The Global 100 - Intro & G100 List

For the second year in a row, realscreen brings its Global 100 to MIPTV - our listing of the most influential independent production companies in the world.

For our first G100, we had the luxury of asking readers to list the companies they thought were the most influential, given their entire body of work. That is to say, considering everything a company had ever done, who did our readers think were the ones that influenced the industry and their own work the most? That's a formula you can only use once. We'd either end up with the same list every year, or worse, a break-out hit would undo influence on the chart.

So, this time, we restricted our reader responses to the previous year, and rather than asking about the prodcos which inspired them, realscreen asked readers about the films and TV shows that really stood out for them. After collecting that list, we worked backwards, found the credits for each of those shows and assembled the Global 100 list.

In the end, an incredible 463 films and TV shows were nominated to the list - a remarkable diversity of productions, but one that suggested clear leadership and influence on the part of some companies.

It should be noted that this list is very different from the last. Some prodcos returned, but many didn't. (And I know we're going to hear about it.) When it came to France and Germany, for example, the list changed enormously. Obviously, realscreen being an English-language publication, our readers tend to be Anglocentric, but since a high percentage of voting came from Europe that can't be the sole reason for the changes.

With our new approach to the Global 100, going forward there will be much more movement each year. Production companies will arrive and depart based on the awareness they were able to generate the previous year. But that's really the best sort of list. No company should have a seat reserved for it, nor should the list exist to the exclusion of innovative upstarts. Creative churn drives the film and television industries. It's what keeps viewers coming back for more.

Brendan Christie, Editor

Last year's G100.