This chapter is based on a long-term research project focusing on the history of state-socialist and postsocialist production systems and production cultures in Prague and East-Central Europe, supported by the Czech Science Foundation (grant nr. P409/10/1361) and by the Fulbright Scholar Program. It is also based on data generated by the EU-funded FIND Project, which uses student internships in production companies to combine job shadowing with ethnographic research of production cultures (see www.projectfind.cz). The author would like to thank Richard Nowell for his editing assistance.
1 The interviews were conducted in two phases: in 2009 and 2010 in Prague and Los Angeles, and in 2013 and 2014 in Brno, Prague, and Budapest. The questions solicited responses about the involvement of specific personnel in international productions and how working on these projects affects career trajectories. The interview subjects were: Ludmila Claussová (film commissioner, Prague); Radomír Dočekal (Barrandov studio’s former president, Prague); Petr Forejt (sound recordist, Prague), Daniel Frisch (production manager, head of a production-service firm, Prague/Los Angeles), Thomas Hammel (producer, executive producer, Los Angeles); Michael Hausman (executive producer, first assistant director, New York); Tom Karnowski (production manager, producer, Los Angeles), Aleš Komárek (production manager, a head of a production-service firm, Prague); Tomáš Krejčí (head of a production-service firm, Prague/Los Angeles); Cathy Meils (former Variety correspondent in Prague); David Minkowski (production manager, head of a production-service firm, Prague/Los Angeles); Ondřej Nekvasil (production designer, art director, Prague); Steven North (producer, executive producer, Los Angeles); Rusty Lemorande (producer, Los Angeles); Cathy Schulman (producer, Los Angeles); Steven Lane (producer, Los Angeles); William Stuart (Barrandov Studios representative in Los Angeles); Jaromír Švarc (art director, Prague); Michelle Weller (former production manager in Prague, currently out of film business in Texas); Tomáš Hrubý (producer, Prague); Gábor Krigler (head of development, HBO, Budapest); Viktória Petrányi (producer, head of a production-service firm, Budapest); Pavel Strnad (independent producer, Prague); Petr Bílek (head of a production-service firm, Prague); Viktor Tauš (director, Prague).
2 From mid 2012 to mid 2014, the EU-funded FIND Project (www.projectfind.cz) organized over one hundred student internships. As assistants for international film and television productions, interns conducted participant observations and kept field diaries.
3 See Toby Miller, Nitin Govil, John McMurria, Richard Maxwell, and Ting Wang, Global Hollywood 2 (London: British Film Institute, 2008).
4 See Ben Goldsmith and Tom O’Regan, The Film Studio: Film Production in the Global Economy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
5 Neil M. Coe, Peter Dicken, and Martin Hess, “Global Production Networks: Realizing the Potential,” Journal of Economic Geography 8 (2008): 271–295. For examples of applying GPN theory to global media industries, see Neil M. Coe and Jennifer Johns, “Beyond Production Clusters: Towards a Critical Political Economy of Networks in the Film and Television Industries,” in The Cultural Industries and the Production of Culture, ed. Dominic Power and Allen J. Scott (London: Routledge, 2004), 188–204; Hyejin Yoon and Edward J. Malecki, “Cartoon Planet: Worlds of Production and Global Production Networks in the Animation Industry,” Industrial and Corporate Change 19.1 (2010): 239–271; Terry Flew, Understanding Global Media (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
6 Dieter Ernst and Linsu Kim, “Global Production Networks, Knowledge Diffusion, and Local Capability Formation,” Research Policy 31.8–9 (2002): 1417–1429.
7 See Candace Jones, “Careers in Project Networks: The Case of the Film Industry,” in Boundaryless Career: A New Employment Principle for a New Organizational Era, ed. Michael Bernard Arthur and Denise M. Rousseau (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 58–75.
8 Anders Malmberg and Peter Maskell, “Localized Learning Revisited,” Growth and Change 37.1 (March 2006): 1–18.
9 This claim is based on information gleaned from files at Barrandov Studios archive, the National Film Archive in Prague, a register of secret police agents, and interviews with current production managers.
10 Jonathan Kandell, “Americans in Prague: A Second Wave of Expatriates Is Now Playing a Vital Role in the Renaissance of the Czech Capital,” Smithsonian Magazine, August 2007, www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/americans-in-prague-160121860/?no-ist=&story=fullstory&page=1.
11 Ibid.
12 Daniel Rosenthal, “Czech Out Hollywood’s New Euro Options,” Weekly Variety, March 9, 1998.
13 See Olsberg SPI, “Economic Impact Study of the Film Industry in the Czech Republic” (London, 2006).
14 “The Hungarian Tax Credit System and the 20% Rebate Scheme,” Studies in Eastern European Cinema 1.1 (2010): 127–130.
15 See government-sponsored reports on audiovisual industry: Olsberg SPI, “Economic Impact Study of the Film Industry in the Czech Republic”; “Strategie konkurenceschopnosti českého filmového průmyslu 2011–2016” (MK ČR, 2010).
16 Will Tizard, “Czech Republic Sees Jump in Foreign Production Spending as Incentives Grow,” Variety, July 9, 2014, http://variety.com/2014/film/news/cz...ked-1201259106; see also Goldsmith and O’Regan, The Film Studio.
17 Cathy Meils, “Czech Film Tax Incentives Shrink,” Filmneweurope.com, June 24, 2013, www.filmneweurope.com/news/czech/105714-czech-film-tax-incentives-shrink/menu-id-150.
18 Leo Barraclough, “Film and TV Production Heats Up in Budapest: Flowing Coin Attracts Hollywood Films,” Variety, May 16, 2013, http://variety.com/2013/film/interna...nbc-1200466459.
19 Alexandra Zeevalkink, “Hungary Ups Film Tax Rebate to Attract More Foreign Productions,” KFTV.com, July 17, 2014, www.kftv.com/news/2014/07/17/hungary-ups-film-tax-rebate-to-attract-more-foreign-productions.
20 See “Barrandov Studios,” www.barrandov.cz/clanek/reference-zahranicni-film.
21 Based on interviews with Cathy Schulman, October 23, 2009; Tom Karnowski, December 4, 2009; Radomír Dočekal, June 5, 2009.
22 See Petr Szczepanik, “The State-Socialist Mode of Production and the Political History of Production Culture,” in Behind the Screen: Inside European Production Cultures, ed. P. Szczepanik and Patrick Vonderau (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 113–134.
23 Interview with Pavel Strnad, December 7, 2012.
24 Interview with David Minkowski, May 19, 2009.
25 Ibid.
26 Interview with Tom Karnowski, December 4, 2009.
27 Spillover effects are highlighted by reports on the potential effects of the Czech incentive program commissioned by the government. See, for example, an industry report, EEIP, “Hodnocení dopadů regulace (velká RIA) k části návrhu zákona o kinematografii vztahující se k úpravě pobídek filmovému průmyslu (fiskálním stimulům)” (Prague, 2009).
28 Project FIND student intern field diaries.
29 Interview with David Minkowski, May 19, 2009.
30 Petr Szczepanik, “Globalization through the Eyes of Runners: Student Interns as Ethnographers on Runaway Productions in Prague,” Media Industries Journal 1.1 (2013), www.mediaindustriesjournal.org/index.php/mij/article/view/23/67.
31 Q&As with producers Karla Stojáková (Axman), Ondřej Beránek (Punk Film), and Pavel Berčík (Evolution), 2012 and 2013.
32 See Gary R. Edgerton and Jeffrey P. Jones, The Essential HBO Reader (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008).
33 Antony Root, quoted in Gary Smitherman, “The HBO Treatment,” C21Media, June 19, 2012, www.c21media.net/the-hbo-treatment/.
34 Informal interview with Tomáš Hrubý, March 10, 2014.
35 Interview with Gábor Krigler, March 28, 2014.
36 Jones, “Careers in Project Networks.”
37 Helen Blair, “You’re Only as Good as Your Last Job: The Labour Process and Labour Market in the British Film Industry,” Work, Employment and Society 15.1 (2001): 149–169.
38 See Jones, “Careers in Project Networks.”
39 Minkowski, quoted in Kandell, “Americans in Prague.”
40 Interview with Petr Forejt, June 17, 2009.
41 Quoted in Tomáš Baldýnský, “Quentin za to může!” Reflex, February 17, 2006.
42 Interview with Ondřej Nekvasil, June 11, 2009.
43 Peter Maskell, Harald Bathelt, and Anders Malmberg, “Building Global Knowledge Pipelines: The Role of Temporary Clusters,” European Planning Studies 14.8 (2006): 997–1013.
44 See Martha M. Lauzen’s annual reports: “The Celluloid Ceiling,” http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/files/...ing_Report.pdf.
