There’s no denying that the last 12 months haven’t been easy for the Lebanese economy, which is why CEO of The Talkies production house Gabriel Chamoun’s assessment of the country’s commercials industry is surprising. “Strangely enough, 2007 was not a bad year,” he says. “We had a lot of work.”
BIG SHOTS. For production house Signature, which produces and shoots an average of 65 commercials each year, 2007 was also a success. Apart from its Pepsi Sea of Stars work – which included a full-length feature film and five videos – Signature also produced two big-budget anti-terrorism videos, one directed by the famous Dutch film-maker Jan de Bont and the other by French rising star Florent Siri.
That’s not to say recent work hasn’t had its hitches for the company. “On the first day of the presidential election, when tension was peaking, we shot an expensive commercial despite the fact that roads were closed, permits were cancelled and insurance companies required a 10 to 12 percent increase,” says managing director Paul Sabbagh. “It was: Either take it or it goes to Turkey.”
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? At The Talkies, a production house that shoots around 50 commercials per year at $120,000 to $150,000 each, “business is as good as it was in 2003,” says Chamoun. It’s all a matter of perspective: The Talkies was hit hard by the complete withdrawal of European customers who were scared off by the bombings in 2005. These clients used to represent 35 percent of its portfolio. Fortunately, the sustained development of the regional market has helped compensate this loss, and between 2006 and 2007 The Talkies’ business rose 22 percent.
The recent turmoil in Lebanon has meant, however, that production houses have had to shift some of their work out of the country, Chamoun says. The Talkies has opened offices in Dubai and Cairo.
In 2006, Marc Hadife, owner of another Lebanese production house, City Films, says his company was also able to work on many of its projects abroad, thanks to big-money clients such as the Asian Games. In 2007, however, some exciting opportunities simply had to be cancelled. “Before signing, clients were asking us to relocate their projects for the same price, which was impossible even if we were to go to India,” Hadife says.
City Films produces less than 40 commercials a year and generates 95 percent of its work through regional business.
Nevertheless, Hadife chose not to expand regionally and rejected various offers to open offices in Dubai and Saudi Arabia. His reasoning? That the company would be spreading itself too thin.
“The fact that we made less money this year got us to strive for even higher quality,” he says. “We chose the very high-end niche. Some production companies are like the Intercontinental Hotels chain, whereas we are like a boutique hotel. We are involved in every step of the process and such attention requires very qualified people who cannot be split between Lebanon and another office.”
While there are not enough accounts like Pepsi to go around, the Lebanese TVC industry remains buoyant enough to support large and small players alike. The agencies may have emigrated to the less turbulent shores of Dubai, but it seems that Beirut is still the place to shoot what they’ve drawn up on their storyboards.
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