The term co-production is by no means a new concept. For decades it was how filmmakers worked; pulling resources – for instance, one doing the production work, another doing post – to get a film from the can to the screen. Some of the earliest such productions were the classic Spaghetti Westerns from the 60s, usually produced and directed by Italians with backing from Spanish, French and in some cases German producers. The genre – although going stale by the late 70s – was prolific in its time. The American West was replicated in the deserts of Spain and crews were never short of merry low-cost Spaniards to fill the scenes as extras. For television, co-productions were not readily pursued until the 90s. Before this, in-house production was usually the norm and there was a high number of commissioned works, where the network retained the broadcast and distribution rights. But as money began depleting and more commercial objectives shifted television’s focus, networks began shedding inhouse crews or closing down their production departments completely and co-productions began finding favour. Today, co-productions are an accepted industry practice across many forms of media and markets. This year particularly has seen an increase in long-term or large-scale coproductions being inked, and it’s not just the smaller players but the larger entities also. Beach House Pictures is one production house that was setup entirely for the coproduction market. Based in Singapore, it produces wildlife and natural history programs in collaboration with some of the industry’s biggest content providers. Managing director, Jocelyn Little says 2010 has been one of the busiest yet: “This year we’ve doubled our volume of productions in general. Broadcasters now have the issue of producing the same amount of content without the same amount to spend as before, it makes sense to co-produce and for us it’s also a good thing as we want ownership in our productions also.” Little said the eclectic year started off with the 13x60min series Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled, which it co-produced with Lonely Planet TV in Australia. Other partners in the series included BBC Worldwide (BBCW), National Geographic International and Beyond, for distribution. They also partnered with Lonely Planet and BBCW along with Discovery Networks Asia and China Intercontinental Communication Center (CICC) to produce Best In China a 13x30min flagship series that features the greatest travel experiences China has to offer, presented by real life Lonely Planet authors who road test each locale. Little says co-productions are not just about funding and distribution but also benefits a programs’ creative quotient and provides great experience for their staff and crew. “When you’re working with other teams it develops creativity and volume also increases as the workload is split. The diversity of what we can do in a year expands greatly. Our team gets to work with very experienced directors, producers and writers from around the world, which helps upskill them and at a much faster rate if they were left to their own devices,” she says. It is a similar story for KidsCo when it began developing the original animated series Boo and Me, set in the wild jungles of East Malaysia. The series about an orphan Orangutan, which premiered last year and targets 6-10 year olds, is a coproduction between KidsCo and Kuala Lumpur-based production house Inspidea. “Boo and Me is very much a collaboration,” said KidsCo’s Paul Robinson, managing director global. “We have worked closely with Inspidea on every detail from story concepts, to story outlines, storyboards and animation. I think we have both gained from the process. “KidsCo’s team were also able to present an international perspective that helped them (Inspidea) as a Malaysian-based studio, produce a show that is world class and relates to the viewers in all 92 territories we broadcast,” he added. Following its successful launch, Boo and Me is now readying season two, which goes to air in April and KidsCo is keen to develop more such programs with Asia-based producers. “Co-productions enable channels to source content which uniquely matches their brand and can be owned. As competition increases choice for kids we all have to differentiate ourselves. A co-prod is a brilliant way to achieve this goal.” Co-productions can also lead a program down a different path, from what was originally envisaged. Such was the case with the upcoming Polar Bear – Spy in the Ice, wildlife program produced for BBC One, Animal Planet and Discovery by Bristolbased John Downer Productions (JDP). The one-off program, the sixth in the Spy series, uses specially built extreme weather HD cameras to track the captivating journey of a mother polar bear and her two cubs on their seasonal trek across the Arctic sea ice. But different from its previous shows, Polar Bear was a co-production with Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc.(TBS), which, for the first time, is also producing a one hour behind the scenes documentary on the making of the wildlife program. Both will be screened in Japan next year. Said John Downer, executive producer and managing director of JDP: “We had hoped to get some form of co-production with Japan for Polar Bear, as filming in the Arctic is always expensive…having a partner like TBS helped give us a bit more time on the ice. Then the idea of making a program about the program surfaced. “The experience ended up being incredibly positive and the Japanese crew were very dedicated in getting the best footage of us. They were originally filming from their own boat but as we had to be so mobile on the ice they ended up just bunking in with us. Very little room but it was a great ‘ice breaker’,” Downer says. But he added that it took a while to get used to him being on camera as much as the bears: “It put different pressures on. We had a crew following us from the moment we woke up to the time we went to bed. We’re also mic’d up and suddenly a camera is staring us in the face and it’s not what we’re used to when normally filming wildlife.” Downer said the TBS supplementary program brings a new dimension to this latest Spy program as it shows how the cameras work and the challenges the crew faced over the 18-month shoot. He hopes that this is the start of other such co-productions with TBS, which came on board Polar Bear through a contact in Japan with BBC Worldwide Channels. “Co-productions only work with the right kind of project. They can definitely add extra value to a production and that’s always what you want.” One production company that has become world renowned through its long-term coproduction work is National History New Zealand (NHNZ). Once a unit of state broadcaster Television New Zealand, NHNZ was sold to Fox Television Studios in 1997. Over the past 25 years it has produced award winning series with broadcasters such as National Geographic Channels, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Science Channel, Smithsonian Channel and A & E Television Networks. It produces more than 50 hours of television each year. This year it completed work on Life Force, a series with NHK in Japan that unravels the mysteries of how and why the animals in six extraordinary environments have evolved to be so strange and unique. Filmed in Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil’s Cerrado, the African Rift Valley Lakes and Japan, it premiered at Wildscreen in the UK in October. It is the third such partnership between NHK and NHNZ, which began with Wild Asia in 2000 and then Equator in 2005. “Having had great success with our last co-production, we proposed it (Life Force) to NHNZ,” said Shin Murata, executive producer with NHK. “I strongly believe that we can always create something new and powerful when different cultures come together.” Murata says it took more than two years to bring the series to the screen. He describes Life Force as a “real coproduction”, meaning that directors, producers and editors from both NHK and NHNZ worked together on the sixpart series, making for a truly international program. “From the early development stage through to the end we have communicated very closely, especially at the editing stage in New Zealand. There will always be some kind of differences and compromise to make a version that everyone was happy with – quite a challenge,” Murata says. He is now working on a multiyear, multi-million dollar coproduction between NHK, NHK Enterprises and Science Channel to film the elusive giant squid. Next for NHNZ, are two major 3DTV co-productions, China and Jewels of the World, made with Beach House Pictures, which it has a controlling stake in, the Media Development Authority of Singapore and CICC as part of a joint venture with Sony, IMAX and Discovery. NHNZ’s Neil Harraway said both will debut next month on the new dedicated 3D television network in the U.S. He added, the two 10-parters are the first multipleepisode wildlife series to be shot in native 3D.