CEETV’s Georgi R. Chakarov met with Vladimir Zelensky, co-founder and Creative Producer of Ukrainian production company Kvartal-95 Studio. Mr. Zelensky shared his impressions after his company’s debut on the world’s biggest TV market. He unveiled some of their upcoming premieres on Ukrainian TV and plans for new ambitious projects with an international appeal.


CEETV: You had your debut at MIPCOM. What was the experience for you?

VZ: I liked it a lot. In the beginning of our presentation (during the market), I mentioned a very important thing – I think that you cannot just come to MIPCOM because you want to, because you have achieved something in life, or because they show you on TV or in print. You need to have reached a certain level so you can look people in the eye. You need to be at least on their level, because if you want to accomplish something, you need to constantly move forward and strive to reach higher.

We came here after long twelve years of production, having received a quality mark from the viewers. We know that we became leaders of production of entertainment and humor content. And only after that we came here, because we want to show what we have done. We have this opportunity to share and gain experience. You cannot come here without having at least a thousand hours of quality content that has been successfully aired on TV, otherwise you would just walk around without understanding what’s happening.

CEETV:Yes, but you are already familiar on the market because your formats have already traveled internationally. Does this help you?

VZ: Of course. Now it is easier to meet and talk to people. For example, when they recognize us as producers of Crack Them Up. It feels very nice when people who sit at the same table respect each other, even if they are not equal. It is much easier this way. The second reason why we never came until now is the fact that we are always catastrophically short on time. We are one of those production studios who never used to see PR, marketing and communications as important. We are one of those who go to work at 7 am and stay there until 7 am next morning; we always have to film and write scripts. Now I understand that we were wrong. Relationships with different companies move you forward and advance you. It is like an actor who says he would become a major star when he plays in the same movie with Al Pacino. He, however, gives a significantly different meaning to these words. He means that just by being with a person of such high level he would evolve.

CEETV:Now that you mentioned it, how much have you grown in those three days?

I don’t know, I think 2-3 cm (Laughs).

One of the basic indicators is that sometimes we can speak English. As you know, we studied English at school. And now, we can speak English sometimes, and people can understand us, also sometimes (Laughs)

CEETV:At your party you mentioned that you have already sold some things at the market.

VZ: Echo Rights informed us of preliminary arrangements with four countries in Asia regarding our format Crack Them Up. Negotiations with two more companies are in progress.

We have a funny story about Crack Them Up. When we sold this format to China, they sent us a video on how they filmed it. The video featured two Chinese comics; the head of one of them was shaved. (Zelensky’s partner judge of Crack them Up , Koshevoy Zhenya, is bald – edit.). We asked them – why did you do this? To which they replied that it is an adaptation. We told them it didn’t matter, but it was very funny.

CEETV:What meetings did you have at MIPCOM? With representatives of which countries?

VZ: First, we do not aim at reaching the moon. We have met with representatives of the CIS market, the companies that know our name and understand that our formats are easily adaptable on their territories. It is Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, among others.

We had meetings with executives from Poland. Their production companies see us as their partners in co-production of series, drama, dramedy and other formats. Our quality suits them, and we are both in the same price range. It is much easier to produce when we have two countries, two markets, two budgets.

CEETV: Let’s talk about the new projects that you have brought to the market.

VZ: At our Ukrainian party, we presented the first season of comedy series - The Servant of a Nation. We hope it will become popular. Because today it is very “actual”. This is a story about an ordinary teacher who becomes a President. We did not do this as parody and therefore did not use the names of real politicians to make it clear that we wanted to disengage ourselves and imagine that this really happened. We call it a political Cinderella. Who knows, maybe it will happen in real life one day.

At first, we thought that this product was attractive only for our market. However, when presenting it to our partners together with our other projects, we noticed that people pay attention to - The Servant of a Nation specifically. Our colleagues from Poland, Estonia, other countries (except for Russia, where I think it would be impossible now) wanted to look at more materials, because they see it as a format. The series will premiere on 1+1 on November 16. The first season consists of 24 episodes. The second one is being written now. It is a very comprehensive and multi-faceted idea and a huge project for our company. When we started developing this product, the market had not disrupted as much yet. However, everything worked out, and is working out economically so far. We need to produce ratings that are twice as high as the share of the channel. We hope it will happen.

The second project – Folks - is eight one-hour episodes of a family melodramatic comedy. Produced by the same team as our series In-Laws’, which run with success on major territories of CIS, the two projects will be ready by the end of October.

We have finished the production of the third part of our successful feature franchise: a romantic comedy The 8 Best Dates will come on the big screen in the Russian-speaking countries on March 8.

I cannot help but mention our global TV project – a show that is a major student movement – The Laughter League (The Humor Championship of Ukraine). We are making games in different cities; and soon will organize a festival in Odessa. Around 300 teams have already registered, including those from Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The first season was very successful, and we want this project to work out well.

We want the second championship to be a European Cup. It is a project for young people and we want to make it big.

CEETV:You have so many productions going on. How do you secure budgets for all these creative projects?

VZ: It is not easy. Of course, we have to develop the market as much as we can and enter the European market in order to afford things. However, we all love our jobs and sometimes have to produce more than we would like to ensure that professionals that work with us make money. Sometimes we can treat ourselves to some rest, but it does not happen very often.

The fact that our company has sold so many rights in the last few years saves the day, since we receive some money from various sources all the time. That is why we just invest. It’s normal for us, because we are a big company. We invested in 1.000 hours in Ukraine for the next three years and we can afford this.

CEETV:As you mentioned, it’s a huge load. You constantly need more productions. Have you considered making series based on your feature films, similar to the recent trend in the USA?

VZ: We produced Love in the Big City in this manner. If the first movie was filmed over a period of 26 days, it took us 50 days to make the second one since we shot both the feature film and eight episodes of the series at the same time. It ended up being the most successful of all our feature films.

However, losing the quality becomes very easy with this model. We realized that you have to write two different scripts. The idea can be the same, but the scripts of the feature film and the series have to be different, otherwise it will not work out.

Of course, we are switching to this format of production. The second season of The Servant of a Nation, for example, will first come out as a feature film in the cinemas, and only later on the TV screen as a series. We cannot compare to our American colleagues, but the best is yet to come.

CEETV:From the creative point of view, the quality is constantly growing in Ukraine. Do you see the current situation as more of an opportunity that gives an incentive to develop, or does it block it?

VZ: When we started our company, we had numerous offers to produce various things. We then decided to remain a so-called boutique in TV industry. Not in the meaning that we would do only feature films or only art house for people. We produce content for people, it is still a commercial TV, but we would like to remain a quality boutique. Therefore, if there ever were a question of sacrificing the quality to multiply the production, we would rather come up with another business where we can make money that we could later invest in our TV.

CEETV:What would be your ambition? How do you see your company developing in the next five years? Where do you want to be?

VZ: Five years is too large of a span for us, we are very fast. On top of that, things are changing every year in Ukraine. I think in a couple of years we would even talk from a different perception of the world. Ten years ago, for example, we did not understand how to lay our hands on it.

We have set two main goals.

When the Russian TV market started growing, and the Ukrainian one did not, the latter lost many great professionals. And it is normal. Today we have the second chance, hence our goal. I would really like for TV specialists to come to Ukraine. I would love to see numerous co-productions with the Ukrainian professionals. This way the foreigners would afford high-quality specialists, while our people would be able to learn. I would like to create a professional platform for European (and other Western) specialists who would come here to produce. Our company is one of those who are ready for co-production on the territory of Ukraine to make high-quality products. This is a chance ?? to bring our people back to their country. We all keep in touch, and they all want to come home.

The second goal comes from the fact that Ukraine is a big country and a major market. Even if we do not count the territories in a difficult situation, there are 40 million people and residential areas with high population density. This market has to have a high-quality TV by the example of Turkish TV.

The third goal will come in place when this atmosphere is achieved and our market is grown. I think that our movies, series and shows will come on the screens beyond the territory of Ukraine. Our specialists, young people who are either self-taught or have studied in the Universities of Kiev, would be able to go to Los Angeles and Europe and learn from the masters of the industry. These are our plans.