K-pop, or Korean pop music, usually brings to mind boy bands with impressive dance routines rather than brutalist Soviet architecture.
But even K-pop stars have caught the Kyiv fever, with the NCT band releasing two filmed-in-Ukraine music videos – “Boss” and “Baby Don’t Stop” – earlier this year.
NCT, whose video “Boss” features the band singing in the Kyiv metro and standing in a bonfire in front of dismal-looking apartment buildings, is on a growing list of high-profile bands and businesses who’ve sought Ukrainian producers to make music videos or commercials.
With low prices and memorable cityscapes, Ukraine is an ideal place to shoot ads and produce music videos, say those in the industry here. But Ukraine’s film business, still in its early years, has growing pains yet to suffer.
Turning west
European business began to trickle into Ukraine after the multiple crises of 2014, including the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, says Anastasia Bukovska, executive producer for Family Productions, a studio based in Podil.
Bukovska founded the studio in 2004 with her brother Nikita Bukovska, also an executive producer. In their early years, they looked east for business.
“Before then we worked … more for Moscow productions and clients,” says Anastasia, with the bread and butter of the business similar to what it is now: advertisements and music videos.
The war put an end to that, and Family Productions had to find other clients.
Now, four years later, Family Productions has a list of customers from Canada and South Korea, as well as a slew of European Union nations. Anastasia estimates that the company produces about 35 music videos and commercials per year, for foreign and domestic clients.
“We opened to Europe, and Europe started to come,” says Nikita.
Nikita and Anastasia aren’t alone in noting growing international interest in shooting in Ukraine.
Philip Ilienko, director of Ukraine’s State Film Agency, lists high-profile brands that have had ads filmed in Ukraine, among them Dior, Diesel (an Italian jeans designer), and Apple – which hired Ukrainian studio Radioaktive to film a commercial for the Apple Watch Series 3 in Kyiv’s Central Railway Station.
While the state agency doesn’t keep data on the number of music videos and advertisements Ukrainian businesses produce for foreign clients, Ilienko can point to another measure of international attention: new co-production treaties.
These negotiate Ukrainian funding for international projects filmed within its borders, of which there are a growing number.
“We have a treaty on coproduction with Israel, we’re working on treaties with Canada, China and South Korea,” says Ilienko.
Post-Soviet at a good price
Ilienko is fairly pragmatic about what makes Ukraine attractive as a moviemaking destination: good value for money.
“Kyiv has the best balance of low prices and quality services,” he says.
But quantifying exactly how good these prices are isn’t straightforward, he says. It depends on what’s in the script.
“Maybe you want to close the whole city, fly helicopters around and race cars and blow them up… Then drop a helicopter in the middle of the city. Maybe that would be a little more expensive,” he says.
The Bukovskas estimate that it costs between $10,000 and $40,000 to produce a music video, and between $40,000 and $60,000 to produce an advertisement with them.
“It’s half of the cost in Prague. Half of Prague, half of Barcelona,” says Nikita.
But Ukraine’s appeal is not just price. For many, it’s also the post-Soviet scenery.
NCT, for example, “found us on internet and the loved the work we do,” says Nikita.
“Then they wanted the most signature locations we had. It was a classic K-Pop video with post-Soviet locations.”
However, not everyone likes that look, and Ukraine has a lot more to offer than concrete.
“A lot of shooting in Kyiv, people want to shoot something raw and poor—poverty porn,” says Jules de Chateleux, executive producer at Division, a Paris-based film production studio.
De Chateleux was behind Diesel’s famous “Go With the Flow” video, shot, among other locations, at the aviation museum and on top of Kyiv’s iconic, unfinished, Podilsko-Voskresenskyi Bridge.
To audiences used to Paris, New York City, and Los Angeles, Kyiv has a mysterious look, he says.
“We tried to have a look that people wouldn’t know…To create magic in an unknown city,” he said.
Permissions
De Chateleux and Ilienko name a second benefit of working in Kyiv: less paperwork, and more freedom for filmmakers.
“In Western Europe and in the U.S., it’d be impossible to block a bridge. It’d be very complicated,” says De Chateleux.
While the US and Europe usually require film permits which can take weeks to process, in Ukraine, film permission is usually just a matter notifying local officials, says Ilienko.
“(Filming) on the streets, usually it’s enough to get the permission of the local authorities. You just notify the police. You can also ask the police… to find an ambulance if you shoot something with stunts,” says Ilienko.
Nikita says official permission to film in a location in Kyiv is between 6,000 and 10,000 hryvnias ($230 to $390) per shooting day, depending on the location. Ilienko agrees with that estimate.
In London, that cost can be closer to $7,000.
Developing Expertise
For all the interest, Ukrainian filmmaking is still an emerging industry, says Ilienko. Its film crews and producers, some oriented for years toward Russia, are still adjusting to the demands of Western clients.
“It was very recently that Europe started to come and shoot in Ukraine, maybe just four years ago. And our crews – our art directors, technicians, and stylists were not at the level they were used to working with,” says Anastasia.
It’s not just a question of technical background, but cultural context.
“If you’re born in Paris, in France, you have a different cultural background. The architecture, the style, the fashion – in Ukraine, it’s just starting to develop. The taste of the people,” says Anastasia.
Meanwhile, new talent is flooding into the market.
“We need to pay more attention to the education of professionals… crews, people who make special effects. Most of them are new professionals,” says Ilienko.
But education only goes so far, he says. The way for Ukraine’s film industry to get better is to have more Ukrainians work with experienced international clients.
“The only way to learn to make films is to make films. If you didn’t make films before, you have to learn by doing it.”
