Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

The T&T Film Com­pa­ny (TTFC) has gen­er­at­ed an es­ti­mat­ed $24 mil­lion be­tween 2010 and 2012. This in­jec­tion in­to the lo­cal film in­dus­try was sup­port­ed by 116 in­ter­na­tion­al crews from Cana­da, Mex­i­co, Scot­land, Unit­ed King­dom, New Zealand, Japan, In­dia, Ger­many, Nor­way, Switzer­land, Aus­tralia and Unit­ed States film­ing on lo­ca­tion.

This is ac­cord­ing to Car­la Foder­ing­ham, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of TTFC, in an in­ter­view via e-mail Thurs­day.

These crews, she said, were al­so sup­port­ed by in­dus­try part­ners, in­clud­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, T&T Fire Ser­vice and the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty of T&T.

About three weeks ago, Trade Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath said the Gov­ern­ment was not ful­ly sat­is­fied with the per­for­mance of the cre­ative in­dus­try, which com­prise film, arts, en­ter­tain­ment and fash­ion.

He said af­ter the Gov­ern­ment has pumped close to $90 mil­lion over the last five years in­to the cre­ative sec­tor, it has not re­ceived a re­turn on in­vest­ment as it should have.

How­ev­er, Foder­ing­ham said, "The fund­ing spent by in­com­ing crews film­ing on lo­ca­tion, which to­tal $24 mil­lion, far sur­pass­es the sub­ven­tion pro­vid­ed to the TTFC by the Gov­ern­ment of T&T dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2010, 2011 and 2012."

She said the film in­dus­try has cre­at­ed em­ploy­ment for more than 2,148 peo­ple in those three years.

"This does not rep­re­sent the to­tal em­ploy­ment in the in­dus­try as the com­mer­cial sec­tor gen­er­ates a much greater lev­el of em­ploy­ment from the pro­duc­tion of tele­vi­sion ads and cor­po­rate com­mer­cial work."

The pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ed $11 mil­lion as well in film projects man­aged through TTFC's grant and eq­ui­ty-fund­ed films, Foder­ing­ham said.

She said the TTFC lob­bied for and was suc­cess­ful in se­cur­ing an in­crease in the "pro­duc­tion ex­pen­di­ture re­bate" in­cen­tive, which moved from 30 per cent to 35 per cent for all pro­duc­tions film­ing in T&T.

"The re­bate in­tro­duced by the TTFC in 2007 is now con­sid­ered the most com­pet­i­tive re­bate pro­gramme with­in the re­gion. The in­crease to 35 per cent po­si­tions T&T as one of the top ten coun­tries of­fer­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly com­pet­i­tive re­bate pro­grammes. What dis­tin­guish­es T&T from the oth­er coun­tries is that we of­fer cash in­cen­tive, while they of­fer tax in­cen­tives."

Some of the no­table in­ter­na­tion­al crews that filmed in T&T and utilised the 35 per cent re­bate in­cen­tive in­clude:

The Cana­di­an fea­ture film, Home Again, which filmed in Feb­ru­ary 2012 spent more than $6 mil­lion and em­ployed about 1,200 peo­ple.

• So­ca Pow­er 2007, French/T&T co-pro­duc­tion

• Con­tract Killers 2007, US/TT

• Lim­bo 2009, Nor­we­gian film

• Hap­py Sad 2009

Lon­don Al­ley En­ter­tain­ment, USA, Nicky Mi­naj Mu­sic Video, Pound the Alarm

BBC: Chil­dren's Se­ries Raleigh

Pil­grim's Film and Tele­vi­sion, Unit­ed States, Ghost Hunters In­ter­na­tion­al

Trav­el Chan­nel Me­dia

Raw TV Ltd, US, Locked Up Abroad

In­te­gral part­ner­ships

Foder­ing­ham said TTFC sup­port­ed the sec­ondary short film fes­ti­val and was a key part­ner in the host­ing of the An­i­mae Caribe, which is the sole an­i­ma­tion and new me­dia film fes­ti­val held in the Caribbean re­gion that marked its tenth tenth year in op­er­a­tion in 2011/2012.

The par­tic­i­pa­tion for the fes­ti­val in­creased by 40 per cent with 2,500 at­ten­dees. The lo­cal con­tent in­creased by high­light­ing 18 an­i­mat­ed short films from T&T, she said.

Twelve work­shops in 3D, 2D ex­per­i­men­tal, mu­sic scor­ing for film and an­i­ma­tion, spe­cial ef­fects and char­ac­ter an­i­ma­tion, and a pre-school­ers' cin­e­ma, an ini­tia­tive by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, were held.

"An­i­ma­tion in T&T is recog­nised as a niche in the film in­dus­try with the po­ten­tial to gen­er­ate sig­nif­i­cant wealth and em­ploy­ment. There has been an in­crease in the out­put and qual­i­ty of lo­cal an­i­ma­tions pro­duced by na­tion­als and sup­port for the an­i­ma­tion sec­tor is boost­ed by the es­tab­lish­ment of the dig­i­tal me­dia/an­i­ma­tion de­gree pro­gramme at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T &T."

Re­gard­ing the sec­ondary short fes­ti­val, Foder­ing­ham said a new bench­mark was set in 2012 with more than 500 T&T sec­ondary school stu­dents from 31 schools trained in act­ing, screen­writ­ing, light­ing and pro­duc­tion tech­niques at 16 venues.

"This rep­re­sents a 109.1 per cent in­crease from 2011 fis­cal. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, 16 train­ers and 29 train­ing as­sis­tants of the SSSFF 2012 were trained in Act­ing for Screen at a Train the Train­er work­shop."

An­oth­er key role TTFC plays is with T&T Film Fes­ti­val, which be­gan in 2006. The fes­ti­val, which ran from Sep­tem­ber to Oc­to­ber, had a 40 per cent in­crease in reg­is­tra­tion. Of the films screened dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2010-2012, 21 were prod­ucts of the TTFC's grant and eq­ui­ty fund­ing pro­grammes, while 100 of the screened films were made by T&T film­mak­ers.

Oth­er achieve­ments

Un­der grant and eq­ui­ty-fund­ed projects

The TTFC has award­ed grant and eq­ui­ty fund­ing to 44 pro­duc­tions and 14 script de­vel­op­ment projects dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

• Dou­bles with Slight Pep­per won the Best Live Ac­tion Short Dra­ma Cat­e­go­ry of the 32nd an­nu­al Ge­nie Awards, Cana­da, held on March 8,

- a Ju­ry prize for the best Cana­di­an Short at the Toron­to In­ter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val (TIFF) 2011

- cho­sen as one of the top ten Cana­di­an films of 2011.

• Rose, Li­oness of the Jun­gle, a doc­u­men­tary on the life of Ca­lyp­so Rose, was aired on PBS World 2012.

• Be­tween Friend-a fea­ture high­light­ing is­sues sur­round­ing HIV-won an award for best cin­e­matog­ra­phy at the In­ter­na­tion­al Film­mak­er Fes­ti­val, Unit­ed King­dom, in 2011.

A to­tal of 21 com­plet­ed TTFC pro­duc­tions were screened at the T&T Film Fes­ti­val 2010, 2011 and 2012, at which the fol­low­ing 11 awards were re­ceived.