BBC counters film criticism

[DB7]

John Plunkett

http://film.guardian.co.uk/

December 20, 2004



The BBC has hit back at accusations that it is not supporting British film by screening just three homegrown movies this Christmas.

It claimed that the analysis by independent producers' group Pact was "riddled with errors and misleading information".



The corporation was responding to allegations by Pact that just three of the 2,000 films being showed over the two-week festive season were British.



A spokesman accused Pact of taking the number of British films it was showing out of context, and said it was broadcasting five British film premieres over the full Christmas and New Year period.



Tim Willis, the director of film at Pact, said it was important for the BBC to screen British films "as a key part of its offering as a public service broadcaster".



Pact said the corporation should "fully recognise its responsibility to support British film, something it manifestly fails to do. The BBC continues to show hundreds of American films despite there being a wealth of British films available."



The BBC also said it was untrue that Alan Yentob had rebuffed a meeting to discuss the issue, and said the BBC's creative director had met the Pact chief executive, John McVay, on October 20. Pact representatives are due to attend the next meeting of the BBC Film Board in the new year.



It said five premieres of British movies (three of which are BBC funded) have been given prime slots over Christmas.



"Pact's decision to exclude holiday monday, holiday Tuesday and New Year's Day from their calculations suits their agenda but does not reflect the fact that these are some of the most high profile slots of the year," said the BBC spokesman.



"These premieres are in addition to a season of 15 British films entitled 'True Brits', a John Mills season of five films coupled with a documentary about his life and the terrestrial premiere of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This is significantly more British film that any other broadcaster and shows the BBC's commitment to UK film."



The corporation said it recognised Pact had a role to play in British film and representing independent producers.



The BBC's UK film premieres this Christmas include Bend It Like Beckham, Chocolat, I Capture the Castle, The Mother and Stage Beauty, which aired on BBC2 on Saturday. All of the films had UK financial backing, three of them from the BBC. The BBC's most high profile premiere, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on Christmas Day, was filmed in the UK with a British cast but was funded with American money.

[Rob Compton]

Interesting that this has an emphasis on film premieres! What about the massive back-catalogue of British films? Those from the pre 1960 era get hardly a look in as those from the 1990s and after 2000. The point which is clearly not being grasped by the BBC, and others, is that since the demise of the much loved Carlton Cinema, no-one is catering for this audience at all. :mad:



Why not fill a digital channel with 24 hour showings of British films from the archives? Cheap, and I suspect would become very popular viewing for sections of the population.



rgds

Rob

[mysteriesofedgarwallace]

</div><div class='quotemain'>Rob Compton:

Interesting that this has an emphasis on film premieres! What about the massive back-catalogue of British films? Those from the pre 1960 era get hardly a look in as those from the 1990s and after 2000. The point which is clearly not being grasped by the BBC, and others, is that since the demise of the much loved Carlton Cinema, no-one is catering for this audience at all. :mad:



Why not fill a digital channel with 24 hour showings of British films from the archives? Cheap, and I suspect would become very popular viewing for sections of the population.



rgds

Rob [/b]

I agree, however, they don't seem to be interested.

It seems to me that the only 50's and 60's films that are shown are those which have achieved 'classic' status. (and then only those shot in colour)



In recent years, since the demise of the old Bravo, there are less and less B&W films from the 50's and 60's shown.



I guess anyone contemplating this will think "well if Bravo and Carlton Cinema couldn't sustain it, how can we?"

[Dolly Bantree]

Quite agree with all of the above! They could easily fill up some programme time with a few good b&w films. God knows why they don't. A small example for you - I usually go on hols with family at Xmas (Spain) - yes I know! - and there is a cable channel on the TV in the hotel rooms showing TCM films. I can guarantee that loads of people watch the afternoon classic film on TCM. These are mostly British and on at the same time every day. Depending on the film it's sometimes a great topic of conversation later on. I no longer have any idea what I pay a licence fee for. (Don't get me started on that one!). To me it seems that the bbc re-run the same old stuff over and over again - agreeing with RobCompton - there is a huge back catalogue of films they could run.

[Peter Carter]

British cinema is never going to come back properly unless some radicial action is taken.

I doubt we'd have much a TV industry today if a high degree of regulation hadn't been maintained.



We should have a publically supported body that owns studios, distributes and promotes, and owns some of the multiplexs. Either the BBC's remit should be widened to do this, or another body should be set up.



Either way the current situation is unacceptable.

[glyn horton]

Slightly off topic but before Christmas I made my annual shopping trip to London and having a look at the films section of Foyle's bookshop I noticed that there seem to be more books about the 1920s-1960s period of British filmmaking than ever before, not counting guides on directors and star biographies.

You can read studies of these films, look at stills from them but you can't actually SEE them!

[sanndevil]

I've been having my usual moan to the BBC about their film programming, and I actually received a written reply just before Christmas.



Basically, they are saying that they have commissioned a film on the history of British Cinema to be shown initially on BBC4 and are 'developing a [new cinema] series for BBC2' but they declined to comment further, probably and understandably for commercial reasons.



Obviously with the huge lead time in development, don't expect to see anything until the Autumn at the earliest would be my bet.



Cheers

Nigel

[deckard]

There has been much discussion on this forum over the past year about the Beeb screening(or lack of!) classic British film. I have mentioned before if us stalwart members of this forum should set up some form of group to lobby the BBC to give more airtime to aforesaid films, we all know their archive is huge and should be shared with enthusiastic British film lovers instead of gathering dust in some basement somewhere within the Beeb's hallowed halls. If anybody has any ideas, I for one would be glad to hear 'em! Regards, Decks. P.S. I'm not sure if it's politically correct if this forum to do anything like that, but it's getting to the point where something has to be done!!

[Marky B]

I agree,Decks. Considering the inane crap we do get on television,opening up the vaults on British classics (pre 1970) for say afternoon watching might get me to watch the box again. I am sick of antique programmes,makeover programmes,Doctors (is that bland or what?)etc.

Sign me up,Decks.

Ta Ta

Marky B thumbs_u

[deckard]

Thanks Marky mate, I'll start a new thread to see if anyone else wants to, at least think of a plan of action( can you think of anything DB7?). I don't suppose it'll have any effect on the Beeb though.....but at least we're trying something!! thumbs_u Regards, Decks.

[paulsroom]

Originally posted by Dolly Bantree@Dec 22 2004, 04:20 PM

A small example for you - I usually go on hols with family at Xmas (Spain) - yes I know! - and there is a cable channel on the TV in the hotel rooms showing TCM films.

Yes, I'm amazed! I email a friend in Brazil and he's seen some British films on cable tv there that have never had a showing on British tv! The BBC and Independent tv channels do us a great disservice by not showing films of the past that are not necessarilly the ones everyone remembers or quotes in popular guides.

[Gibbie]

Originally posted by paulsroom@Apr 14 2005, 12:30 PM

Yes, I'm amazed! I email a friend in Brazil and he's seen some British films on cable tv there that have never had a showing on British tv! The BBC and Independent tv channels do us a great disservice by not showing films of the past that are not necessarilly the ones everyone remembers or quotes in popular guides.

<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

The problem with the media mogul barons is that they usually don't know good art and how to serve the public. They know cash flow. A Hollywood writer confessed this to me once and detailed his frustration at the whole thing. And, he was a veteran. In the past, there were a few who got it.



A good example of this mentality is ...

Here in Indianapolis, we had an oldies radio station which had very high ratings and then all of a sudden the owners made a complete format change and followed a new format coming out of Canada called Jack radio. Their motto is , we play what we want. When I saw the billboard, I was surprised that it didn't include a hand gesture.



Hollywood tend to make movies for themselves - how come there are so many gangster films! [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ermm.gif[/img]



Indy radio is now completely overun by 55 year old teenage boys, who want to hear their favorite tunes from the 70s. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/no.gif[/img]



And, it appears that BBC and the "some animals are more equal than others" film leadership in the UK only want what they think is relevant to their agenda. Unfortuantely, that means bad entertainment. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif[/img]



Oh by the way, is our new studio built yet?

[paulsroom]

Originally posted by Gibbie@Apr 14 2005, 12:47 PM

A good example of this mentality is ...

Here in Indianapolis, we had an oldies radio station which had very high ratings and then all of a sudden the owners made a complete format change and followed a new format coming out of Canada called Jack radio. Their motto is , we play what we want.

I think that the new BBC7 digital radio station is great, because it broadcasts all the old programmes that I love - ones that I was around for and those when I hadn't been born at the time.



I can't understand why they can't follow that policy into their new digital tv channels. Most of the programmes on these are repeat programmes from BBC1 and BBC2. That seems completely pointless and a total waste of money - I thought they were trying to cut costs!

[Wetherby Pond]

Originally posted by paulsroom@Apr 15 2005, 09:22 AM

I can't understand why they can't follow that policy into their new digital tv channels. Most of the programmes on these are repeat programmes from BBC1 and BBC2. That seems completely pointless and a total waste of money - I thought they were trying to cut costs!

<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

It's hard to cut costs when the budget is rock bottom to begin with - BBC3's annual budget is a whisker under £100 million, and BBC4's, I suspect, is a fair bit less. So money that would fund a single Hollywood blockbuster is supposed to subsidise a whole TV channel for a year.



I also suspect there are all sorts of convoluted rights issues at play behind the scenes - there usually are in these scenarios, and they're generally more complicated (and expensive) for TV than for radio.



And given this, I don't think they do too bad a job. In the case of BBC4 in particular, these "repeat programmes from BBC1 and BBC2" tend more often than not to be hard-to-find unavailable-on-video rarities (especially when they do seasons devoted to a single writer), and they have a much more adventurous programming policy when it comes to film. And I've just glanced at the current listings and see that they're currently devoting six hours of airtime to the history of British animation - which is exactly the kind of thing they should be doing.

[paulsroom]

Originally posted by Wetherby Pond@Apr 18 2005, 06:00 PM

they're currently devoting six hours of airtime to the history of British animation - which is exactly the kind of thing they should be doing.

Yes, this is a brilliant idea and I've seen the first two sections and they're absolutely right in making the programme about British animation, since a lot of animation is usually foreign (not that I'm complaining about that, though). This is the type of programming that is what BBC4 should be about, but I still have to say that it falls down occasionally.



What I thought was even better was that although they had the main programme showing clips of different animations, they then followed that with an hour of full length films. I was very curious to note that two of the films in the first programme of these full length showings, were identified as having been thought lost - but then found! I wonder how more such films are 'lost'.

[Gibbie]

This is one of those moments, I wish George Orwell was around to write an essay!



I wonder what he would say about the "Ministry of Provocation" and its double-speak?