Take a look at overseas

I guess I do not lie, if i say that the biggest film industries are in America and India; the Hollywood and the Bollywood. But what is going on between them? There is Europe with its beautiful countries. If you grow up in the United States, the most movies you see are American, although there are some of them that are set in Europe. The differences can be barely noticeable among movies set in America or in Europe, when the company is American. Why? Because they use the same equipments to shoot the scenes.
Let's take a look at the European movie industry, more specifically in central and eastern Europe. A Hungarian writer wrote an article about the film industry in Hungary and she also mentions some other countries in that area. She talks about the rise of Hungarian film industry. This little central European country has always had problems with money. (I do not exaggerate here when I say "always", as I grew up there, I experienced those problems.) In 2004 politicians proposed a great tax rebate to foreign film companies shooting in Hungary. According to that law, it gave 20% of all production costs spent in the country back to the filmmakers. In addition the law also gave 50% tax rebate for the constructions of new facilities in Hungary. It is all nice and good till 2007, when the government decreased its support with 30%. That was a big loss, but the international companies, which are already settled in and became co-producers helped a lot. What also helped was the money that came from private companies trying to take advantage of the tax break and investing into Hungarian Films.

Hungary has been a one of the major host of foreign productions. I can tell you some well-known American movies that have scenes in Hungary, for example I Spy with the starring of Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson, Munchen by Steven Spilberg, Evita, and Hellboy 2:The Golden Army. These are just some examples from the list. Hungary with its beautiful countryside and nice architecture are great for shooting a movie. Beside international producers, Hungarian producers like our opportunities as well. However there are differences when we see a movie made in Hungary and made in the United States. The two most noticeable differences that I see are the quality of the movie and the sounds. Clearly the equipments used in the USA and in Hungary are not the same at all. The equipments in the USA are more developed as they have the budget to spend more money on the movie. If we compare the average American budget of a movie and the average Hungarian budget of the movie the difference is pretty big. In the US it is around 5-20 million USD, while in Hungary it is 1-4 million USD. Needless to say that as average I am not talking about movies like Avatar, that cost $280.
We were talking about the media rules on my communication class, and one of the points in the first rule is that there is always a risk that the movie is going to be a flop. This is one of the reason why Hungarian movies are much cheaper, because, we cannot afford to lose a big amount of money. In order to make sure that the film is going to be a success, Hungarian producers take into consideration the first rule. We have a ten or fifteen very good and well-known actors and actresses who take part in all the good movies. So the producers choose the cast precisely in order to make the audience to see the movie. Another thing producers like to use to succeed is to make a second part of successful film. I can understand, because I personally, only see the movies that have good actors, actresses in it or I have seen the first part and I liked it. Of course do not forget the marketing. Producers spend a lot of money to let people know and make them interested about the upcoming movies. They do this with trailers, billboards, advertisements in magazines, newspapers, and in the radio as well.

Honestly, I like watching foreign movies better, but there are a few Hungarian movies that I can watch several times and never get bored of it.
Here are two videos from youtube. One is a small part of a Hungarian movie (Üvegtigris 2 = Glass Tiger 2)
and the other one is part of an American movie (I Spy) that was shot in Hungary. If you look at the part 2.00 the bridge scene, that was shot in Budapest (the capital of Hungary) Pay attention to the quality of the movie and sound effects in both. (unfortunately I could not find subtitled version of the Hungarian movie, but you don't have to understand the words to notice the difference)





So after watching these short videos, what do you think? Can you see the difference?

Klaudia