Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 135)
TUESDAY 6 MAY 2003
MS GURINDER
CHADHA
Q120 Derek Wyatt: If it had not been
commercially successful here and you still had distribution overseas,
would they still have taken the £12 million?
Ms Chadha: The film was sold before
it came out here except in America. America sold after the box
office in this country because everyone was of the opinion that
no one would understand soccer in America. It was only after we
started getting the success here that in May at the Cannes Film
Festival about four or five American distributors wanted to buy
it.
Q121 Derek Wyatt: You keep mentioning
distribution. In every session we have had with different people,
it is distribution. Who settles the 75p in the pound? Is that
not a matter for the Competition Commission or the OFT? When did
anyone last look at the distribution pricing and so on?
Ms Chadha: That is the next project.
That is what I have to look at. It is just a given. I am only
entering into this myself now but I am sure the Hollywood studios
do not pay that kind of money. I am sure that there are different
deals going on with different people.
Q122 Derek Wyatt: Maybe we will ask.
We are going to LA in a couple of weeks' time. Maybe you can give
us a note as to what we could ask on your behalf without giving
away that we are asking on your behalf.
Ms Chadha: It is a very simple
question: what is the deal? I know from my investigations that
the Bollywood films that are shown now in certain multiplexes
in Feltham, Birmingham and so on—the Indian producers go
up with a print and say, "Okay, 50/50" and the cineplex
managers want that 50% because their cinemas are packed and the
distributors get 50. That is done on a one-to-one basis so there
are obviously some guidelines. That would be my main problem now:
how to work that out.
Q123 Michael Fabricant: It strikes
me you are not a producer; you are an entrepreneur and it seems
pretty sad that after so much history of producing movies in the
United Kingdom it still needs an entrepreneur's approach to get
a film to be a success. Are there any lessons to be learned that
you think could be a mechanism that people could adopt in future
and not have to go to the bottom of the learning curve to see
other films being a success?
Ms Chadha: We live at a time now
where it is all about marketing and a distributor will want to
look at a piece of work and say, "Am I prepared to spend
£1 million marketing this or not?" That is the reality
if you want to create a film industry that is about box office
income. I do believe that there are also some films that should
still be being made that are not necessarily going to be out there
to be box office hits. That is really important because we all
feed off those as well. Otherwise, we will end up with the situation
you have in Hollywood where the only films that get made are like
the one that made all that money a few months ago. It becomes
very formulaic. What we have in Britain is a very distinct, cultural
landscape. If audiences are invited in, they have a hook and will
take most subjects on if they are given in a particular way. It
is about looking at what your film poster is and can I see someone
spending all this money marketing it.
Q124 Michael Fabricant: Michael Kuhn
said last week that really we do not have an industry as such.
Perhaps you were here when I was talking to the previous witnesses.
Really, every individual movie is a jobbing issue and all the
rest of it. Do you think there is not enough razzmatazz in the
UK? Maybe we do not blow our own trumpets enough and maybe that
is the whole problem. We do not actually know how to be exciting
when we promote a movie.
Ms Chadha: My film was a success
because I saw what happened in East is East. Hopefully,
Beckham will spawn another five or 10 movies. It is quite
individual but we live and work in the shadow of Hollywood. It
is easy for a film maker to make a development deal with a Hollywood
company here because they know they are automatically going to
get distribution in the US and perhaps in so many other territories,
which means their films are going to get seen. These people have
the marketing budgets to put behind their movies.
Q125 Michael Fabricant: Is it just
because of population? Is that the only reason?
Ms Chadha: Yes, most people want
their films to be seen in America because the revenues are more.
I am sure Michael Kuhn explained that part of the problem is that
we do not generally have the amount of cinema going audiences
to sustain an industry in the way that Hollywood does. X Men
opened this weekend and it is 80-something million. The economies
are much smaller. However, we have to think internationally. That
is where our strength is. People want to see films from Britain.
We have a advantage because it is in English. People identify
with the British film culture, whether it is a period Jane Austen
or whether it is contemporary. I genuinely believe all of Europe
looks to British films around race and culture because they see
them as a reflection of what is happening in their own countries
in the years to come. One of the things I am going to discuss
next week in Cannes is a French producer who wants to buy the
rights of Bend it Like Beckham and make a film about a
young Muslim girl in Paris who idolises Saddam, as a way of dealing
with Parisian, Muslim, French stuff. Australia is a great territory
for British films, as is Europe. The lesson for me with Beckham
is that culturally, in the way Hollywood markets a particular
culture, we have a culture too that travels internationally.
Q126 Mr Flook: What is next? Is the
funding coming forward more easily and when?
Ms Chadha: I have been offered
two projects by Fox and Paramount studios. I am going to do a
project that I have been wanting to do for a while with Pathé
in Britain, doing a musical version of Pride and Prejudice,
a sort of British, Bollywood version. It is a big budget of £10
million or $18 million. The finance for that is coming from Pathé,
a tax equity fund and a presell to the US. I cannot say who it
is yet. I am able to do that because of the tax fund here. I want
it to qualify as a British film but it is set in India, England
and America. I am building a lot of the interior of the houses
of India here in Britain at Ealing Studios. Number one, it is
a nightmare to shoot in India anyway and, number two, it is easily
done. It is convenient for me. It works for me here in Britain.
I live in Britain and Ealing is a great place, so we are building
two of the main, big houses here. Most of our shooting takes place
here in England, with a little in India and it is basically songs
in India and America. The idea of someone taking a risk on an
$18 million a sort of Bollywood, British musical, Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice, is sweeter because of the tax equity
fund.
Q127 Mr Flook: When do you think
general release will be?
Ms Chadha: I am working on it
now so we start shooting in July. It will be ready next year.
Q128 Mr Bryant: You come across as
just about the least cynical person I have ever met in my life.
I suppose it could be said that putting "Beckham" in
the title, even though you are being very open and funny about
it, is slightly cynical. Do you think, in the process of getting
a British film into multiplexes around the world, you have to
develop some skills in cynicism?
Ms Chadha: I was going to be cynical
with Alan when he was banging the drum about Southall, where I
grew up. They are all very proud but they are all selling bootlegs
on their stalls in Southall Broadway. I am forever going down
Southall Broadway saying, "You know that is illegal"
and they say, "It is okay. You made a lot of money. Let us
make some too." It costs a lot of money to go to the cinema.
What is it? £7, £8, £9? £10 in Leicester Square.
People have to want to go. You have to give them something that
they want to see at the cinema, that they are not going to see
on television. One of the great benefits for British film making
right now is the fact that our television is slowly going down
the pan. We do not have all the great dramas that we used to have.
We do not have `must see' TV. We have one-offs here and there
but the time when we had fantastic drama series every Sunday night
and you did not want to go out and also on Wednesday night has
changed. That is why America has such a strong cinema going public
because they have crap TV. In terms of this country, if you want
the multiplex audience, you have to give them something that is
going to make people go out and spend £10.
Q129 Mr Bryant: I agree with you.
To be cynical myself, I suspect we are going to see lots of `must
see' television over the next year because we are starting a licence
fee renewal consideration process. I wonder sometimes whether
the whole process whereby somebody decides this plot will not
work with multiplexes because you cannot have Asian girls playing
football, or it has to fit into some set of stereotypes to get
the young mums or the old grannies or whatever, is not a bit too
cynical for a profoundly creative process.
Ms Chadha: It can be, yes. It
is that constant balance between whether you go for the formula
or the creativity. With Beckham, it was a struggle because
there are some parts of the film where it is a bit formulaic.
You need the happy ending for that kind of film, for that audience.
On the other hand, it is a film about a young, Indian girl with
no Hollywood stars in it. It is set in Hounslow, following her
life which you would not think was immediately commercial. It
is quite a subversive film about race and culture in Britain today.
Q130 Mr Bryant: That is not what
you put on the marketing.
Ms Chadha: Of course not but that
was my choice in balancing. If I wanted to go the whole way, I
could have made it about two English girls and cast one of the
actresses from Dawson's Creek to put on an English accent,
setting it in Tunbridge Wells, but that was not the film I wanted
to make. I wanted to make a film about my own adolescence and
about the nature of contemporary British society now, the way
I see it in west London. One has to marry creative choices with
marketing choices.
Chairman: Two English girls, in my view,
would not have worked because that does not evoke the universal
feeling which will sell your film in Japan as much as it will
in the United States. I do not believe that you are a cynic at
all; I believe that you are a businesswoman.
Q131 Mr Bryant: I was not saying
you were a cynic.
Ms Chadha: Hopefully now I do
not feel this problem because now I have made some money, but
I had a very lean period after Bhaji on the Beach. I did
not make a film for five years, not for want of trying. I tried
everything. Bhaji was perceived as a successful British
movie and it was because it was one of the few Channel 4 films
that made its money back. I could not get a film made and I almost
gave up. What I want to make a film about, what I perceive as
being interesting and the cultural nuances of what I think works
and does not work and the truth, is all about what is truthful.
If something is truthful, it does not matter if it is not your
experience. If it is truthful, people will appreciate that and
buy that. That truth that I have is not necessarily always seen
as valid to warrant spending £1 million on from a financier.
Most financiers are people who do not share the same experiences
as me and the same background as me. Part of it is about risk
and looking at something thinking: yes, that film will make it.
I do not know if that will work or not but it is trying to focus
on something that is going on in Britain now and we should push
that. I said to John Woodward in that meeting, "I am a British
director. You have to support me. Otherwise I cannot function.
Say this script is crap. I know it is not crap but there comes
a point where you have to support me as a director. Otherwise
I cannot function." I think it was that which rang true.
It is the directors that make the films. Of course the scripts
have to be good but the directors create the experience and make
it an enjoyable experience for the cinema. It is about vision.
One has to support directors that have vision, opinions and a
voice and something to say. I think that is the missing link.
Q132 Mr Doran: It strikes me that
your films are in a fairly long British tradition, very similar
to Ealing Films and the Bill Forsyth films in the seventies and
eighties and even Danny Boyle's early films. Particularly Bill
Forsyth and Danny Boyle went off to America and they were not
very successful so be careful. I was interested in what you said
about the finance and knocking on every door. Obviously the gestation
period for your film was a very long one. Do you feel that you
have any real muscle now?
Ms Chadha: Yes.
Q133 Mr Doran: Or are you still in
the hands of the money men?
Ms Chadha: No. Once you make a
film that makes money, you have muscle. I have learned what works
so hopefully I will put that into practice with my next film.
Q134 Mr Doran: One of the things
we have been told about British film makers, particularly breaking
into America, is that you virtually have to sell all of your rights,
the follow-on rights, the DVD and television rights as well, to
get the distribution rights. A lot of films may make it big but
they are totally undersold. Was that your experience and is it
likely to be your experience in the future?
Ms Chadha: Fox Searchlight did
not pay a lot of money for the film but I knew that they would
be a good home for the film. I knew they would know how to market
this film. They did The Full Monty. If the film was going
to work, I knew that they would have the expertise to make it
work. What we managed to do was negotiate some box office bonuses.
All of us, meaning me, the Film Council, all the financial investors,
gained from that. We were able to negotiate that because we were
a hot project. Unfortunately for most British films it is very
hard getting an American deal. Then it is very hard to get your
film out there and get someone to spend money on it, but again
the success of Beckham should open the way for more, if
you are hot on it. You need other people to think like me: okay;
that worked there. How can we make something that is going to
work there as well, which follows on from the same thing?
Q135 Chairman: Thank you. We have
learned a large number of lessons. How we can absorb them and
turn them into recommendations is our job but, if I may say so,
in very many ways, you have done your job and we are most grateful
to you.
Ms Chadha: Thank you. My pleasure.
I should say that I have also been given one of the Film Council
development slates. The purpose of that is to encourage new talent,
new voices, and I am commissioning other writers now. I have commissioned
one already. The idea for me is taking these people and fast tracking
them to think commercially, like me, but still holding on culturally
to what they are trying to do.
Chairman: It is a very remarkable thing
that a film maker has to do because a film-maker has to sell,
as it were, the first can of Coca Cola over and over again with
every product that he or she makes. Thank you very much.
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