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Brazil expands its
infrastructure park
Complete infrastructure for any type of shooting (scenes from the set of “Bodas de Papel”)
In two years, the country increased direct
investments in cutting-edge equipments and studios
capable of hosting an international superproduction
By Belisa Figueiró
I
f the Brazilian landscapes – with its forests, beaches, mountains and big cities
– already constitute a great appeal to
the cinematographic productions in Brazil,
the local infrastructure, more and more,
invests in technology to keep up with the
growth of national and international shootings in the country. Since 1999, the field is
also gaining room and strength in the public
funding area, which guarantees a piece of
the budget, collected through the cultural
incentive tax deduction laws, to be applied
in direct investments in new cutting-edge
equipments and studios capable of hosting
a international superproduction.
One of the biggest funding sources for
infrastructure is the Banco Nacional do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social – BNDES
(Brazilian Development Bank), which will invest in 2008 US$ 17.7 million in the sector,
with US$ 9.7 million (54.8%) coming through
the Programa de Apoio à Cadeia Produtiva
do Audiovisual – Procult (Support Program
to the Audiovisual Productive Network). The
program was created by the bank so it could
invest more than US$ 100 million in the Brazilian audiovisual and these numbers could
get even bigger.
Besides this, the president Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva signed, in December 2007, the
decree nº 6,299, which regulates the Fundo
Setorial do Audiovisual – FSA (Audiovisual
Sectorial Fund), approving the initial investment of US$ 21 million in Brazilian cinema.
Part of this money will be destined to the
Programa de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento
da Infra-Estrutura do Cinema e do Audiovisual – Pró-Infra (Support Program for the
Infrastructure Development of Cinema and
Audiovisual).
Aside the public money influx to the
sector this year, the post-production, studio-rental and lighting companies had already prepared themselves last year to upgrade their equipments, and now celebrate the
results achieved. For the post-production
companies, last year was synonym of a lot
of work, having to finalize and deliver the
feature and short-length films shot in 2006,
and 2008 should have and increase in production, guaranteeing more work to lighting
and studio-rental companies.
“The infrastructure’s achievements
have been great and 2007 was a wonderful
year. We managed to approve the incentive
laws, which guarantees a recognition of the
government in relation to the infrastructure,
which is the foundation for Brazilian cinema
to be produced”, says Edina Fujii, president
of the lighting company Quanta and the
União Nacional da Infra-Estrutura Cinematográfica – Unifra (National Association of
the Cinematographic Infrastructure).
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Today, Brazil has around five large
post-production laboratories: Teleimage,
Casablanca, Megacolor, Link Digital and
Labocine/Cinema. Specialized in lighting
equipments, there are over 30 companies,
according to the Associação Brasileira
das Empresas Locadoras de Equipamentos Cinematográficos – Abele (Brazilian
Association of Cinematographic Equipment Rental Companies). Among the main
ones, stand out Quanta and Locall. Check
out the latest features of the main infrastructure companies.
Lighting and rental
With a 13 thousand m² plant, Quanta is
one of the biggest lighting and rental companies in Brazil, and has fours studios to
offer, with the bigger one, used for cinematographic production, measuring 1.320 m².
The plant was inaugurated in 2007, and is
located in Vila Leopoldina, a São Paulo neighborhood that has been expanding in the
rhythm of a cinema structure complex. The
company offers all the necessary support
for a complete shooting, with rental services for lighting, cameras and camera motion, generators, carpentry, painting shop,
warehouses, parking lots and restaurant.
Specifically in the lighting business,
Quanta offers illumination kits, fresneis,
PAR light, soft light, mini and maxi brut,
HMI, tungsten, carbon cannon, subaquatic illumination and helium balloons for
aerial illumination. In the partnership with
the company Motion, the movement equipments are from the dollies series of Chapman and J.L, Fisher; cranes with remote
heads followed by the equipments from
the German companies Panther and Movie Tech; system of remote cranes for one
operator from Cammate and Polecam; and
also telescopic cranes from Supertechno.
For electricity, the equipments to generate, connect and control power range
from 6 to 380V, and from 20 to 400A. The
cables are available in several gauges with
technology Cam-Lock, distribution boxes,
transformers, several kinds of adapters and
generators (stationary blimped or portable).
All of this structure works 24 hours a day
Quanta studios, one of the biggest in Latin America
and seven days a week. Some of the studios
are also rented by television companies,
for the shooting of soap operas, others for
advertising agencies and others for feature
and short-length films.
For Locall company, 2007 presented
a growth of 15%, result that went over the
expectations. According to the CEO, Paulo
Ribeiro, the company is going through a reformulation process of its equipments and
is investing with precaution to follow the
change from film to digital. “The moment is
opportune to conscious investments because if you make a mistake and put money in
one equipment that in the end is not the winner in this crazy race, you’re going to have
a big loss. At the same time, you can’t stand
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still, otherwise you stay behind”.
Following this strategy, Locall bought
LED reflectors, which doesn’t generate heat
and the lamps can last up to 10 thousand
hours, a much superior number compared
to the 300 hours of the incandescent lamps.
Besides, were replaced all of the tripods of
the company and also the power distribution
system for a Cam-Lock one. The new generators of Locall are Lite Power of 150 KVA,
which are more compact, silent and economic. “To have an idea, this generator can be
set at a two-axle pickup truck, and could be
taken to anywhere in a big city, without disturbing the traffic flow”, emphasizes Ribeiro.
The lighting is one of the flagships of the
company, but Locall also offers five recording studios since 2001. The building has
3 thousand m², with production and virtual
offices. The production average is eight to
ten movies per year, and the lighting equipments are also located to the advertising
market and television series and programs.
POST-PRODUCTION
In the post-production field, the laboratories more and more are investing in
the co-production of films since the early
stages of the conception of the screenplay
project. Other constant concerns among the
post-production companies are the quality
of the negative used and the film developing
machines. In Brazil, digital, for now, is more
used in short-length films and documentaries. Patrick Siaretta, Teleimage’s director,
explains: ”Usually, we invest more in this
line because they have a shorter career. The
Brazilian feature films are, more and more,
being sold to the foreign market and out there the standard is still 35mm or 16mm”.
Thinking about this, Teleimage bought
two Arri machines that work with definitions
up to 6K. They are the first top-notch ma-
The country has complete post-production facilities in São
Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
chines in Latin America and should be the
great news of the sector for 2008. Teleimage
had 33 feature films finalized and delivered
in 2007, 13 more than 2006, and celebrates
the increase of 65% on the demand. And,
for 2008, 9 films are already scheduled to go
from the lab straight to the screen, among
them “174”, by Bruno Barreto and “O Homem
que Engarrafava Nuvers”, by Lírio Ferreira.
The growth of Megacolor in 2007 reached 10%, with a total of 15 feature films finalized and delivered to its producers. Among
the highlights that should make it to the big
screen this year are ”Blindness”, by Fernando Meirelles (a co-production between Brazil, Canada and Japan) and “Linha de Passe”, by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas.
One of the greatest differential features of
Megacolor, is the treatment given to foreign
film’s trailers that arrive in Brazil, specially
those from Fox and Disney. The job assigned
to the company, in these cases, is to nationalize the trailer, a process that includes the
dubbing, the replacement of the title for a
Portuguese one inside the received image and even to work in the special effects.
Megacolor started doing this job since
the end of 2006 and in 2007 it became one of
the main activities of the company. Before
that, the trailers that arrived in the country
Patrick Siaretta,
from Teleimage, topnotch equipments for
post-production
just had subtitles added. Among the latest
trailers done by the company are “Pirates
of the Caribbean 3”, “Lions for Lambs” and
“The Simpsons”. For the next ones, Megacolor acquired a system called Smart Jog that
receives the digital files through satellite.
Another new feature of the company is
the transfer printer Laser Graphic. Besides
this, they are also going to modernize the
optical system, with the automatization of
the light-marking system of the equipment
Optical Printer. The CEO, David Trejo, estimates a total investment of US$ 350 thousand in equipments.
With 13 feature films finalized, Link Digital celebrates the 20% growth in 2007. “We
participated, with several films in competition, in the biggest film festivals in Brazil and
in the world. In Gramado, we had four films
competing, in Rio de Janeiro, there were 14
films, between feature and short-length”,
says Denise Miller, director of the company.
For post-production, the company
offers hardware and software comparable
with anything that is found in a Los Angeles
or New York studio. As an example, Denise
mentions a color correction panel da Vinci
2K or the telecine Thomsom among the topnotch equipments of Link.
With a slight decrease in revenues in
2007, because of internal reforms, Labocine/Cinema enters 2008 with an investment
of US$ 1.7 million in new equipments and
with the expectation of growth. The new
plant includes a special room for digital intermediation, in which directors and producers can follow their film’s correction with
Scratch while the film is projected in a 4K
projector’s screen from Sony, which decreases the telecine costs.
Besides the feature and short-length fiction films, Labocine/Cinema has, since 2005,
a specific department for animation, with
production and finalization labs. This department produced the movies “Xuxinha e Guto
contra os Monstros do Espaço” and “A Turma da Mônica em uma Aventura no Tempo”.
According to Labocine/Cinema’s CEO,
Silvia Rabello, the company now is preparing to finalize an animation series for
Maurício de Souza (creator of Turma da
Mônica), with 13 episodes, which will be aired on television. “Labocine/Cinema is also
working on some international partnerships
for TV series. We are very optimistic with
the future of animation”, resumes Sílvia.
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