Dubai Studio City (DSC), a member of Tecom Investments’ media cluster, recently explored opportunities for local content creation with key industry stakeholders at a forum during the Dubai International Film Festival (Diff).

Built on an area of over 20 million sq ft, DSC offers a complete technical and community infrastructure catering to the film, TV, radio production and broadcast industries.

DSC marked its presence at the special session during Film Mart, a distinctive platform for the trade and distribution of films at Diff, which explored the processes and services required for supporting the burgeoning indigenous film industry and gain increased interest from international production studios.

Moderated by Claire Aguilar, ITVS, US, the session also included as panellist, Meinholf Zurhost, head of Feature Films, ZDF/ARTE, Germany.

Some of the distinct areas of intervention that were brought up during the seminar included timely roll-out of audience measurement systems, targeted content solutions on satellite, opportunities for co-production, encouraging entrepreneurship, anti-piracy initiatives and local content quotas.

Emmanuel Durou, Telecommunications, Media and Telecom (TMT) director, Deloitte Middle East said the five key pillars of media industry comprised funding of local content production, talent development, infrastructure digitisation and ‘smart collaboration’ between media and telco players, as well as monetisation of content and the regulatory role of the government.

His comment came during the film forum themed ‘Fostering a Thriving Environment for Local Content.’

The discussion at the forum focused around a special report ‘Stimulating the Production and Monetisation of Local Content in the Arab World’ that has been compiled with the support of Tecom units Dubai Media City, Dubai Studio City and the International Media Production Zone.

Elaborating on the exclusive services offered by DSC's location approval services department,  Jamal Al Sharif, the managing director of Dubai Studio City and Dubai Media City, said, "The department has helped cement Dubai’s status as a major destination for film shoots."

"Dubai offers a range of location-specific advantages to international filmmakers. We invite professionals to come to the emirate for commercial, television or cinema production, and assure them of the support of our Location Approval Services (LAS) department," he added.

LAS data collected over the past years indicates a strong growth in demand for production services.

In 2010, the department facilitated 888 film shoots. In particular, the LAS mobilised its capabilities and expertise to provide logistics support to the team from Paramount Pictures for the latest sequel of the action thriller ‘Mission Impossible’ starring Tom Cruise, he added.-TradeArabia News Service