Film and television production in the Netherlands - a comparison between three medium-sized companies.

Abstract

This paper discusses the different ways in which production companies established in similar ways can develop over time. It takes three Dutch private film- and television companies as cases. The research forms part of the Dutch component of a European partnership project, Success in the Film and Television Industries (SiFTI), which aims to explore and explain what characterises the organizational culture of successful film and television companies, understanding ‘successful’ to encompass critical reputation, a degree of longevity (have been operating for at least five years) and economic turnover. Film production in the Netherlands has from the beginning been organised through private enterprises; television production until the 1980s has been dominated by integrated public service organisations. Since the 1990s a large number of private production companies have been established, with varying degrees of success. Many companies are small or medium-sized, but enter in network relationships with a range of others, including with freelancers, commissioning editors, distributors and other production companies, in what has been called flexible specialisation of the film industry (Lorentzen 2009). This network organisation has a global dimension, as the most successful companies are often bought out by foreign multimedia conglomerates. Recently this was the case with Eyeworks. In this paper we compare three production companies. One company produces art-house feature films as well as fiction for children and youth. The second company produces a large range of television programmes: reality programmes and fiction as well as documentaries and game shows. The third company specialises in children’s television, educational and cultural programmes. All three companies were established in the 1990s by two persons. They are successful in terms of having survived in a competitive market since the 1990s and in terms of having received critical acclaim for their productions. Still the way they developed is very different. In this paper we will discuss various factors that relate to the companies’ developments. We will look at their internal conditions (the companies culture, identity, and strategies), and their networks (interactions with freelancers, other producers, television channels, distributors and public funding bodies). We will also look at how the owners and employees reflect on their organisations (the origin of the companies and their internal organization), on their network, and their development within it, and on success and their achievements in terms of their own success criteria. This paper is based on interviews with owners/employees of the companies, observations of their work environment, and textual analysis of their webpages as ‘deep texts’ (Caldwell 2008). Caldwell, J.T. (2008). Production Culture: industrial reflexivity and critical practice in film and television. Durham: Duke University Press. Lorenzen, M. (2009). Creativity in context. Content, cost, chance and collection in the organization of the film industry. In: A.C. Pratt & P. Jeffcutt (eds.) Creativity, Innovation and the Cultural Economy. London and New York: Routledge.