The Tenerife Film Commission office informs us that Tenerife is becoming increasingly attractive as a destination for international advertising shoots.
Major advertisers are shooting commercials on the island, supported by an increasingly solid local industry. Competitive prices, variety of locations, good weather and quality of local crews are some of the factors that make Tenerife the desired location for filming. This is corroborated by several of our local production companies.
Advertising filming activity in Tenerife has intensified in recent months. The new panorama following the Covid-19 pandemic has boosted the island’s attractiveness as a safe set for filming for international companies that used to travel to other territories beyond Europe.
The boom in advertising production has included local companies with a long history in production services such as Sur Film, but also others recently established on the island such as Solworks.
Within the flow of work taken on by Sur Film’s advertising division in recent months, the production of advertisements for powerful brands such as the Swiss lottery Swisslos, the fashion company C&A, the German bank Postbank and the car manufacturer Volkswagen stands out.
Solworks, which began producing commercials in Tenerife three months ago, has already produced two campaigns, one for the global brand Zara and the other for the Italian food company AIA.
“All at once, a lot of work”.
“Now, all of a sudden there is a lot of work,” says Tenerife-based location manager Manel Gaspar. “A lot more commercials are being shot because the perception of the island is that it is safer.
According to Gaspar, “the expectations with respect to last year are better. Now you can’t travel to places like the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, South Africa or Argentina, and in the Canary Islands there is already an industrial base that meets the needs of any shoot”.
“Tenerife has gained ground over other areas”, says Álvaro Iglesias, co-founder and director of Solworks. “It is true that the locations and climate already make it an unbeatable destination, but during the pandemic it has also proved to be a safe place, with very clear protocols and rules of entry”.
“Because of the tourist tradition, the island is very used to dealing with international crews and clients, so our industry, which works with people from all over the world, feels very reinforced when it comes to transmitting security to clients,” he adds.
“Many productions used to go to South Africa, a country with a strong film and commercial industry. Now all those productions that would have to travel with a visa outside the European Union prefer to stay here. In these parameters, not only Tenerife but all the Canary Islands work very well,” says Eduard Rabasco, line producer at Sur Film.
Advertising production projects are often set up against the clock, while fiction shoots require a longer preparation period. But this is not the only difference between the two sectors. The scripts, creativity and size of the projects also differ.
In general, advertising has been able to offer a better response to the health crisis precisely because of the shorter duration of filming. In addition, scripts can be adapted to reality – characters can appear wearing masks – and synchronise the creative with the health protocol in force at any given time. It also usually requires a smaller number of actors than fiction on the film set.
According to the director of Solworks, which has recently set up a fiction production department, “advertising benefits indirectly from the tax advantages for series and film shoots, as they have helped to create a very strong local industry of technicians and equipment”.
Competitive prices
The creation of a local industrial and the mobilisation of local professionals and equipment means that productions do not have to bring in resources from abroad, which means that the prices offered from the island are more competitive.
According to Iglesias, “when we budget a project, we compete with companies from all over the world, so one of the keys to winning is that the budget is competitive”.
“Historically people came to the island in search of daylight hours, but now other factors such as the number of locations or the capacity of the technical team to resolve more complex productions weigh more heavily. This is what our clients put in the balance and this is what makes them choose Tenerife”, says Eduard Rabasco.
“In advertising shoots, the multi-location effect is often sought – in just a couple of days you combine beach, mountains, houses, restaurants… – thus providing a diverse tone that works very well in Tenerife, because you have all of this at a relatively close distance,” says Álvaro Iglesias.
Tenerife, a Swiss city
The Sur Film company has a strong presence in both advertising and film production, having provided services for international shoots such as Jason Bourne 5 or Fast & Furious 6 or more recently The Witcher or Foundation.
The challenge for Swisslos was to turn Tenerife into a Swiss city. For this, after a previous research work, Sur Film’s production designer Monica Monedero made some sketches – some of them can be seen next to these lines – for the transformation of the spaces and sets of the streets of Santa Cruz in line with the different life stages of the actress who stars in the advert.
In April, the commercial shooting for the launch of a new Volkswagen electric vehicle model was shot by Sur Film in the Tres de Mayo tunnel, a key artery of the city, and in a nearby petrol station, among other locations, with the full support and trust of local companies and institutions such as the Tenerife Film Commission.
Meanwhile, the Balearic company Solworks has participated in a commercial and photo session for Zara’s summer campaign between Tenerife and La Palma, seeking to combine beach and nature. In Tenerife, they shot on location at La Tejita beach in El Médano and later in El Balito. Images with which we illustrate this article. For the AIA advert, they chose to shoot in multiple locations on the same island over two days.
After ten years as a producer of advertising services, Solworks has opened its headquarters in Tenerife in response to the requests of many of its clients. The attractive tax framework offered by the Canary Islands to companies setting up there did the rest.
