Ressources numériques en sciences humaines et sociales OpenEdition Nos plateformes OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypothèses Calenda Bibliothèques OpenEdition Freemium Suivez-nous

Impressionist report by Nolwenn Mingant

Christopher Meir presented elements from the research project “Cinematic Cartographies of mobility in the Hispanic Atlantic,” led by Josetxo Cerdán and Miguel Ferdández Labayen exploring the mobility of texts, capital, artists, and film and TV series across the Hispanic South, an area considered as a socio-historical, as well as geopolitical and cultural space (D’Lugo 2009). In this impressionist report, I will summarize and discuss some of the ideas developed during the session….

Production Studies and the Producer

In his presentation, Meir proposes to reconsider the way producers are studied in academia, in line with his book Beyond the bottom line: The Producer in Film and Television Studies (Spicer, A., McKenna, A., Meir, C., 2014). While biographies of key Hollywood producers abound, Meir notes that recent work in Production Studies have focused on below-the-line workers. Producers, however, are a key figure. While the relation between industry and culture is often seen a dichotomous, they are actually the two ends of a continuum; the role of the producer is precisely to position her/himself in that continuum. Meir invites to theorize producers are “intermediaries” between a) industrial agents (executives, studios, …), b) creative agents (writers, directors, …), and c) reception constituents (audience, critics, …). If one is to approach film and TV series holistically, producers are good interlocutors.

During the discussion, it was pointed out that studies on producers are sometimes strongly influenced by auteur theory: replacing the author, the producer is presented as the key hero person. For Meir, considering producers as “intermediaries” is precisely the way to avoid repeating auteur theory’s focus on one key player. The concept of intermediaries enables to put the emphasis on “relationships” with the writer, the director, etc. It foregrounds the collaborative nature of filmmaking. Meir notes that this is particularly true for studies focused on transnational filmmaking: producers who practice co-production are “transnational intermediaries”. They understand the different cultures of making films around the world and are knowledgeable about transnational dynamics.

Meir himself points out another issue for producer-focused studies: since interviews with the producers are the main source of information, the material is inevitably skewed. This made me feel that studies on producers need to include the analysis of their relationship with other workers from the point of view of these other workers. I concur with Meir that producer-focused studies tend to favor interview with producers (Forest C., dir. L’internationalisation des productions cinématographiques et audiovisuelles, 2017). One way to avoid this could be to interview not only producers about their practices, but to talk to above and below-the-liners who actually worked with them. This would definitely open up perspectives on the relational dynamics within specific film and TV production projects. This could be done by leading what Meir called for: more “ethnographic work to look at power dynamics on the set.”

Morena: A European Company or a Transnational Company?

Meir and Labayen’s presentation then focused on a specific Spanish production company: Morena. Constituted of independent Spanish producers, Morena is involved in the production of successful films in Spain, but also in transnational filmmaking, producing auteur films in the US, France and Latin America, as well as mainstream films in France and  series for Netflix in  Latin America. The very definition of the company was in fact the subject of a discussion with Meir during the seminar. Can a company clearly involved in transnational filmmaking still be defined as a “European independent company”? As Meir explains, he chose this definition of Morena not only because the company is legally and financially based in Europe, but mostly because it follows “specific industrial practices” that are geographically situated. Morena is involved in European producers’ networks, navigates the European institutional world and co-produces in Europe. In that sense, Morena is a “European independent company”. What Meir show, additionally, is that this European company has what I would call transnational or transcultural expertise.

Meir develops the case study of a specific series developed for Netflix: Diablero (2018-2020). Meir calls it a “Hispanic Transcultural Production.” The series was produced by Morena, written by a team of Spanish and Mexican writers, and shot in Mexico. Through this series Netflix targeted the Latin American market. Meir’s presentation pointed out several key transcultural issues at work. Morena’s project was chosen by Netflix because of what Meir calls their “transnational ability”. This actually mostly translate in the producers’ ability to operate in English: “Working in English means being a global, cosmopolitan player.” Netflix, however, asked Morena to make the series in Spanish for Latin America. This meant a process of adaptation for Morena who gathered a team of veteran Spanish TV writers and had them collaborate with Mexican writers in order to ensure the linguistic accuracy of the dialogue for a story set in Mexico. Most of the creative team was Mexican, but the post-production was done in Spain.

Assessing Diablero’s legacy, Meir shows how Morena positioned itself at a turning point when platforms were starting to expand in the Hispanic Atlantic. In fact, Morena is now mostly production series in Spanish, and other producers followed suit. Morena, and other Spain-based production companies, are now strongly involved in Latin America, including in Portuguese-speaking Brazil. Today, the Latin American market for platforms series is in the hand of “European gatekeepers.” Meir clearly shows the strong European anchoring the Morena company, but also insisted on this ability to function in a transnational film and TV environment. I suggest Morena could thus best be defined as a European company with transcultural skills.

Transcultural lessons from Morena

There are three lessons that I draw from Meir and Labayan’s presentation. First, it clearly showed the geographically-situated nature of film and television production culture. Pedro Uriol, one of Morena’s producer, told Meir how he felt comfortable working with Latin Americans, with whom he shared a common language as well as social customs, as well as with the French. He felt, however, more alien to the US and British production culture, with more its direct-to-the point approach and lack of insistence on social interaction. To become global players, producers thus have to learn production cultures, as they would learn new languages. In that sense, I feel producers can be called plurilingual individuals. Interestingly, while for decades English has been the mark of what Meir called the “global, cosmopolitan player,” the platform revolution leads to reconsidering other languages. The ability to speak languages other than English, but also to function in non-Anglo production cultures, has now become a strong added value. In a sense, platforms are opening up a new challenge for film professionals: in order to be recognized as a global player, one now needs transcultural skills.

I found this particularly interesting when one considers how these transcultural skills are acquired. While knowledge transfer has not been a key point of focus for productions studies scholar, the necessity to acquire transcultural skills to function in a globalized film and TV world definitely should become a key point of attention. More research such as Szczepanik’s chapter on transnational crews in Prague (in Curtin M., Sanson K., Precarious Creativity, 2016) is needed. Meir’s case study showed that transcultural skills can be gained through formal education: some of Morena’s producers has studied in the US, for example. However, I feel Meir’s presentation pointed out other key moments of knowledge transfer, such as the Diablero’s Spanish-Mexican writing-room, in which Spanish TV writers and Mexican telenovela writers collaborated and exchanged. On a larger industrial level, Morena appears as a forerunner for Spanish companies producing platform series for Latin American markets in their own languages (what is called “local-language”, an expression which could itself be discussed). In that sense, producers which followed suit also learnt from Morena. Knowledge transfer appears as a key element in transculturation, as the acquisition of new practices in effect begets new production cultures.

A last lesson from Meir’s presentation is a word of caution. While Meir did not develop a post-colonial nor decolonial argumentation, issues of power dynamics were clearly at play, whether the power dynamics between Netflix and the producers or between  the Spanish and Mexican players. Geographically-situated production cultures exist in a hierarchical context, where socio-political histories influence industrial clout. Specific case studies, such as European production company Morena and Diablero, its “Hispanic transcultural production” for Netflix, will be the way to explore and unravel the contours and exchanges, frictions and cross-pollination between production cultures across the world.


OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Nolwenn Mingant (1 mars 2022). Impressionist report by Nolwenn Mingant. Transcultural Production Studies. Consulté le 13 juin 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/urwo


Laisser un commentaire

Votre adresse e-mail ne sera pas publiée. Les champs obligatoires sont indiqués avec *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.