Music Video, Commercial and AI Director in Barcelona

Barcelona at a glance

Barcelona pairs a city film office with Catalonia's regional commission, and the two share a public database of more than 6,000 entries covering locations, companies and professionals. Outside the city, the Catalunya Film Commission works with a network of almost 200 film-friendly towns and villages that offer their streets and buildings as sets.

music videos in Barcelona

Sónar started in Barcelona in 1994 and still runs every June across the Fira Montjuïc and Fira Gran Via sites, with its Sónar+D strand of talks, exhibitions and performances on creativity and technology alongside the music. Primavera Sound is the city's big spring festival, with its main stages at Parc del Fòrum on the seafront, and over the years it has spilled into bars, clubs and parks across town. For something older, the Palau de la Música Catalana, built between 1905 and 1908 by Lluís Domènech i Montaner as the home of the Orfeó Català choir, is a UNESCO World Heritage concert hall.

commercials in Barcelona

Foreign ad crews have been coming for years: when Orange shot a run of spots here over four days at 13 locations, the producer said they chose the city for its weather and for architecture that reads as European rather than only Spanish. The city film office is a free public service, and Barcelona's municipal services company, BSM, rents out its own landmark sites for commercials, publicity stills and drama.

locations and light

Through BSM you can book Parc del Fòrum, the Anella Olímpica, the Tibidabo amusement park, Port Olímpic, Barcelona Zoo, the Barcelona Nord and Fabra i Puig bus stations and the city's public car parks, a mix of waterfront, hilltop and hard urban looks. Inside the Palau de la Música, the concert hall is lit by daylight coming through its stained glass.

working in Barcelona

The Barcelona Film Commission, a free service of the City Council run through the Institut de Cultura (ICUB), handles the paperwork for filming permits and coordinates the city departments involved. For the rest of Catalonia, the Catalunya Film Commission, part of the Catalan government's culture department, helps with locations, shooting conditions and permits.

Film office: Barcelona Film Commission.

Spain's tax incentive for international productions returns 30 percent of the first €1 million of eligible Spanish spend and 25 percent above that, with a €1 million minimum spend in Spain and a €2 million minimum total budget, and it is written for feature films and series, so commercials and music videos fall outside it.

Time zone: Central European Time (UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer).

Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat (BCN) is the airport, and Air Canada's published schedule shows direct flights from Toronto daily through the main season, with breaks in late autumn and midwinter.

AI-led and hybrid pieces can be developed remotely, with a live shoot in Barcelona only where the idea needs one.