Camera-etc : professional and creative animation studio
Created in 1979, Camera-etc produces 20 to 25 animation shorts a year (authors films, commissioned works, workshops with children, teenagers or adults and international coproduction).
Crew
Our team is divided in 3 departments:
- Animation : 6 animators/directors work in Camera-etc, and they all have between 10 and 20 years of experience in animation. It does include authors film (as directors, key animators, lead character animator, etc. for their films or other directors or coproduction). Among them there’s Louise-Marie Colon, Delphine Hermans or Mathieu Labaye, 3 directors whom shorts have been selected in different world-class festivals including New York International Children’s Film, DOK Leipzig, Cannes Film Festival, International Animation Festival Hiroshima, InterFilm Berlin, etc. Mathieu was also one of the ten animators around the world contacted by the American animation studio Titmouse for an animated segments for the Netflix Show “Disjointed” (S02E08).
- Technical : 2 cameramen & technicians are in charge of live-action shooting (including green key), postproduction (grading, editing, sound designing… and sound). They’re both working for Camera-etc since 15 and 20 years.
- Production : a producer, a PR & production assistant, a production accountant and a festivals & screenings manager
Facilities & equipment
We can do almost any type of animation (except CGI) using 2D and stop motion programs. We have graphic tablets, cameras, lightnings, 6 multiplane & 6 monoplane cameras, a medium size green key, a sound cabin to design, edit and mix soundtracks, a screening room… You can see some photos here.
Minority coproduction
Centre of Cinema : for a minor coproduction for a short animated, we can ask 20.000 €. Three sessions per year (January, April and September with the results around 6-7 weeks later). For the first submission, 40% of the budget excluding valuation or participation must be acquired. The number of projects funded depends on the budget of each session and since January 2022, minor coproductions have their own session (not mixed with major productions from Belgium, a little bit fairer).
RTBF : public broadcaster of the French-speaking part of the country. 5.000 € in coproduction + 75 €/minute in pre-buying. 2 sessions per year (around April and September) and the answer around 6 weeks later too. 20 projects funded every year, between 2 or 3 animated shorts among them. Pretty difficult to got it, but still worth a shot. There’s also private broadcasters more difficult to have access but not impossible. This is on a case-by-case basis depending on their remaining annual budget.
Unfortunately, as a non-profit association, we can’t ask the Belgian credit tax system called Tax Shelter. For a minor coproduction of a short, it will be too complicated anyway to be honest (to roughly simplify, if we ask 20.000 €, you’ll have actually 16K for the film and you’ll have to spend between 30K and 40K in Belgium and not all the costs are eligible). It’s also to fill a gap in financing, which means you must have money from different funds before. It’s interesting when you make a major coproduction of a short or for length features, not really for minor coproduced shorts (if you can ask 20 grand as public funds, it means you can only ask around 5 to 6.000 € and be very careful with all the invoices related to the project).
Valuations from Camera-etc
All our facilities and equipment are ours, so we can put them in valuation in the budget to reduce the effective costs. Also, a part of the salaries of the team are funded by some “employment helps” from Belgium, which means we can take a part of the costs on valuation too. An example to be clear : if one animator cost 250 €/day and 40 days of work are estimated, it will cost around 5.000 € or 6.000 € and we take the rest in valuation on our side. In one word : less funds needed for the same amount of working days (or more days for the same amount of money).
For further information, please contact bastien.martin@camera-etc.be
Bastien is the producer of Camera-etc since February 2021. He worked in production for several companies these last 10 years as a production assistant, production coordinator, production manager and production accountant. He worked two years for Derives, a non-profit association created by the Dardenne brothers, specialized in documentaries. He also directed a documentary for the television a few years ago about a famous Belgian animation director, Raoul Servais. He knows both sides of the creative aspect of filmmaking for both documentary and animation.