'It's no wonder nobody watches British films'

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by merryowen Very true. Most cinemas these days are no better than weenies heavens, where you can't hear the sound track for the mating cries of pimply bummed thirteen year olds. The alternative is to follow Steve's advice and visit the local Temperance Hall, where the East Grungthorpe Film Appreciation Society is showing a movie whose only virtue is that its budget was so low that the producer still had change left over from his giro cheque.

If it's got a good story and they put some heart and soul into the making of it then I'd prefer to see the films screened at the local Temperance Hall by the East Grungthorpe Film Appreciation Society. Much better than the latest lack of ideas to come out of Hollywood where they do yet another remake of an old British classic, stripping it of all subtlety in the process and where nobody really cares about their performances because they've all been paid in advance.

But I'd much rather see a good film, even if it is an old one, in a good cinema. And I'll travel a long way to do it. I think my record is a 400 mile round trip to see one film.

Steve

[DB7]

Originally Posted by ChristineCB I'm dotty about this overseas market thi~g. Explain how film-makers "target overseas markets".

Importing an American actor is the most obvious method (and one used for decades) and today Working Title are probably the most obvious exponents by hiring Renee Zellweger, Kirsten Dunst, Andie MacDowell, Julia Roberts etc and giving them a major role that probably helps guarantee wide US distribution and subsequently recoup a major slice of the film's budget. On reflection Renee is something of an exception as she portrayed an English women whereas the rest have been visitors. Sometimes it works - sometimes it looks terribly contrived... and there's been a few dreadful accents too.

[D Cairns]

It's a big, complicated problem.

Fellowes is indeed five years out of date when he talks about films not getting distributed. The Fim Council has stopped investing in productiosn that don't have some kind of guaranteed distribution, which has taken care of that proble,. What it doesn't solve is the problem of films being made and distributed that nobody wants to see.

Loach makes films that generally do quite well -- he has an international reputation and audiences in Europe respond to his films more than they do here perhaps because in Britain we can see many of the scenes Loach depicts for ourselves for free, without buying tickets. A historical film of political conflict like THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY is an exception. I don't much enjoy Loach but he's a success story.

I think his imitators generally lack the talent and rigour to pull off what he attempts, and they don't have his reputation yet, so your Lynn Ramsays and Antonia Birds strike me as a much less sound prospect for investment.

The lack of support for Keillor and Davies is a cultural tragedy.

We do need more populist works too, works I'd like to be making myself, but it's hard to sell anything unfamilar to the boradcasters and funding bodies who mostly control British production. And anything commercial would HAVE to be original, since there's no recent tradition of commercial cinema that isn't played out.

What's insulting to the public is when a modest, fun success like LOCK STOCK is immediately followed by a spate of uninspired rip-offs, trunk jobs that couldn't get made before the first successful gangster film in years, and suddenly got themselves an unearned green light. Meanwhile I developed a horror film for five years, and had stars and money attached but could not complete the financial package because nobody wanted to take what they saw as a "risk" on a horror movie -- a genre that is always popular in America!

[MikeA]

Originally Posted by Steve Crook If it's got a good story and they put some heart and soul into the making of it then I'd prefer to see the films screened at the local Temperance Hall by the East Grungthorpe Film Appreciation Society. Much better than the latest lack of ideas to come out of Hollywood where they do yet another remake of an old British classic, stripping it of all subtlety in the process and where nobody really cares about their performances because they've all been paid in advance. Steve

Couldn't agree more Steve, and with your comments about 'learning things' and 'the emotional experience' in a previous post. I live in a small village and admit to being lazy (or is it just tired??) where it comes to travelling into town to watch films. I don't see many films in cinemas at all, much because of the multiplex syndrome. Genuine enthusiasts' efforts at screening classic and interesting titles are to be applauded and supported and I sometimes feel guilty I don't do more. In fact my village, which has a lot of 'arts' activity, might even be a good place to start a film club....what stops me? Time, and the sheer enormity of the effort involved in making it happen, even when there is a group of you. Not a good excuse, perhaps, but a reason.

[sippog]

My early experience of cinema was also "village hall" with a whirring projector and a break between reels. I also find it an effort to go to the cinema and often an alienating experience when I do go - due to the general bad manners and inconsiderate behaviour of modern audiences.

The good news is that it's now possible to recreate that "village hall feel" with relatively cheap resources. You can kit yourself out with a reasonably decent projector for around 500 quid now, hook up your dvd player, and start your own film club in your front room if so inclined. Maybe pool resources or ask for a modest contribution from your audience if you don't have the budget.

Unfortunately I live in a big city these days where you only speak to your neighbours twice a year - or in the event of a nuclear holocaust. But if I did live in a village, it's something I'd seriously consider.

Sippog

[Jack Gurney]

Originally Posted by DB7 Importing an American actor is the most obvious method (and one used for decades) and today Working Title are probably the most obvious exponents by hiring Renee Zellweger, Kirsten Dunst, Andie MacDowell, Julia Roberts etc and giving them a major role that probably helps guarantee wide US distribution and subsequently recoup a major slice of the film's budget. On reflection Renee is something of an exception as she portrayed an English women whereas the rest have been visitors. Sometimes it works - sometimes it looks terribly contrived... and there's been a few dreadful accents too.

Exactly....hiring an American is hardly a new trend, Hammer did it right from their first major success with THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (actually, they did it with FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE two years before) right up until they bowed out with TENNIS COURT in 1985. It was always considered that in order to sell your film to Americans, one had to have at least one Yank in there, although funnily enough, some of the rarest Brit horrors I own, such as BLUE BLOOD, WHAT BECAME OF JACK AND JILL, REVENGE and MUMSY, NANNY, SONNY AND GIRLY, which star no Americans at all, I could only get from old US cable stations, where they are screened regularly!! Which kind of negates the theory in some way.

However, I do feel that the reliance of Britain on America for inspiration has gone a shade too far, and that British filmmakers, like British jazz musicians in the 60s, should start finding their own voice again. For what it's worth, my life in the UK is complete and utter shit, and gets worse every day, but I just couldn't bring myself to go and live in America as long as I have aspirations to be a filmmaker.

Italy, Spain or Germany though, now they're different kettles of fish.

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by MikeA Couldn't agree more Steve, and with your comments about 'learning things' and 'the emotional experience' in a previous post. I live in a small village and admit to being lazy (or is it just tired??) where it comes to travelling into town to watch films. I don't see many films in cinemas at all, much because of the multiplex syndrome. Genuine enthusiasts' efforts at screening classic and interesting titles are to be applauded and supported and I sometimes feel guilty I don't do more. In fact my village, which has a lot of 'arts' activity, might even be a good place to start a film club....what stops me? Time, and the sheer enormity of the effort involved in making it happen, even when there is a group of you. Not a good excuse, perhaps, but a reason.

Check out groups like Flicks in the Sticks (great name). They mainly work in Hertfordshire & Shropshire but there could well be other groups like them.

They travel to small and outlying villages and set up to show a film in whatever venue is available, village hall, church, pub garden, wherever. They usually do them with a DVD projector, but it does project them onto a big screen so it's like being at a "real" cinema.

Or, if you can get the local arts group to do it themselves, so much the better. I know one lovely village in Somerset where that happens. We've even had a screening in the local church.

Steve

[penfold]

Originally Posted by Jack Gurney Exactly....hiring an American is hardly a new trend, Hammer did it right from their first major success with THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (actually, they did it with FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE two years before) right up until they bowed out with TENNIS COURT in 1985. .

Oh, it's been going on far longer than that... though initially it was US companies sending their stars over here for our locations...Florence Turner, 'The Vitagraph Girl', at the time that stars were leaving the East Coast studios in New Jersey for some orange grove outside of LA called Hollywood, came further East instead, and made some cracking films in the UK during WW1, for her own production company, with British star Henry Edwards. Her 1915 Far From The Madding Crowd I've not seen, but their 1916 rom-com East Is East - shot largely on location in the hopfields of Kent - is a gem.
Similarly using a combination of British locations with a US box-office draw was the 1913 Vitagraph version of The Pickwick Papers, filmed around Dickens' Rochester, with the great John Bunny in the title role. Bunny was the first US comic star....and Turner one of the first female stars, the first flowering of the phenomenon; before them, astors were uncredited on their films.

[Moor Larkin]

Originally Posted by penfold Oh, it's been going on far longer than that... though initially it was US companies sending their stars over here

And before that...... British stars over there:
Just one year older than Ellaline, Seymour had also begun his professional career at age sixteen and was already an accomplished performer with a successful tour of America behind him when the pair met. They married in 1893.

That same year, drawing upon his experiences in America, Seymour produced 'Under the Cloak', the first American-style theatre revue staged in London, whilst, in december, Ellaline opened at the Lyceum Theatre as the lead in Oscar Barrett's famously lavish version of the fairy pantomime 'Cinderella'.

In 1894 the couple crossed the Atlantic ...............Ellaline making her fisrt continental appearance at the Abbey Theatre in New York on April 30th of that year.

Stage Beauty

[Rob Compton]

Originally Posted by Moor Larkin And before that...... British stars over there: Just one year older than Ellaline, Seymour had also begun his professional career at age sixteen and was already an accomplished performer with a successful tour of America behind him when the pair met. They married in 1893. That same year, drawing upon his experiences in America, Seymour produced 'Under the Cloak', the first American-style theatre revue staged in London, whilst, in december, Ellaline opened at the Lyceum Theatre as the lead in Oscar Barrett's famously lavish version of the fairy pantomime 'Cinderella'. In 1894 the couple crossed the Atlantic ...............Ellaline making her fisrt continental appearance at the Abbey Theatre in New York on April 30th of that year. Stage Beauty

Interesting site, thank you, and not one I'd come across before. She was extraordinarily beautiful, wasn't she?

rgds
Rob

[Jack Gurney]

Originally Posted by penfold Oh, it's been going on far longer than that... though initially it was US companies sending their stars over here for our locations...Florence Turner, 'The Vitagraph Girl', at the time that stars were leaving the East Coast studios in New Jersey for some orange grove outside of LA called Hollywood, came further East instead, and made some cracking films in the UK during WW1, for her own production company, with British star Henry Edwards. Her 1915 Far From The Madding Crowd I've not seen, but their 1916 rom-com East Is East - shot largely on location in the hopfields of Kent - is a gem. Similarly using a combination of British locations with a US box-office draw was the 1913 Vitagraph version of The Pickwick Papers, filmed around Dickens' Rochester, with the great John Bunny in the title role. Bunny was the first US comic star....and Turner one of the first female stars, the first flowering of the phenomenon; before them, actors were uncredited on their films.

Absolutely, dear boy!! I tried to re-edit my post and add a bit of this info, particularly to do with locations, but the software gayed up on me. Bloody cafes, the den of Satan. Or should that be Stan?

[homeguard]

What a most interesting and informative Thread this was. It should be published and given to the UK Film Council and all schools. Brilliant. Thanks for an enjoyable half hour.
Regards,
HG

[Azanti]

I need to give this one some serious thought before responding with an essay of gargantuan quantity.

[homeguard]

As long as the gargantuan quantity reflects the magnificent quality of the opinion expressed before, you won't go far wrong old bean.
Respeeeeeeect.. (as they say these days) to the contributors.
Regards,
HG

[zulu]

" . . . the British go to see American movies." Why? The main reason is that British people are overworked, underpaid, overtaxed, and live incredibly stressful lives, so why on earth would your average British cinema-goer want to go and see something that reminds him/her of this awful reality? Like the early migrants to America, Hollywood movies offer modern Brits an escape from the harsh realities of the real world as well as offering hope for the future. The point here is that the British movie industry must try and offer a balance between entertainment and social comment in order to make these films palatable to your average movie-goer. What about marrying the cerebral nature of British films with the joie de vivre and happy endings of Hollywood . . . ?