TWO | SUMMER 2014
DRAMA QUEEN AN RYDANT ON TAKING VTM DRAMA TO UNSEEN HEIGHTS
CONSPIRACY THEORY CREATIVE CONSPIRACY’S MISSION TO PRODUCE QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT FOR KIDS
GAME OF TALES 'LUXURIA SUPERBIA' WINS IGF’S NUOVO AWARD
WINNING TEAM
NORDIC DRAMA WITH A FLEMISH FLAVOUR
COMMISSIONING..
an rydant AN RYDANT TOOK DRAMA AT COMMERCIAL BROADCASTER VTM TO UNSEEN HEIGHTS, REGULARLY BEATING THE PUBLIC COMPETITORS WITH REFRESHING AND DARING SERIES. WRAPPING UP AFTER SEVEN YEARS IN CHARGE OF THE FICTION DEPARTMENT, SHE LOOKS BACK AT THE CHALLENGES AND SELECTS SOME HIGHLIGHTS.
TEXT IAN MUNDELL PORTRAIT FILIP NEVEN
What brought you to vtm? I started as a product manager in video, then moved into film. I was head of Kinepolis Film Distribution for almost five years, then worked with Lumière on acquisitions and distribution. So although television was quite new for me when I moved to vtm in 2007, I had good contacts with producers, which were very important. What was vtm’s fiction like then? Fiction had been an important aspect of vtm for many years. They took a lot of risks and invested in local fiction, which was unusual for a commercial channel in a small market like ours. But the programmes had not changed for years and they felt old-fashioned. So there was a whole new world to explore. What did you want to achieve? I wanted to take vtm in a new direction. For me it was important to keep in touch with tradition, but to make it more current. What challenges did you face? At the time we worked with only two or three external production companies and most of the actors you needed to attract audiences didn’t want to be on the
channel. The main focus was to change that. And in the beginning a lot of the production companies hadn’t worked in the commercial context before. Did you want to be daring? Yes, and I think we did take risks, but of course you still have to have something people want to watch. There are limits! What series are you proud of commissioning? The first thing I was really happy with was Jes, a series that didn’t do very well. It was slow to build, and it probably came too early to have something like that on vtm. But if you look at Jes and you look at Clan, by the same directors, you can see how we all learned to make something the audience was ready for. Then there are series like Cordon, which have brought new viewers to the channel. The quality draws them in, and seeing things they haven’t seen before. What other changes did you make? We developed a lot of series with women in the lead, and more complex characters. Veerle Baetens’s character in Code 37 for example is dark and not very likeable, and that attracted me. But there’s also her interaction with the three other cops, and that brought humour into the series. Where do co-productions fit in? We often co-produce for films, but it doesn’t happen often for series. We are very involved in the whole writing process and we like to give our feedback. Luckily most of our production companies prefer that approach. But we co-produced Crimi Clowns with Veronica in The Netherlands and we are co-producing with Germany and Denmark on The Team. As a commercial channel, you don’t get those opportunities very often. What will be your next series to air? Amateurs is about an amateur dramatic group in a small village that tries to win a national competition. It has drama and comedy, a little like Clan, and has been directed by Frank Van Passel. Then we are working with Philippe De Schepper and Joël Vanhoebrouck on an adaptation of the BBC series New Tricks. And there is a new crime series, National Security, with Jan Verheyen directing the first episodes. Is there anything that you haven’t been able to do? I would have liked to do a sitcom for our second channel, 2BE. Not a traditional sitcom, but something edgier. Otherwise, my work is done.
AN’S FLEMISH DRAMA FAVOURITES Flesh and Bones Comedy and tragedy mix in this tale of conflict within a familyowned butcher shop. ‘From the first episodes, everything was in place. It grabs you from the beginning.’ (a Woestijnvis production for één) Clan Four sisters conspire to free a fifth from her marriage, by murder if necessary. ‘It’s such a complicated story, but told so easily.’ (a Caviar production for vtm) Home Grown A family of potato farmers turn to growing weed when their life savings are lost. ‘It is a very rural, Flemish story, but there is also something universal about it. That makes it very strong.’ (an Eyeworks production for één) Zone Stad (series five) Long-running cop show, set in Antwerp. ‘That was the season where everything was in balance. The quality was up, and we had the best acting and scripts.’ (a Studio A production for vtm) Cordon Thousands are confined inside a cordon when disaster strikes downtown Antwerp. ‘It was a challenge to make it real, and make it here. But it all came together.’ (an Eyeworks production for vtm)
COVER STORY..
plotting to
THERE ARE GOOD BUSINESS REASONS FOR CREATIVE CONSPIRACY TO SPECIALISE IN CHILDREN’S ANIMATION. BUT IT ALSO MOVES THE COMPANY SPIRIT. ‘WE HAVE TO WORK HARD AND PUT IN LONG HOURS,’ SAYS LUC VAN DRIESSCHE, ‘AND IF YOU ARE NOT DOING SOMETHING THAT YOU REALLY ENJOY YOU WON’T KEEP IT UP. AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU WANT TO HAVE FUN AND MAKE BEAUTIFUL THINGS.’ TEXT IAN MUNDELL
PORTRAIT BART DEWAELE
entertain Van Driessche started out as co-founder of post-production company Grid, but left in order to get closer to content creation. ‘We could see what was wrong with production and the mistakes producers made,’ he says. ‘I had the feeling that we could do better.’ He took over Grid’s sister company Smokescreen and in 2003 renamed it Creative Conspiracy. ‘It’s not that we are conspiring against somebody, but that we think about being creative,’ he explains. ‘We conspire about making it work.’ Initially the company did a little bit of everything, before focusing on 3D character animation for commercials. From this bedrock of expertise, the company started developing animated series and working on movies. Once again, Van Driessche thought they could do better than what was on the market. ‘There was a lot of poor quality animation for children. Everybody says that children are important, but when it comes to budgets the story is completely different. Broadcasters don’t want to buy animation at a normal price, they want it to be really really cheap.’ The company’s first series was Klumpies, in 2010. Aimed at children between three and seven years old, it is set in a fairy-tale world where tiny people live in trees, in harmony with nature. Then came Uki, in which the colourful central character encourages children between one and four to play and discover the world. Uki was a case where the budget proposed did not match the quality Creative Conspiracy wanted for the series. The commissioning company threatened to take it to cheaper animators in Asia, but Van Driessche and his colleagues proposed combining the story with puzzles where the images could be varied but the underlying animation remained the same. This would appeal to young children’s love of repetition, and allow more money to be spent on the story animation. This innovation sealed the deal. ‘We are not only trying to be creative in the content of the series, but also in the financing and how we put it all together,’ Van Driessche says.
tough reputation
Working on these series also taught him that things work best when control is close to home and partners kept to a minimum. ‘By keeping things small, we can control the budget and still produce high-quality animation.’ He does not rule out international co-productions altogether, but they have to be done right. ‘If it is one country against another, it will always end badly. But if you can convince the
Three Little Ninjas Delivery Service
‘Everybody says that children are important, but when it comes to budgets the story is completely different. Broadcasters don’t want to buy animation at a normal price, they want it to be really really cheap’
Three Little Ninjas Delivery Service
co-production companies that you are in the same boat, that every problem is everybody’s problem and that the advantages are also for everyone, then it works.’ The company’s focus on quality and originality means that content meetings at Creative Conspiracy are tough. ‘I think we have a reputation for refusing a lot of projects. It has to be really, really good before we consider it,’ Van Driessche says. The same goes for originality. ‘The chance that we are going to make the same thing twice is really non-existent.’ His favourite project at the moment is Three Little Ninjas Delivery Service, a 2D/3D hybrid series for kids between six and 12 that was thought up by Kim Claeys. It involves a delivery service that will find what you want anywhere in space and time and then deliver it to you. Each of the three little ninjas who run the service have a specific skill that makes this possible, although they also have shortcomings with the potential to create chaos. ‘We presented the project at Cartoon Forum in September last year and everybody was really enthusiastic,’ Van Driessche says. ‘It has an absurd humour that we liked a lot, and that we saw appealed to a lot of broadcasters and other producers.’ Creative Conspiracy is also developing Claeys’s Monster Doctor. ‘It’s about a doctor who takes care of monsters, skeletons and ghosts, because they have their little problems too. But it is gentle and sweet, not the kind of absurd humour in Three Little Ninjas Delivery Service.’
bisquit-people
Monster Doctor
Two ideas from creative design studio Eugene and Louise are also under development: Otto’s Tall Tales, for children aged six to nine, about a six-year-old boy with an inexhaustible imagination, and Badaboo, for children aged one to four. Then there is Mannetje Koek, based on a series of books
about biscuit-people by Pieter Gaudesaboos and Lorraine Francis. ‘It’s a very simple design, which makes it really clean. It is something special that we haven’t done before, somewhere between 2D and 3D animation.’ In each case the ideas are from Flanders, and the aim is to make them close to home as well. ‘We are trying to raise the bar as far as quality is concerned for children’s series, and trying to concentrate on local content, to prove that we can make really good animation here.’
Mia Otto’s Tall Tales
PROJECT MIA Wouter Bongaerts won a VAF Wildcard award for his student film Mouse for Sale and hooked up with producer Vivi Film to make his first professional short, Mia. The search for a studio brought them to Creative Conspiracy. ‘When we saw the concept for Mia it was as if the file had been prepared by someone who had been doing pitches for 15 years,’ Van Driessche recalls. ‘I thought: this project is finished. He had thought about the colours, about the character design... the story was still not 100%, but we worked with him on that until we had a good story.’ Mia concerns a little girl who becomes separated from her mother in the big city. Tracing a path through the urban jungle, she discovers the secret of how the world turns. It’s a film with a message, but also a light touch which has appealed to many international festivals. ‘Sometimes you want a breath of fresh air, and I think we achieved that with Mia,’ says Van Driessche. ‘That, combined with the technical twist of combining 2D and 3D, gives it something special.’ Meanwhile Bongaerts has become a Creative Conspiracy regular. He’s currently in the studio working on backgrounds for the Vivi Film feature Triple Trouble.
GAME..
playing for pleasure TEXT IAN MUNDELL
BRINGING HOME A NUOVO AWARD FROM THIS YEAR'S INDEPENDENT GAMES FESTIVAL IN SAN FRANCISCO HAS THROWN MICHAËL SAMYN AND AURIEA HARVEY A LITTLE. THEIR COMPANY, TALE OF TALES, HAD BEEN NOMINATED FOR THE AWARD, WHICH HONOURS ABSTRACT AND UNCONVENTIONAL GAME DEVELOPMENT, THREE TIMES BEFORE AND THEY WERE COMFORTABLE WITH NOT WINNING. 'A NOMINATION IS A RECOGNITION THAT YOUR WORK IS VALUABLE, BUT THEN WINNING SORT OF SAYS THAT YOU ARE PART OF THE GAMES INDUSTRY,' SAYS SAMYN. 'BY NOT WINNING, WE WERE STILL ON THE OUTSIDE AND SUBVERSIVE. SO IT FEELS STRANGE. BUT IT’S KINDA NICE TOO.'
PORTRAIT SELFIE
Samyn and Harvey collected the award in March for their game 'Luxuria Superbia', which is both unconventional and abstract. It sends the player on a journey through a series of winding, organically textured tunnels, not unlike falling headfirst into the trumpet of a flower. The game invites you to touch the walls of the tunnel, which respond by changing colour. The more colour, the better. ‘You have to get a feel for what the flower wants,’ Harvey explains. ‘Sometimes you have to touch it a lot, and at other times you need to hold back and not touch it as much. There is a certain rhythm that you get into as you play, which is not apparent just by looking at it.’ Colour the screen quickly and you will have completed a level, but the game will be disappointed. Make it last longer and it is much happier. ‘Most games are designed to give you pleasure,’ Samyn says, ‘but this is a game that wants to receive pleasure from you!’ As the game progresses, the shapes of the flowers become more complex, the options for touching multiply, and the response changes. ‘Every level has a certain theme,’ Samyn explains. ‘It starts with very intimate things, that are rather clearly sexual, and then it moves out - from the bed, to the room, to the house, to the garden, to the forest, to the sea, to the sky. It ends in space and heaven. So it is also a journey from the physical and the sensual to the spiritual, drawing parallels between the two in terms of pleasure.’ The sound, made up of numerous short musical loops composed by Walter Hus, is also an integral part of the experience. ‘The music is mixed in response to what you are doing as well, so if you are listening on headphones there is a certain synergy between your touch and the sound,’ Harvey says. Their inspirations in designing the game ranged from the shapes of flowers and sex toys, to meditation techniques, religious architecture and systems of cosmology. The name combines two of the Seven Deadly Sins - lust and pride - in
‘Most games are designed to give you pleasure, but this is a game that wants to receive pleasure from you!’
Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn
Latin, although they also liked the potential for misreading it as 'super luxury', touching the snobbery attached devices such as the iPad. On a tablet or other touch-screen device, 'Luxuria Superbia' is clearly a very tactile experience. It can also be rather intimate if two or more people play. On a PC or games console, particularly linked to a big screen, it becomes more immersive and the dynamic with multiple players is different. ‘There is a lot more verbal communication between the people playing, and that can be quite funny when they come up with different strategies,’ Harvey says.
‘To some extent it’s rather conventional, as it uses a way of playing and an interface that is used by other games,’ says Samyn. ‘But we want to invent other things alongside of that.’ Work is currently under way and they hope to release the game in 2015. Reflecting on their Nuovo award, Harvey and Samyn are pleased that the things they want to do in gaming are no longer considered as weird and as radical as they were four or five years ago. ‘But it also feels as if we’ve been part of that change,’ Harvey says, ‘so we haven’t been doing all of this stuff for nothing.’
building bridges
While their previous games, such as 'The Graveyard' and 'The Path', took an almost perverse pleasure in thwarting conventional gamer expectations, 'Luxuria Superbia' is intended to be more accessible. ‘Sometimes we get a bit frustrated by people not being able to enjoy our work, because we think our work is very simple and beautiful and enjoyable,’ says Samyn. ‘So we are trying a bit harder to build bridges and make it easier for people.’ This openness will continue with their next project, 'Sunset', a first-person exploration game set in a single penthouse apartment. The time is the early 1970s, the place a tropical republic suffering under an oppressive regime. The player is a housekeeper who visits the apartment, week after week, and while she never meets the eccentric occupant, they make contact. The aim is to discover where this relationship leads and the role the occupant plays in the civil war raging outside. 'Luxuria Superbia'
UP NEXT..
the team TEXT GEOFFREY MACNAB
ONE OF THE LATEST EUROPEAN TV DRAMAS RECENTLY GOING BEFORE THE CAMERAS IS THE TEAM, WHICH STARS VEERLE BAETENS, THE BRILLIANT FLEMISH ACTRESS LAST SEEN AS THE
We are in the middle of a golden age of TV drama. From TATTOO COVERED COUNTRY Scandinavian crime fare to the brilliance of HBO, Showtime SINGER IN OSCAR NOMINATED and Netflix original series, both Europeans and Americans are THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN. making new work for the small screen that has a sophistication and depth you used to find only in the very best movies. The Team is a crime story with impeccable Scandinavian pedigree and with a truly international footprint. Behind it are execs and technicians who’ve worked on such projects as The Bridge and The Killing. The crime story, scripted by Peter Thorsboe and Mai Brostrøm, follows the investigations into a series of murders of prostitutes committed throughout Europe. It plays on the idea of ‘Joint European policing’. Since 2010, most European countries entered into a treaty that agreed they would pool resources in fighting international crime. Baetens plays one of the members of the new European ‘Joint Investigation Team’ (JIT). She stars alongside Lars Mikkelsen (from The Killing). The series practically shoots all over Europe. There is a strong Flemish element to the project. Baetens is joined in the cast by fellow Flemish actors Koen De Bouw (The Memory of a Killer, The Verdict) Flip Peeters (Salamander) and actress-director Hilde Van Mieghem. This while Antwerp features as one of the key locations. The series is being co-produced by Ghentbased Lunamine (and also backed by Benelux distributor Lumière, known for its extensive Scandimania catalogue). A host of European broadcasters such as Denmark’s DR, Germany’s ZDF and Belgium’s vtm are behind the project which has also received support from the Screen Flanders economic fund.
The Team
IN BRIEF..
netflix acquires salamander Skyline Entertainment’s Salamander is to become the first series from Flanders on Netflix. The acquisition for the US follows a successful run on BBC4 where audiences, says channel editor Cassian Harrison, ‘rightly responded with huge enthusiasm’. Salamander was also one of the biggest audience successes in its home territory, with each episode, reaching over 56% market share in Flanders. Directed by Frank Van Mechelen en scripted by Ward Hulselmans, Salamander stars Filip Peeters, Koen De Bouw, Jo De Meyere, An Miller and Mike Verdrengh. A second series of the crime drama is currently in preparation. Beta handles international sales. Salamander