Five minutes to sell a series: how are Catalan fictions made?

Barcelona"This is a bit like one speed dating", says Alícia Teba, who together with her partner David Casademunt has presented her series project to several producers, Four pending issuesThe couple is part of the group of 16 participants in the third edition of Serielizados Kick, the Catalan series incubator linked to the digital media Serielizados. This week, one of the culminating moments of the initiative was experienced at the CCCB, the pitching, the meeting in which the series projects selected by Serielizados Kick are presented to various producers in the hope that one of them will be interested and want to make the fiction a reality. The creators must synthesize months of work in five minutes –"it's almost like making a wine reduction," says Teba– and this is not a lax rule: when the end of the stipulated time approaches, the bell rings.

"Today, being a scriptwriter is being a writer and a salesman at the same time. I don't know how it was done thirty or forty years ago, but nowadays, the way the dynamics of the industry work, you have to learn the tools to know how to sell yourself well and how to sell the project well," Casademu remarks. The Moor on Netflix. The screenwriter and director explains that Serielizados Kick has given them training to learn how to do a show well pitching. After the five-minute presentation, the question period opens and the producers sitting in row 0 – there are representatives from El Terrat, The Mediapro Studio, Suma, Zeta Studios and Funicular Films (production company ofThis is not Sweden), among others – raise the doubts that have arisen during the presentations. They are questions of all kinds, from the tone that the series would have, to who they imagine starring in it or what audience the series is aimed at.

This year, Serielizados Kick has selected 9 projects from among 80 candidates. The series by David Casademunt and Alícia Teba is designed for a family audience, but not all the projects follow this line and many are looking for viewers who could be considered niche, such as fans of adult animation. A general tone of this year's selection is the inspiration in personal stories. This is the case, for example, of the proposal by actress Bruna Cusí, who together with Oriol Puig Playà presents Frozen eggs, a reflection on motherhood; or the actress Ann Perelló, who works on the series Naked (X-ray of a disorder)Among the well-known names in this year's selection are also Berta Prieto, Miguel Ángel Blanca and Víctor Diago, who have already worked together in Self-defense and now they have presented Second season.

At the exit of the pitching Blanca admits that her presentation was a bit unorthodox. "We tried to make it a bit in keeping with the style of the series, which is to break stereotypes," she says. For her part, Prieto says that they simply tried to talk about their project like adults. "Why do you have to make the speech super light and make things easy as if you were talking to little children to sell something? I think that is something that happens to us a lot when communicating cultural projects," she remarks. Despite having experience in facing the public, Bruna Cusí confesses that the experience of making a project is a bit of a challenge. pitching It's not easy. "I've had a terrible time, especially because it comes from a personal experience. One thing is to act and play a character; another thing is to put yourself in the role and say "I lived that experience and I want to make an artistic project out of it,"" he says.

In search of talent and new voices

Once finished the pitching, following the simile ofspeed dating, it's time to do the match. Interesting a producer does not necessarily mean that the project will become a reality. Many times, production companies go to these events in search of talent. "When you go to these presentations, you are very clear about what the television stations and platforms are looking for. Therefore, mentally you are already ruling out some projects that you know that, as a production company, you will not be able to work on in the current market. However, it is true that you detect talent and, even if it is not for the specific project that they have presented at the event, you can still find the right one. pitch, if you think they are talented, original or, in some way, aligned with the spirit of the production company, it is an opportunity to get to know them for the future and to identify them," explains Marta Baldó, producer at Funicular Films.

Xavier Cassadó, we have always thought a lot about this key, but the truth is that we are open to everything and to pitching English:"There have been things presented that were not comedies that were very interesting," says Cassadó, who assures that when they participate in these experiences they do so without preconceived ideas or looking for anything in particular.

"We don't know exactly what the industry wants, so we take on projects that seem solid, interesting and that speak. They are projects that can be in different phases," explains Víctor Sala, co-director of Serielizados Kick together with Betu Molero. He explains that the initiative is a good opportunity for production companies that normally always work with the same people to open up to new voices, new perspectives and to produce in Catalan. "We try to make series in Catalan and we know that, sometimes, to , .He explains that on average it takes three or four years to get a series off the ground and, therefore, the results of the three editions that have been made so far will soon begin to be seen.