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the viewers of the audiovisual productions and the film crew members, include the director, the actors, and the staffs. The function of it is to create a “Buzz” (positive word-of-mouth effect”.
People watching a film made in a city might talk favorably to others about the city and attributes of it. This in one side will emphasize the identification of the citizens and impressions of the image of their city and in other side, once the director, the actors and the film crew had great experiences when filmed in a certain city, they might naturally deliver the positive image and conceptions to their peers and even the media internationally when being interviewed(Apaydın, 2012; 黃義俊 et al., 2012).
2.4 City Marketing Stategies of Cities in Taiwan Through Filmmaking
2.4.1 Taipei CityIt will be necessary to get a closer look to the Taipei Film Commission in order to get a clearer picture of the development of film and TV industry in Taipei City. “Taipei Film Commission (TFC), an organization specifically responsible for providing services for film and TV production and promoting the development of creative industry in Taipei City, is subordinated to the Taipei Culture Foundation, which was established in 1985, supported by a combination of public and private sector funding(臺北市文化基金會, 2014). TFC was established in the end of 2007, it could be seen as the core organization in the development of film industry and film-oriented city marketing of Taipei City.
The Taipei Culture Foundation was originally a non-profit organization, but since reconstructing in 2007, it has become a semi-government organization with a chairman from Taipei City Government, a chief executive officer from the Department of Cultural Affairs of Taipei City Government (usually the director-general of the Department of Cultural Affair), and also industry professionals as commissioners. And as TFC subordinated to the Taipei Culture Foundation, it will be resourceful and flexible at the same time, with both the supports
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from the government and industrial professionals. Presently, the TFC is operating with members of around 30 people, leading by Director Jennifer Jao, and roughly divided into several groups including media/publication, international affairs, location and production affairs, administrative affairs, event coordinating affairs, and website management(臺北電影 委員會 TFC, 2014).
By observing the missions, policies and also accomplishments of TFC, the strategies of marketing Taipei City through the filmmaking approaches could be categorized as below:
1. Providing production subsidies
Taipei City Government has offered subsidy for both international and domestic production groups in order to capture the beauty of Taipei City and thus to promote the city image and to support the local film industry. For the international film production groups, the subsidy is up to NT $60 million (2 million US dollars) per year:
30 million NT dollars of which are allotted as subvention, and the other 30 million for international promotion. For the domestic groups, the subsidy is totaling 25 million NT dollars (approximately 840,000 US dollars) per year. And there are two terms of the application to the subsidy each year (the first and the second half year).
2. Assistance for filmmaking
TFC provides services to assist film production groups in many ways in order to improve the efficiency and lower the threshold in filmmaking. TFC offers assistance in scouting as requested, coordination with government agencies for the filming application, and they had also set up an online location gallery accessible from their official website where the production groups could search for filming locations throughout the city in advance. Besides, the film, TV and documentary production crews are able to use municipal properties free of charge or in a fairly generous discount if the arrangement is made through TFC.
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3. Marketing co-operation
TFC offers promotion and marketing assistance for the film production groups which are not only the hyperlink from their website, but also includes: organizing premieres and special screenings, complimentary exposure of printed advertisements at metro stations, bus stops and buses, complimentary playback of digital media on outdoor display boards, metro station TV screens and multimedia displays offered by associated merchants.
Overall, for the Taipei City Government, TFC is the main agency in promoting film and TV industry; it is also specifically responsible for communicating and helping film production groups in Taipei City. And its ultimate goal is to convey the beauty of the city and to market Taipei’s urban images to the world while at the same time develop the local film industry. So far TFC is still regarded as the most systematical organization in the film promotion criteria in Taiwan.
2.4.2 Kaohsiung City
Kaohsiung City Government has officially established the Filmmaking Assistance Center in 2009 to provide assistances and services for film production groups, and to attract film crews to shoot scenes in Kaohsiung, build a film-friendly city image(高雄市政府文化局影視發展 暨拍片支援中心). And the “Film Development and Production Center and Filmmaking Assistance Center” was established in 2010 when Kaohsiung city and Kaohsiung County were merged, it is then one of the departments in the Bureau of Cultural Affairs in Kaohsiung City Government (高雄市政府文化局, 2011a).
The Film Development and Production Center and Filmmaking Assistance Center, as implied by the name, could be divided into the “Film Development and Production Center”
and “Filmmaking Assistance Center”. For the Film Development and Production Center, it is
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mainly responsible for the formulation of film policies, film marketing planning and implementation and organizing of large scale events. For the Filmmaking Assistance Center, it mainly provides services for filmmakers including administrative assistance, location scouting support, space support (spaces in the office where could be used as meeting spaces, audition spaces, equipment and prop storage), equipment assistance, post-production support and information provision.
Basically, in Kaohsiung, the Film Development and Production Center and Filmmaking Assistance Center is in charge of providing assistance for filmmaking and also the marketing activities when movies premiere, which are similar to what the Taipei Film Commission does.
And what is different from the strategies of Taipei City is that the subsidy to film production groups is mainly implemented by a different organization which is also subordinated to the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, the Kaohsiung Film Archive(高雄市政府文化局, 2011b). The subsidy from Kaohsiung City Government aims not only to the film production itself but also to the accommodation fee while the film is shooing in Kaohsiung City. Moreover, the Kaohsiung City Government offers not only the subsidy but also the investment to the film production groups in order to encourage film producers to shoot movies in Kaohsiung and to increase the visibility of the city. According to “The key execution key points of Kaohsiung City Government Bureau of Cultural Affairs for movie production subsidies”, the Bureau of Cultural Affairs is cooperating with the Juridical Endowment Cultural Foundation of Kaohsiung City in subsidizing and investing in movie production, and the Kaohsiung Film Archive would be the implementing body. Thus we could see that the Kaohsiung City Government is combining “investment” as another approach when implementing the subsidy strategy to increase the flexibility and initiative in financially supporting the film productions.
In this way, the city government will then gain profits from the film which hit great box office, and thus to encourage more films that are in high quality to apply for the subsidy/investment.
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