that last, I mean you’ll do much better over there if you’re a reasonable, friendly and even caring individual who won’t take crap.

One thing nearly every studio I talked with suggested is: they like to work with producers and directors with a clear vision of what they want. Most like to be involved in the creative end and all want to be treated with respect. This goes double with the smaller studios that can save you the most.

So go for it, start your research, make some calls, find out what is possible and what it will cost you. Then muster your courage and take the leap. I promise that not everything will go smoothly, but you’ll learn, make contacts and save a ton of money. You could come out of it a richer person…and I’m not talking about money.

– Part 1: Eastern Europe Production/Post on the Rise

– Part 2: Eastern Europe on the Rise: Boutiques