Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80 - 99)

TUESDAY 6 MAY 2003

MS PAT TRUEMAN, MR JOHN HOUGH, MR ANDI REISS, MR JEFF ALLEN AND MR HUGH WHITTAKER

  Q80  Michael Fabricant: Michael Kuhn said last week that he thought we were a bit of a cottage industry. Would you agree with that?

  Mr Allen: No, I do not agree.

  Q81  Michael Fabricant: They are my words, not his, but that summarises it.

  Mr Allen: No. A cottage industry to me implies an industry that does not employ very many people or is stagnating in terms of its employment potential. I think it is fair to say that the creative industries as a whole, of which the film industry is only part, are growing and are an ever more evident part of our everyday life. Also something you need to bear in mind is that somehow people think that our industry is in neat little boxes called the film industry, commercials, television, pop promos, computer interactive games. All of those genres mix and intertwine with one another and are interdependent on each other and we service more than one market place and all of them are relevant and important to us. The same is true for the whole of the infrastructure that is in the United Kingdom. They cannot survive on any one market place for their livelihood, so if we weaken our base in terms of our ability to compete on feature films we can jeopardise ourselves for TV or for commercials. The BBC get the benefit of cheap freelance package prices because we have a film industry.

  Q82  Michael Fabricant: But do you have a film industry? The point that was being made and, in fact, was made to this Committee in 1996 when we last looked at it, is that there is no sustainable industry in the sense that individual films are made, individually financed and they are separate operations in themselves, whereas in the United States the film companies—well, I do not know have 100 different ideas, maybe 20 will get a green light, maybe two or three will be blockbusters but it is a continuing flow process, a bit like a factory, and there is no factory here.

  Mr Reiss: 1996 was probably in the middle of quite an inspirational time, and through bitter and volatile experience there were five or six big very successful blockbuster movies that came out of this country, starting with Shallow Grave moving through Trainspotting and ending up with The Full Monty through to Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. All of those films were hugely successful, all of them totally British apart from their funding, and unfortunately a lot of the talent from those films has flown the nest to more prosperous climes.

  Q83  Michael Fabricant: Why is that, do you think?

  Mr Reiss: Because we have not encouraged—the only director who has made a point of coming back is Danny Boyle and he has come back for a number of reasons but one is to come back and try and use his status that he had within Hollywood after Trainspotting to do something, but that is just one person.

  Q84  Michael Fabricant: But another big difference since 1996 was that in 1996 we made the recommendation for the changes in tax law which then took place in 1997 in Gordon Brown's first Budget, and I welcome that, but are you saying that has had a negligible effect?

  Mr Allen: Yes and no.

  Mr Reiss: It has not had an enormous effect to keep encouraging the talent to keep the momentum up. Because the industry has become more and more accessible to more and more film-makers, less and less money is being spent but there is more opportunity to make these films. However, those tax breaks are negligible, in a sense, to people who are at the lower end of even the lower end of low budget film making.

  Mr Allen: I would agree with that last point. However, we were also discussing prior to coming in here that we need the big budget American films, to name but a few—obviously French money has been important coming into the United Kingdom as well as German money recently as well—in order for us to be able to help as facilities companies the likes of my colleague here to get his film made. If we did not have that sort of biodiversity of funds coming in from different countries, whether they are attracted in because of different tax concessions that we give or not, then we could not help British film makers because we would not be here either. So there is this interdependency on each other for our mutual survival, if you like. But film making is completely international and has been for some time, and we are not a separate island from that. We are part of that and I think we are trying to protect two quite distinct things. We are trying to protect our culture and our ability to make indigenous films, on the one hand, and our ability to attract in foreign money to help sustain our own industry on the other, and you cannot dissociate the two because they are intrinsically linked to each other. The Americans come here because they can get some tax incentives but also they come here because they like to; it is a safe haven for them to work in by comparison to some other countries in the world. We had this told to us in those terms by Duncan Kenworthy, who basically said, "When we decide where we are going to make a film in Los Angeles, we first look at Los Angeles; then Canada because it is cheaper; and then the United Kingdom because you guys talk the same language", and because we have a past reputation in making films in the United Kingdom, and that is fundamentally important. We have a safe, reliable economy so that helps, but if we did not have that input and that money coming in from the US or France or Germany then we could not help or have the infrastructure to sustain our own film industry.

  Q85  Michael Fabricant: Would you have a film industry without TV? Jeff Allen talked about dependence on television; Pat Trueman in her introduction talked about training, most of which appears to be in television—BBC television in particular. Would there be a film industry in this country if we did not have television too?

  Mr Allen: Yes.

  Ms Trueman: Yes. I do not think you should feel too complacent about the BBC equalling training either these days. That is not going on nearly as much as it used to. Unfortunately, as we outlined in our basic submission, training is not the thing you think it is. It was 10-15 years ago and it is one of our huge concerns, and we would like to see far more investment in emerging directors because we do have a real concern about that, and the BBC is not doing half what it wants to do.

  Mr Reiss: Financial initiatives and commercially orientated projects are absolutely necessary to bring in what we need in order to expand and move on and help what we have as the next generation. Television and film to the industry are two completely different mediums. There are an equal number, if not ten times as many, film scripts that are coming through the European Film Production Fund, etc, than there are necessarily good television programmes. Television, unfortunately, is a little bit persuaded just to carry on cloning and British films are very different. Usually a British film is individual. If you think of a decent British film of last year, Bend it Like Beckham, it is quite unique and there are a lot more there sitting on the shelf waiting to bring it out. The two things have to be very different. The BBC need to initiate training; the Directors' Guild I think should be given X amount of money per year to initiate their own training schemes relying specifically on that money to proactivate directors' enthusiasm, and then the new Producers' Alliance, Skillset, PACT, etc, should also be given bits and pieces of money, but there should be a definitive realisation that TV and film are two different things.

  Mr Allen: There used to be what we called the studio system in years gone by which diminished which had a training system attached to it—

  Q86  Michael Fabricant: In the United Kingdom as well as the US?

  Mr Allen: Yes. That went away so that channel disappeared in terms of training, and then when the BBC and the commercial broadcasters divested themselves of large parts of their organisations they almost became content providers rather than programme makers per se in terms of every level of making the programme. A lot of the training remit went away that they performed before. Yes, the BBC does have certain departments and aspects of it that still deal with training, and they certainly are the best broadcaster in that respect, but even so it is tiny by comparison to what it used to be. They are not training the cameramen, for instance, of the future; that is entirely done in the private sector now. It is certainly not coming from the BBC or any other broadcaster for that matter, and I think our collective view is that we think that all of the broadcasters, the BBC included, are found wanting in terms of their support of British film. Yes, the BBC do put money still into British film; Channel 4 unfortunately as we all know have contracted in that area; but if you look at what the French broadcasters do by comparison with the British broadcasters, then it is by no means enough and comprehensive enough. They could certainly help in the area of distribution, for instance, which is a very key weakness in the United Kingdom. They certainly have the structure and the wherewithal to be able to do it. BBC Enterprises, for instance, can successfully sell and distribute its products to other countries, so why can it not distribute within the United Kingdom? They have the expertise there but it is basically not directed in all of the right ways.

  Q87  Derek Wyatt: I wonder if I could just entice Mr Hough to say something? If you were asked and you were writing our report, what would be your top three recommendations to try and enable the film industry of the United Kingdom—

  Mr Hough:—To flourish? Just as a preamble, I was here before at the previous meeting and I thought it was earlier than 1996, but in my top three I would like to see the recommending committee do something quite dramatic. In the years that have gone by since I was last here the tax benefit has been a helpful source, the formation of the Film Council has also been a great help, but I think the film industry needs something quite dramatic to reshape from its current situation. I am based at Pinewood Studios and I have been there for 18 years, and I have not seen the dramatic change that I would like to see in the film industry and mainly it comes down to distribution. When we are making films, it is not that difficult for an experienced practitioner like me to raise the money; it is paying it back that is difficult and it is what I have to comply with to do that. There is very little speculative money or situations available for speculative money here in this country. I would like to see something really radical like a state-run distribution outfit. I would like to see a studio state run that makes films, and in this country we have the biggest film studio in the world which is the BBC. It employs more people than Warner Bros, Fox and anybody else in Hollywood, and it has the infrastructure, and I would like us to do something really dramatic and form a film unit within the BBC—I know they have one at the moment but I do not consider it representative of what it could be—by experienced film practitioners and producers, and revolutionise the way the BBC makes films, using Lottery money. I would take the Lottery money away from the existing outlets, put it into this outfit, and I would make the BBC purchase a screen, one screen on every multiplex in Great Britain, and show the British films they make in these Multiplexes, and in that situation train people but learn that you have to make films that have an audience and promote the culture. That is what I would like to see happening.

  Q88  Derek Wyatt: You have raised some interesting issues there which I am sure my colleagues will come back on but I have other things to ask. If you want to do that sort of radical thinking, how often does the Directors' Guild meet the BBC?

  Ms Trueman: That varies.

  Q89  Derek Wyatt: Do you have a formal meeting where you see them once every quarter?

  Ms Trueman: No, there is nothing quite like that set up, but we do have a variety of meetings with all the broadcasters where we will discuss any matters that have arisen, though to be honest we have not met them to discuss that kind of issue for quite some time.

  Q90  Derek Wyatt: For instance, on the issues raised where you want greater access and so on, have you written to Greg Dyke; submitted papers? What is the relationship?

  Ms Trueman: The relationship is probably not as open as it should be. The Guild has avenues into the BBC and, indeed, all the broadcasters, as I say, but we have not discussed directly the role of the director and the things that John has just outlined with them—not recently no.

  Q91  Alan Keen: We have talked a little bit about training. If you are a 14 year-old in school and you are making one and a half minute films on video on your Mac Suite at home, where would you go? Where would your teachers start to recommend you go?

  Mr Allen: It depends, I think—

  Q92  Alan Keen: Where is the centre of excellence?

  Mr Allen:—On what discipline they want to go into basically.

  Q93  Alan Keen: Where are the centres of excellence, then?

  Mr Allen: In the United Kingdom. There is not one centre of excellence.

  Q94  Alan Keen: Why not?

  Mr Allen: Pass. I do not know.

  Q95  Alan Keen: Why is there not one? You are in it. You are the lobbyists for this.

  Mr Allen: Well, there are various universities and colleges that are set up specifically to deal with film that do certain tasks and, indeed, the industry itself takes people on directly, a bit like the old apprenticeship-type schemes in terms of people starting on the ground floor and working their way up. That still does happen but it is very ad hoc and, as I said, one of my other concerns in terms of training is that I think the Film Council and Skillset together have tried to put schemes in place to get new people into the industry but there is still this yawning gap of vocational training for people within the industry, particularly when you have this changing world into this overly used word "digital" now. The BBC have created this new platform for them to broadcast traditional programmes on, and it is the Government's intention for us all to go digital. That cannot happen without the private sector as well as the BBC. It is one of the things I have found most frustrating about the Communications Bill—that it did not seem to think about the infrastructure outside of the broadcasters that support broadcasters. We do have lots of debate with the BBC about training people, about new technology—

  Q96  Alan Keen: Why is it the BBC's role to do that?

  Mr Allen: I am just giving them as one example, I am not saying they are the only people. The British Society of Cinematographers, various bodies basically that represent various elements of the industry have training programmes, but they also have the limited resources to be able to do that. Most of it relies on the industry itself putting some money back into the industry. That, like any industry, works best when the industry is doing very well and at its worst when the industry is doing badly. People have less disposable income to put into training schemes so it flows like an ebb and tide, basically.

  Ms Trueman: With your original question about the 14 year-old in the bedroom, if they have ambitions to be a film director it is extremely difficult because most of the courses are post-graduate level.

  Q97  Alan Keen: Why is that?

  Ms Trueman: You tell me.

  Q98  Alan Keen: But you are in the trade. Do not throw it at us. You should be lobbying and fighting.

  Ms Trueman: Indeed, and that is one of the messages we want to give you today as well.

  Mr Reiss: Also, the reason why further and higher education has to broaden itself out is that there is not enough money and kids are coming out with £15,000 and £20,000 worth of debt so they need to be trained much more broadly until they are 25, 26, where they have to go and find either another bank loan to be more specific to go to a school like the National Film School or the London International Film School, and then have another year or possibly two years of intense directing training. So the education system is not being specific enough because there is not the money within that system.

  Mr Allen: Giving you another example at a slightly different level, and this is very individual to our particular company that we work for, but when we built our facility we built within it a theatre that we intended from day one to be able to use as a training centre for people, and we used that as our commitment to put some money back into the industry, and various bodies do use that facility for training on a weekly basis and we try to help them as much as we can to get people through, but we are not educators: we are a business trying to make money in a very competitive environment. We do not have people who teach; we rely on others to do that. So we can provide a facility for people to try and get hands on, but not necessarily for people to do the teaching itself. Likewise trying to get funding for additional equipment is impossible.

  Ms Trueman: We run various mentoring and observer schemes as well through the Guild.

  Q99  Alan Keen: I am not sure the Secretary of State for Culture would welcome the BBC putting up funding for filming that did not wash its face, as it were, because it is public money, it is our money, but let's just say there is a movement afoot that perhaps the BBC does not retain 100% of the licence fee. There is certainly a feeling that community television and radio maybe has 5% of the licence fee. In other words, if Ofcom were to take the money and only distribute 95% over three years to the BBC, then 90%, then 85% or whatever, what is it you would be bidding for to improve your lot or the lot of the film industry in the United Kingdom?

  Mr Allen: There already exist various training bodies on a regional basis that engage and attract young film makers. The biggest problem all of those regional training schemes have is funding. It is not the capacity to do more: it is the money to be able to do more—that is the stumbling block. They have people willing to give time and effort but they just do not have the funding to be able to do it.


 
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