TELENOVELA BLOCK.pages 24 - 30: - Discop

telenovela block
MORE THAN 200 HOURS PRODUCED
BY AVA PRODUCTION
By Dragana Stanic
AVA TV PRODUCTION was founded
in March 2003, since its found -
ers have concluded that Croatian market
lacks high quality TV programmes.
“By many variables, AVA - with the
number of produced hours and high
ratings, is the most successful TV production
in the region,” says Roman
Majetic, Producer and joint owner of
this house. The first Croatian tele -
novela VILLA MARIA was a great hit –
during this year AVA will produce more
than 200 hours of featured programme,
arranged in 4 projects:
telenovela LOVE IN OFFSIDE; political
thriller (20 episodes) CONSPIRACY;
multi-seasonal mini soap (60 epi -
sodes) MARINA; and a telenovela for
the season 2006/2007, ORDINARY
PEOPLE. We have asked Majetic how
AVA recognized telenovela as a profitable
form of production.
Market research has shown that
it is one of the forms that is most
demanded by the audience. Our estimation
is that imported forms,
besides universal values (relations
between people, emotions, etc.) have
no close social context to the region in
which they are broadcast. Therefore,
we decided to make one bastard: to
write a script for a great drama serial
and produce it in the form of telenovela.
It was a success.
Tell us something about the deve -
lopment of telenovelas in your house.
As in every TV product, pre-production
is the essential part. The
preparation process of our first tele -
novela (VILLA MARIA) lasted about a
year, and included intensive work on
the script and parallel collecting of production
knowledge, to produce such a
serial in this area. We had support
from numerous productions (primarily
in “know-how”), before all by the
Mexican TV AZTECA, that was very
inclined towards our pioneer project.
Did AVA enter into production of
VILLA MARIA alone, or it had coinvestors,
or, at least, the firm broadcasting
agreement
AVA financed the whole project by
its own assets, more precisely, by the
assets of its owners, and partially by
the assets collected on the financial
market, with the help of Hypo Alpe-
Adria Bank. The project certainly was
a high risk project, since we got the
agreement with the broadcaster at
the moment of product presentation,
and until that time we had already
spent more than 70% of the budget.
What are the difficulties that AVA
was faced with during the production
of VILLA MARIA, and how did it manage
to overcome them
The VILLA MARIA project was a
great school for us. And like every
school, it has its price. I will tell you one
thing that I am really proud of. When
we attended the telenovela summit, in
Barcelona (September 2004), we
were given special awards for production
and direction (in the strongest
productions competition – HBO, Tele -
vise, Telemundo, TV AZTECA, etc.).
People from these high developed production
houses with 40 years of experience
said that a production of high
quality telenovela requires a 5-year
period, and that VILLA MARIA looks
like a 4-season project.
Are you satisfied with audience’s
reactions to VILLA MARIA in Croatia
and outside Croatia
The audience is the reason for our
work and we are more than satisfied
with their reactions to VILLA MARIA,
and also to LOVE IN OFFSIDE. Serials
have the greatest ratings in Croatia
(average rating of total broadcasting is
27%, share of 58%), but we are especially
proud of the results achieved on
more competitive markets, like Serbia
and Montenegro, where we have
unexpectedly great results, in severe
competition with domestic serials.
Was VILLA MARIA a successful
project
Love in Offside: Nada Gacesic Livakovic
& Filip Juricic
If we observe only financial
results, I would have to say “no”. But, if
we observe our business strategy, the
answer is positive. We did not place
VILLA MARIA on the market as a high
risk project (which would mean high
profits), but we decided for minimal
commercial price instead, with an estimation
that in future, as a high-deve -
loped production, we will make
greater profits.
Are you satisfied with the results
of LOVE IN OFFSIDE Where can the
serial be seen
The same as above. The serial is
broadcast in the territory of former
Yugoslavia, except for Slovenia, where
only VILLA MARIA is broadcast. At the
moment, we plan to broaden the market
for all our serials.
There is an open contest on your
website for TV serial scripts. What is
the response like
The response is great. We receive
all sorts of proposals, of course, and
sometimes they are very good. For
example, the script for LOVE IN OFF-
SIDE is the result of this contest.
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