UK film-makers should rival Hollywood, David Cameron to say

[Mr Sloane]

I think a new Lew Grade might be more useful in the longer run, but I daresay he would be viewed as a fatcat nowadays, who needs to be taken down a peg or two, and pay a lot more tax.

Lew Grade through the 40's,50's,60's 70's and early 80's would have paid tax at much higher rates than A Lew wannabe would be due today. As for people wanting to bring people done a peg or two, Lew had to put up with a great deal of ridicule and worse, anti-semitism throughout his career.

[MikeB]

Lew Grade probably paid a much higher marginal rate of tax back in the seventies than he would now. On the other hand, he once apparently described commercial Tv as 'a licence to print money'. After 'Raise the Titanic' (which I've always liked) and 'Escape to Athena' et al , he probably needed it.

ITC's film making saga is a pretty good object lesson in the economics of film-making and a warning to those who want to 'go big'. Although he got some good films made (On Golden Pond, Eagle Has Landed, Sophie's Choice) and some hits (Muppets - OK, a classic), there were some real duds. There are always going to be failures, as well as successes (every film is a gamble), but if you try to go 'big budget/international', you end up risking a lot of money on films which can wipe you out. If the budgets had been smaller, the risk would have been spread more evenly. Of course a lot of the projects were rubbish (Saturn 3, Firepower & Lone Ranger), but even the best film can make no money. No one sets out to make a flop, but you hope that your winnings outdo your losses.

I'm sure Lew Grade thought that 'Titanic' was very commercial (cost $36m, grossed $7m in the US), and possibly thought that Sophie's Choice was pretty arty, although it had Streep on board (Pakula originally wanted Liv Ullman - ultra arty!). It cost $12m, took $19m in the US. Streep took the Oscar. Nobody knows anything.

[m35541]

I am not sure whether Cameron gets his ideas from but I didn't think there were any more 'arty' Briitsh movies now than there have been in the past. In fact probably less than in the 1980s when I remember watching all sorts of tedious rubbish at the LFF. Most of these films are very cheap anyway and DVD gives them the chance to play to a wider audience rather than just the Everyman. It seems to me Cameron is just sprouting his usual PR B-S in an attempt to please what he thinks is his natural constituency. The more I hear him the more vacuous I consider him to be. I notice he's stopped talking about the Big Society now, a meaningless management consultancy-type phrase if ever there was one. Is he our least intelligent PM of the post WW2 period?

British cinema grosses simply can't support a film costing the kind of money a Hollywod one does without huge pandering to the American box-office and British actors will always go straight to Hollywood as quick as they can because the money is so much better and, for the blokes, as I think Laurence Harvey said when turning down Peeping Tom, they'd never get another chance to screw so many women.

[Moor Larkin]

Most of these films are very cheap anyway and DVD gives them the chance to play to a wider audience rather than just the Everyman.

I was reading something about how when films are all digitised and film is no longer film at all, that the *distribution* will no longer such an expensive and physical process, that cinemas may be able to be much more adventurous than they are now, and *films* be available straight to them, just as they might be to the big Plasma cinema at home. I couldn't really follow all the technical aspects however, although I also read that the newest cinemas no longer show film anyway, but project digitally.

The next future might be quite a different model anyway.

[MikeB]

Moor Larkin - I'm currently reading 'Sell Your Own Damn Movie' by Lloyd Kaufman, who is ones of the guys behind Troma. A couple of the people he interviews have used Blu-Ray to distribute their films to venues, and the $2000 plus cost of actual film copies is basically gone when you get into digital distribution.

However, he (and others) point out that while its cheaper than ever before (thanks to low cost digital cameras and PC's) to make a film, there are still barriers to distribution. Although you might get your film into a cinema, in a multiplex the owners both want to make money (which yours might) and please the big studios so that they can show the latest bloackbuster. His example is the Troma masterwork Poultrygeist (seriously). They got a big venue to screen it in NYC, if Troma spent $30,000 on ads. The business was very good, and would have remained solid for weeks. But every screen then had to show the final Indie film (which was awful), and so they only had 5 days business. They lost $40K. His advice - the cinema owners don't need you.

You can go down the DVD/download route, but of course a theatre release makes your film more attractive, and you have to think about margins. Some of the studios have cut out theatres altogether this year - the money they get is all theirs, and if the cost of a theatre release is basically advertising for foreign/DVD/online sales, they why bother?

There are lots of different models, but I suspect that there will be a mixture of distribution styles, depending on the type of film. What is clear is that British film-makes should do something that isn't part of the normal Hollywood blockbuster mentality. International audiences (and 50% of Hollywood profits come from outside the US) like a film that isn't made for 14 year old boys, and one that has a good script, etc. Playing to our strengths is wiser than making a bad Hollywood blockbuster.

Lew Grade found to his cost that a big film is not always the best way to make money, but he left a legacy of some pretty good films, and his style was never less than interesting.

[Windyridge]

As has been said elsewhere, Harvey Weinstein spent more on publicity for The King's Speech and hyping it up, than the film cost to make. That's the difference between Hollywood and us, they can manipulate what becomes a hit movie and what doesn't because they don't care if they spend millions plugging it - a drop in the ocean of profit.

[DB7]

As has been said elsewhere, Harvey Weinstein spent more on publicity for The King's Speech and hyping it up, than the film cost to make. That's the difference between Hollywood and us, they can manipulate what becomes a hit movie and what doesn't because they don't care if they spend millions plugging it - a drop in the ocean of profit.

There's still got to be a decent movie behind the hype, recent years have seen some major big-money flops and there was the Universal exec admitting they'd made some 'shitty movies'. We may believe the studios have a bottomless pit of money but it's MGM's financial woes the has kept Bond on ice until recently.

Of the UK producers Film4 seems to have a good ratio of churning out quality films.

[Cooper S]

Is there a case for a new Quota scheme obliging Uk cinemas to screen UK made films, with financial penalties for non-compliance ?

It never worked in the past, why should it work now?
Previous attempts never had any quality criteria. But that's the hardest thing to judge. Having no quality criteria meant that most people just turned out rubbish knowing that it would get screened and so they would be paid. That's why quota films got such a bad reputation

A few people, like the young Michael Powell, took advantage of it as a learning experience, making lots of films in lots of different styles

Steve

Perhaps we ought to start re-making old films? They worked in the past, so they ought to work today. It's what Hollywood does best.

Nick

And is the reason why I don't watch many Hollywood films nowadays

Steve

Gangster films starring Ray Winstone,Jason Statham and Danny Dyer are the way forward!

Aren't they all a bit too old now? They can't do the running around any more. They could be the Godfather - but who would be the younger gangsters?

Steve

Perhaps making films with a sense of irony might help...

[Steve Crook]

Perhaps making films with a sense of irony might help...

Has any film really ever been made "with a sense of irony"?
That's usually what people claim when they set out to make a comedy and people don't find it funny
"Oh, it was ironic" they claim

In most cases it's nothing to do with irony, it's just "comedy" that isn't funny

Steve