CONTEXT – What can fiction, graphic novels or picture books offer to the new tv seriality?
The novel, or more in general fiction for young adults, together with comics in the form of graphic novels or picture books are experiencing a creative momentum and receiving an unprecedented cultural attention. During the last century, books and comics often crossed their paths: paper books and audiovisual stories swapped characters and narrative cues. Today, in a new scenario, this exchange can grow on new and different grounds, thanks to a real explosion triggered by the search for original contents for series linked to the new digital and tv platforms.
Whilst directors and screen players have rediscovered new creative contents in their series, books and comics’ authors have gone the other way around, and they have concentrated their creative efforts on the closed form of the novel, thus moving partially away from seriality, that had characterised them in the past. There are pictured novels for any kind of reader, that are as exciting, rich and fulfilling as any ” book without pictures”, and that are waiting to be discovered, read and loved. And they are full of ideas, solutions, characters.
Fiction, and even more so comics, be it a graphic novel or not, are made of images rather than stories; it is behind the ability to intertwine the story and the emotions with the combination of pictures that lie the need and the value to investigate this form of expression towards new platforms.
For the second edition of Pitchbook Mart we have selected up to 10 projects, limiting our search to the European production. We will focus on the new and different elements some stories can offer to audiovisual series, without taking into account those works whose value does not need to be promoted. The selection will represent very different paths and will be chosen by a reading group that will define the 2020 selection.
About – Pitchbook Mart is an accelerator that in a highly qualified context matches high quality publishing contents for youths with the audiovisual industry. Publishers will find the perfect and efficient hub to illustrate their projects and network with the main players of the audivisual industry in order to explore strategies and development opportunities for the these two close arts and markets.
Why – We think this is a much needed action to be taken, especially at a time when new digital platforms focus on proposals deriving from the most reckless fan-fictions that often disregard copyrights. Within this context it appears necessary to create new professional profiles that will protect and accompany the content towards production contexts and interest areas that would leave no room for raptors who are just vampirising creativity.
Objective – further facilitate the meeting between authors and the audiovisual industry in order to simplify the work of those who promote quality contents (also independent ones) and those wishing to find and sort new contents for a young audience, with the aim of gathering the right partners and reach agreements on production and pre-sale of exploitation rights.
GENERAL STRUCTURE – Pitchbook Mart will be held in Rome within the frame of MIA -International Audiovisual Market – taking place on 14 to 18 October 2020. Pitchbook is an independent platform set up in collaboration with APA – Audiovisual Producers’ Association, where the audiovisual industry finds real opportunities for the discovery, partnership and development of scripts and screenplays adapted from books for a young adult audience.
The 2020 program is organised as follows:
- selection – up to 10 projects are selected upon invitation exclusively and chosen by professionals with the aim of highlighting quality contents and stories suitable to be developed in tv series and films devoted to youths and young adults. Literary cases which have already attracted producers and screen players will be excluded from the list. The projects’ selection will be officially announced in a press communication during the MIA and in the press conference of Alice nella Città next September 2020.
- B2B – scheduled meetings with professionals will be fixed for the invited participants, according to their interests and requests. Because of the COvid-19 emergency, meetings will be held either face to face or through video-conferences thanks to the equipment and services provided for by the Mia platform.
During the Market, the selected projects will be presented by their publishers or their official representatives to potential financial partners, among whom broadcasters, producers, distributors, private and public funds, in specific one-to-one sessions managed by our organisation, on the basis of the specific needs and the format of each section.
The Pitchbook Mart team will prepare detailed files on the selected projects as well as extra contents for each section that will be circulated a month prior to the event and will be regularly updated, in order to provide an efficient model of business opportunity for the selected projects. All participants will receive their agenda and all the support material a week before the Mart for revision and approval.
The Pitchbook Mart team will organise all the meetings according to availability from projects’ developers and industry’s delegates, in a dedicated space within the market, in order to offer an efficient model of business opportunities for the selected projects.
PARTICIPATION– participation will be upon invitation only. Signatories of the selected projects will officially commit to presenting their projects to Pitchbook Mart 2020 by filling in the application form; they will declare they are the only and exclusive holders of all projects’ rights, hence having the right to present it during the market, with the guarantee that the presented project does not violate any third party’s rights. The signature on the application form frees and indemnifies Pitchbook Mark from any complaints or request for damage, except for the right of the Organisation to ask for damage compensation. Should the project be owned by more than one person, the application form must be signed by all of them.
The publishing projects that will result from the Pitchbook Mart 2020 meetings will mention (PBM) and/or show its logo among their credits. Preferably, the following sentence should be inserted in the credits’ list: [ book/tale title] has been presented at Pitchbook Mart 2020″. The Pitchbook Mart 2020 logo will be sent together with the selection’s confirmation. Once the project is selected, at least one representative must be present during the Pitchbook Mart event.
The Organisation will cover the costs of the hotel accommodation (two nights) to one representative for each selected project. In order to ensure the best possible participation to the one-to-one meetings, we will examine and select also delegates from the national and international industry who will take part in the B2B meetings. Publishers or those having rights on the selected titles will abide by the schedule previously agreed upon. The Pitchbook team is responsible for the selection, invitations, meetings and any other related activities.
