What the F…rench is the TRIP?

Cascade8, filiale de Logical Pictures, lance une collection de NFT à l’effigie du moyen métrage français “Blood Machines”.

duction de Ridley Scott, Scott Free, a rejoint l’aventure.

Certains producteurs ont pour objectif de financer la totalité de leur film à travers des NFT. C’est le cas du long métrage Calladita, de l’Espagnol Miguel Faus. Comme avec The Infinite Machine, une partie des profits doit être dirigée vers une DAO. Toutefois, peu de détails ont encore été communiqués sur le statut juridique de cette entité.

Niels Juul, producteur de plusieurs films de Martin Scorsese, projette également de produire un film uniquement grâce à ces jetons numériques. Plus ambitieux, ce long métrage, A Wing and a Prayer, affiche un budget entre huit et 10 M€. Le producteur s’est associé à NFT Investments, un incubateur spécialisé dans le secteur des NFT et de la blockchain basé à Londres et coté en Bourse.

Pour Patrice Poujol, PDG de Lumiere, “nous sommes dans les balbutiements” de cette technologie. Basée à Hong-Kong, sa société conseille notamment les acteurs du secteur qui cherchent à se lancer dans les NFT. “Je pense que les modèles qu’on voit aujourd’hui vont encore changer.” Lumiere accompagne notamment les producteurs de Kenzo Takada: La Joie de vivre, un documentaire sur la vie du délèbre couturier, dans la création de collections de NFT participant au financement du film.

Patrice Poujol vise plus loin et regarde également du côté des metaverses. Sa société compte depuis avril Animoca Brands parmi ses investisseurs. Animoca est notamment propriétaire du metaverse The Sandbox, l’un des plus en vue aujourd’hui. Lumiere lève actuellement des fonds pour développer le Lumiverse, une plateforme immersive dans laquelle les utilisateurs pourront découvrir des projets de films dans une salle de projection virtuelle ou encore acquérir des NFT en rapport ces films. Le but : développer des communautés autour de nouvelles IP et évaluer l’intérêt du public pour un projet avant de se risquer à le financer. “Aujourd’hui, cela nous paraît logique de mettre de l’argent pour développer un scénario sans savoir si cela va intéresser le public. Peut-être que cela ne sera pas le cas dans quelques années”, imagine-t-il.

Damien Choppin

u From its original financial incentives to a more recent VFXfriendly makeover, everything you need to know about France’s increasingly sexy tax rebate for foreign production

A TRIP Back in time: How it started

The TRIP was officially born in 2009 to lure foreign filmmakers to French soil to shoot their movies – and TV series – instead of opting to outsource production to shoot French scenery on sets in other European locations or Hollywood studios. Before that time, as financial incentives began to emerge in other European locations, shooting in places like Paris was reserved only for big-budget projects like The Da Vinci Code and Marie Antoinette. France’s government decided to let international filmmakers eat cake … and film it too. The French government passed a law aiming to France back on the map as a desirable filming destination. Sure, the scenery was beautiful, Paris allotted for many très chic storylines and the country was already famous for its production savoir-faire particularly in the animation and VFX areas, but when it came down to it, shooting in France was simply too expensive. The only way to lure international productions – particularly those with Hollywood-sized budgets – to the country was by putting it on sale.

Discussions had been brewing for years prior, but the real turning point came when the clock struck Midnight in Paris and Woody Allen brought his modern period piece to the capital. Allen had a story about Paris, but was hesitant to shoot in Paris because of the high production costs. This forced the French government – with a little boost from Allen and his line producer Raphael Benoliel – to spring in action. Midnight in Paris was able take advantage of the tax rebate by hiring local

Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible - Fallout” directed by Christopher McQuarrie ( Paramount Pictures, 2018).

crews and partnering with the crèmede-la-crème of French talent and technicians at every stage of production and the rest is history. Paris became a moveable – and affordable – feast for foreign productions and the rest of France also an attractive stage to create content from across the globe.

What are the incentives?

The TRIP allows for a 30% reimbursement of the qualifying expenditures incurred in France and a 40% rebate if the French VFX expenses are more than €2 million ($2.1 million). The rebate can total a maximum of €30 million ($31.6 million) per project. The tax credit covers salaries and wages for French or EU writers, actors, directors and production staff in addition to the costs of technical services, transportation, travel and catering.

What makes an international production TRIP-worthy ?

Quite simply, its degree of Frenchness. The projects have to include elements related to the French or European culture, heritage, and territory. The rebate can be granted to projects that incur €250,000 or 50% of their global budgets in French expenditures and, for live action work, have at least 5 days of shooting in France. Each project must take a “cultural test” via France’s national film body the CNC. The test assesses the European cultural elements in the story as well as French and European locations, characters, sources, landmarks, creators, crew members and use of France’s technical hubs. Animated productions and VFX-intensive projects are subject to different specifications due to the specificities of the genre. VFX projects must include characters of European or undetermined origin – oui, monsters, non-humanoids and animals meet this criteria. The CNC also looks at the involvement of French companies in the projects and level of involvement of French and European talents.

To get the TRIP, outsiders must work with a French Production Service Company, which can be a VFX studio or another French company. The French company will file the application for the project and submit it to the CNC. Provided it gets approval, expenditures are eligible from the day of submission. Provisional qualification is generally given within a month of submission. The current goto line producers monopolizing the territory include Raphael Benoliel of Firstep, John Bernard of Peninsula Films, Thomas Buchwalder of Cactus Films and Xavier Roy of Froggie Production.

Note: Non-scripted, factual, documentaries and commercials do NOT qualify.

The TRIP: a boost for tourism & fashion trends

The goal of the rebate is not only to attract international productions, but to stimulate the French economy. Not only do the productions hire French casts and crews, but they spend throughout the cities in which they film from lodging to dining and more. Once released and watched by audiences all over the world, the finished films and series can also be a colossal boost for tourism to both the locations “as seen in…” and to entire regions. According to a pre-COVID study by the French Center for Film and Moving Image, 74% of tourists who had seen a film or series shot in France said it made them want to visit. Emily in Paris and Lupin fans have flocked to Paris – city tour guides are offering full programs devoted solely to scenes from the hit shows. Netflix show Marseille also attracted visitors to the seaside city after its 2016-17 release. Emily’s 58 million household-reach is also a major draw for brands who have been lining up for product placement opportunities like Dior and Chopard in Season 2 who were written into the storyline, another financially promising side effect of shooting in what most outsiders consider to be the fashional capital of the world.

What titles have taken the TRIP?

While Midnight in Paris remains the original “face” of the TRIP, it was the first of hundreds of projects that have since benefitted from the tantalizing tax credit. Early adopters include Christopher Nolan’s Inception, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Tourist, Martin Scorses’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret and much buzzed-about episodes of TV series Gossip Girl in addition to animated titles like Universal’s Despicable Me (with McGuff Ligne) and The Lorax. More recent TRIP-takers include the first two seasons of Emily in Paris and its upcoming third and fourth seasons, Netflix hit Lupin, Simon Curtis’ Downton Abbey: A New Era, Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater and Stephen Hopkins’ Faceless. Recent VFX projects include Marvel’s Thor Wong Kar-Wai’s The Grandmaster, David Lynch’s new Twin Peaks series and Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049.

Another famous TRIP-backed title was 2018’s $178 million “Mission: Impossible - Fallout” that saw the Tom Cruiseled blockbuster spend 25 M€ in Paris and hire 5,000 French crew members with around 350-500 on set per day. The film features helicopter landings, wild car chases in the city’s busiest intersections and parachuting down onto the Grand