Movie Magic - Moving forward

• Pages: 2-4

Making movies

Moviemaking is a collective endeavor involving

many brilliant creative talents: writers, directors and

actors, cameramen, designers, choreo graphers, edi-

tors, makeup artists, hair stylists and illustrators, and

the list goes on. It is a costly and risky undertak-

ing. Economic success depends on “matching ideas

with talent, obtaining relevant intellectual property

(IP) rights and using them to attract finance from

commercial film distributers”1 and, of course, captur-

ing the imagination of audiences.

A producer’s perspective:

“Movies are magic in people’s lives,” according to British

film producer Iain Smith, “but it all costs money… it takes

time, is risky and expensive.” Intellectual property, he

said, is “the legal bedrock of everything we do in the

film business.” He pointed out that “any system that

brings together investors with creators has to some-

how exploit intellectual property,” adding that “with-

out a system that invests in “risk and innovation,”

“scale and quality,” “movies will simply disappear.”

“Audience demand is clearly for magic,” he noted,

“and magic in film certainly comes at a price…

There has to be a contract between money and

art… between investment and creation in order to

bring the consumer choice.”

The challenge is to build “IP for a future that digital

technology is allowing us… whereby there can be

proper compensation for risk and for talent and in-

novation, at the same time allowing consumers to

enjoy full diversity of choice.”

“We have to change the system that we have at

the moment, holding on to the better qualities of

it and move it towards something that will allow

us to exploit digital technology in the fullest pos-

sible way,” he said. This is particularly important for

“emerging economies, growing their own creative

industries, and finding their own voice in the digital

world,” he noted.

An actor’s perspective:

Spanish film star Javier Bardem made the case for

strengthening the rights of actors whose unique

skills and creativity breathe life into movie char-

acters. Actors are a key element of any film, “no

audiovisual work of fiction can be made without…

a whole cast of actors… without whose contribu-

tion the collective project would not see the light of

day,” he said. Speaking for the 90 percent of actors

who struggle to make ends meet, he noted that

“behind every actor there is an individual, a worker,

a creator and a family with the same worries, prob-

lems, concerns and needs as any other citizen.”

Beneath all the glamour, he noted, there is a great

deal of work, effort, sacrifice and risk.

In spite of their “decisive” contribution to the pro-

duction of works, actors are the only group of crea-

tors for whom an international treaty – specifically

to protect rights in their audiovisual performances

– has not yet been established. Mr. Bardem called

on policymakers to strengthen actors’ rights and to

ensure that they share in a film’s commercial suc-

cess, both in cinemas and the online environment.

The majority of the world’s actors “are making a

very, very small living out of what they do so… it is

MOVIE MAGIC –

MOVING FORWARD

1 Rights, Camera, Action!

IP Rights and the

Film-Making Process,

Creative Industries –

Booklet No. 2, WIPO.

OCTOBER 2011

2

International negotiations at WIPO

WIPO member states are currently negotiating an international agreement on the protection of perform-

ers in their audiovisual performances within the context of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright

and Related Rights (SCCR).

Making movies has always been a complex, innovative and creative undertaking. From its beginnings in the

lat e 19

th

century, the movie industry has morphed, adapted and grown in line with technological possibilities.

Today, this multibillion dollar global industry and those who work in it face new challenges as the transition to

digital progresses. Digital technologies are overturning established ways of producing creative content and of

delivering it to audiences around the world. While this means we have greater choice in terms of when, where

and how we view these creative works, it also presents risks and oppor tunities for those making movie magic.

In July 2011, WIPO invited Spanish film star Javier Bardem, Indian film producer and director Bobby Bedi,

Egyptian movie icon and film producer Esaad Younis and British film producer Iain Smith, to share their views

on the challenges facing what the German philosopher Hegel described as the “seventh art.”