Film studio True Color says its roots are “in the mountains and our creative passion for bringing brand identities and stories to life”.
Recent campaigns it has worked on include Red Bull Media House, Piaggio, Oakley and Moto Guzzi.
Campaign Middle East spoke to Head of Development at True Color Films, Tom Howell.
Is the Middle East becoming more of a hub for production?
TH: When filming outside of Switzerland or Italy, we tend to travel with a small crew (EP, Director and Head of Production) and hire the rest of the outfit locally.
Working with regional freelance producers or fixers helps streamline location agreements, equipment rental and crew hires to ensure a smooth production.
There is more than enough local expertise in the Middle East to rely on experienced producers and production managers to help external production partners get what they need locally.
It’s hard to ignore the impact the Middle East is having on global production. Many of the directors and freelancers we work with are often in the region, filming commercials and branded content with major global brands.
Seeing the talent and investment that is gravitating towards the region, it’s safe to say we will see a shift in power and influence from established markets towards the MENA region.
From a media, marketing and communications standpoint, we are definitely heading into an exciting new era of content creation, one that the Middle East seems uniquely placed to grasp.
Is content often tailored for a Middle East audience in post-production?
TH: Every production company knows the feeling: after the final content piece has been signed off, the ‘real’ work begins in post production.
Every stakeholder has seen the 60-second asset in 16:9, and now comes the fun of creating cut-downs in various runtimes, as well as all the necessary aspect ratios for owned and third party platforms.
This is the bulk of post-production tailoring that many production companies have to wed themselves to, and for some, the fun doesn’t stop there.
We are based in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland (Lugano) but the vast majority of our content is in English.
That being said, we also work a lot in Italy where both cultural and linguistic aspects need to be factored in, and we also work in Switzerland where we have to cater for three separate languages within the content output (German, French and Italian).
We have shot for both Red Bull and Discovery Channel in the UAE but we were not asked to cater the output for a Middle East audience as the content was mainly aired in Italy and Central Europe.
