The vice president of Hemisphere Media Group shares details about the first of the two packages of five films that are part of the agreement closed with Canela Media.
The two-year agreement closed between Hemisphere Media Group and Canela Media has been one of the main news of the last week and, with the presence of Jim McNamara, vice president of Hemisphere Media Group, in Los Angeles, to participate in the LA Screenings Independents 2023, ttvnews took the opportunity to learn the details of the alliance.
One of the news of the week was the agreement closed with Canela Media. What can you tell us about this?
We are very happy with the agreement we have closed with Canela. They have ambitions to grow strongly in Latin America and we did this two-year deal, with two packages of five movies. It is a reflection of where the market is going: the platforms need a unique product for them, to encourage subscribers. We believe that this relationship with Canela will be important for both parties.
What can you tell us about the first movie package?
The first five movies are varied: there’s a romantic comedy, Por amor al Money; another comedy with tones of drama, there are many men; two celebrity-inspired films Abusamos del alcohol and Por una mujer casada; and we also have the thriller Oscuro veneno. These projects were developed last year and this year they are finishing the post right now.
We are in a very good position for the next package of films for Canela. I also think that many other platforms are going to be interested in this type of project: moderate budgets, well-known figures and aimed at a very specific audience target. I think that’s the future.
The films mentioned have important casts (Cristián de la Fuente, Candela Márquez, Eduardo Yáñez, Alejandra Espinoza, Erika de la Rosa, etc). How do you manage to close with these names while keeping the budget moderate?
As these are projects that take two or three weeks to shoot, we look for the actors available at that time. The productions are of a budget that cannot wait five months for the availability of an actor.
What other projects do you want to share?
We also bring the comedy Basta, with Armando Hernández, about soccer and four boys who are trying to earn easy money and, as in life, that has consequences. We have a variety of current productions. We have 25 projects in the pre-production phase: scripts written, which perhaps require a little more step to accommodate the actors. Of those there are three that are series drivers, for which we are very excited. We hope to start producing one of them at the end of this month in Mexico.
How do you generate ideas for these projects?
We are open to talking to everyone. We have in-house people, very capable and very well trained in our formula. These are young people, but with a lot of experience and familiarity with our work and with the producers we work with in Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico and Miami. That is the key element. We receive proposals for ideas to develop or we generate them internally. Then we work hand in hand with the different producers that we think are most appropriate for the project.
