Tunisia’s 2011 rebellion has impacted the country’s production industry and its chances of hosting the new Star Wars movie. George Lucas famously used the country as Luke Skywalker’s home planet – the desert world Tatooine – in the original Star Wars film in 1977.
[slideshow id=383]Business is booming for television production and countries around the world are clamouring for a piece of the action. High-end television shows with movie-scale production values are commanding large audiences, but what impact does this have on local industries and is it a long-term trend?
Sony Pictures is to scale back feature film production in order to focus on more high-end TV content like Breaking Bad. Several of the studio’s recent big-budget movies have under-performed at the global box-office, while revenue from TV productions has unexpectedly soared.
New TV drama Looking has wrapped location filming in San Francisco. The eight-part series follows the lives of three gay men living in a changing city and shot in more than 40 different locations.
A new TV show called Dig is set to become the first US series to film entirely on location in Israel. The show will be a murder mystery set at an Israeli archaeological dig and is based on an idea originally developed by Israeli company the Keshet Media Group.
The California Film Commission has called for “a bigger pot of funds” for the state filming incentive. Commission head Amy Lemisch was speaking at a State of the Industry Conference at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
Swedish production company Film de Liberte filmed in South Africa for a new commercial for major insurance company Folksam. Diving Dogs features a group of cute canines swimming underwater on a tropical reef, where they sniff exotic fish and encounter a distant whale.
'Hong Kong Day' will promote location filming in Hong Kong through the American Film Market (AFM) in Los Angeles. Screenings and a seminar will encourage more productions like Michael Bay’s Transformers sequel to shoot in the Chinese city.