Examination of Witnesses (Questions 421
- 438)
TUESDAY 10 JUNE 2003
MS DINAH
CAINE, MS
KATE O'CONNOR,
MR ROGER
CRITTENDEN, MR
IAN MCGARRY
AND MR
ANDY PRODGER
Q421 Rosemary McKenna: I have a particular
interest in education and training of all kinds. When we were
in the United States, great praise was given to the skills of
the people in the British film industry, particularly the technical
skills, such as those of the technicians. They really very much
appreciated that. However, I am concerned about how people get
into training and into the business once they have been trained,
and how the information gets out there throughout the UK, not
just in London.
Ms Caine: Perhaps we could answer
that question from the Skillset perspective. Kate O'Connor will
talk about skills for the media and the careers advisory service.
Ms O'Connor: How we get information
out to people about careers in the media is a big issue. Two years
ago, Skillset set up a careers information advice and guidance
service called Skills for Media. This crosses all the skills and
jobs in all the audiovisual industries, including film and obviously
including television and the new digital media forms. That information
is sent to schools, colleagues and universities as well as to
people in the industry, through websites, e-mail, telephone help
line and one-to-one advisory services and sessions. We have the
infrastructure in place. We have to build on that. Obviously,
we need to make sure that we really are getting the information
out there about film skills and the huge range of those skills
and opportunities for very different people from very different
backgrounds. That is one of our priorities. We will be tackling
that with the Film Council.
Ms Caine: Specifically in terms
of Scotland, Skills for Media Scotland launches on 4 August. We
have plans in place to launch a similar service for Wales. Those
will tie in with Career Scotland and Career Wales and so on. I
hope that answers your question.
Q422 Ms McKenna: It recognises that
there is a problem and addresses that?
Ms Caine: Absolutely.
Q423 Ms McKenna: It was suggested
to us in the USA that even once people were trained, it is extremely
difficult to get into the business. It was suggested by someone
that it was a matter of who you know.
Ms Caine: I think it is true to
say that, particularly in the production parts of the industry
where freelancing is so high, at 90%, the little black book and
who you know is very important. However, having said that, I think
the film industry, and particularly the production sector, has
very much taken this issue seriously; it has introduced the first
voluntary levy across any industry. That money is being used to
support a range of training provision. Specifically in answer
to your question, some of the most important features are in the
structured new entrants training where people are recruited because
of their talent by people from the industry and they are then
placed in a whole range of productions. They therefore meet people
from the industry; they network and develop those contacts. That
is has been very important in terms of targeting women for non-technical
areas and also people from ethnic minorities.
Q424 Ms McKenna: Are the trade unions
concerned about the fact, and again it is anecdotal but I have
also heard it, that people have to do some voluntary work with
an organisation, say for sound recording, that kind of thing?
Mr McGarry: It is an area largely
outside our knowledge. The only union representative this afternoon
is Equity, which represents the actors and performers, and for
that matter the stunt men, but not the technicians. I understand
BECTU was not able to send somebody today. That question is more
directly aimed at them but could I take advantage of it, as it
were, because I am sure Dinah would not mind me mentioning this.
I think there is one area where there is a deficiency in the provision
of training, and that is in relation to the people we represent.
Actors do not normally train specifically to work in the film
industry. They train to work in the theatre, television and anywhere
else that they can. I think there is a deficiency in the attention
paid to the special requirements of actors working in the audiovisual
industries on camera as opposed to the skills they would normally
concentrate on when at drama school, one of which is to be able
to be heard in the back row of the upper circle of a theatre.
The techniques for doing a sensitive scene close to a camera are
somewhat different. Donald Sinden once told me there was no difference,
but he is about the only actor I know who would say that. Normally
actors believe there is a significant difference and the industry
really has not addressed that. By the industry, I mean not only
films but television. We are looking to the industry to try and
do something about that.
Q425 Ms McKenna: Some of our classical
actors have managed it without any difficulty.
Mr McGarry: I hope that when people
in the United States were praising the technical skills here,
they recognised also the depth, range and quality of the acting
talent. I do believe that talent base does attract inward investment
here in a very big way.
Ms Caine: May I take this opportunity
to reassure Ian McGarry and to further answer your question? With
the Film Council, we have undertaken very significant research
to look at all the skills and talent needs within the film industry.
That has been very much in discussion with the industry. This
is an area that was flagged. We are currently working with the
Film Council on developing a strategy and an action plan which
will both look at increasing investment for skills and at targeting
that investment into areas of need. That will be launched in September.
Ms O'Connor: If I may pick up
on that, who you know is an issue of concern to the industry.
It has been picked up by the Film Skills Action Group, which Stewart
Till has chaired. We definitely are now moving to a different
basis and that is not who you know but what you know and what
you can do in order to work in the industry. Sometimes that requires
structures around training, career routes, opportunities and progression
within the industry. That can be problematic because it is an
industry that has not traditionally had some of those structures
like formal qualifications and set training courses. Obviously,
there is a difficulty in terms of the freelance nature of the
workforce to try and organise and deliver training to individuals
who work across companies and productions.
Mr Crittenden: I would like to
add that in the National Film and Television School we found that
once we make the talent visible, the industry has a tremendous
appetite to meet that talent and to engage with it. I would also
underline Ian McGarry's point; with the films we make through
the courses at the National Film and Television School, the appetite
of young actors especially to get in front of the cameras is extraordinary.
That is partly because, as Ian says, in the drama schools they
do not get that training.
Q426 Ms McKenna: Can I move to a
different subject? I am delighted to see there are a few women
here this afternoon because throughout our inquiry very few women
have come before the Committee. That is has been quite stark here
but in the USA it was amazing. There was only one senior woman
executive who came to speak to us; it was predominantly male.
What are you doing to change that? The Women in Film and Television
have submitted evidence but what are you doing to change that?
Ms Caine: Firstly, we are working
very hard to produce up-to-date, reliable, year-on-year statistics
as to exactly who is working in the film industry and what the
breakdown is both in terms of gender and ethnicity and disability.
That is actually harder than it sounds because of the fluidity
but we are working very hard to do that and we think we have now
achieved a methodology, which we are planning at the moment, that
will do that. That is important because information is key. In
fact, in some areas of course women are in the majority: make-up,
hair and so forth. In other areas, those about which I think Women
in Film and Television were particularly talking, craft and technical
areas, then there is a significant minority of women. In other
areas, I think we have seen some quite positive developments over
the past few years.
Q427 Ms McKenna: We saw that picture
throughout industry 20 years ago, but that was 20 years ago. Today
we should have a lot more women in senior management.
Ms Caine: Absolutely. What are
we doing about it? We are working with Women in Film and Television
to develop strategies that address each of those particular areas.
If I could talk about one, craft and technical and going back
to those structured new entrants schemes we talking about and
in which we invest, they have targets for the recruitment of women
into those grades basically. Those have been very successful in
bringing women through. The issue, of course, is the level of
investment, the numbers that are being trained, because that has
to have some calibration to the numbers of opportunities within
the industry. We can see ways in which it can be addressed positively.
It is a question of harnessing the right investment and the support
of industry.
Q428 Ms McKenna: Gurinder Chadha
is certainly a superb example of a woman who has achieved but
at great cost. She really had to work incredibly hard.
Ms Caine: Times have changed,
have they not? I share your view of the American industry, from
my experience of meeting with them. If you were to go to the Skillset
award ceremonies each year, I think you would be hugely encouraged
not only by the number of women but by the number of young people
and the number of people from ethnic minorities who are coming
through without knowing anybody in the industry and who are able
to carve out careers for themselves and they are offering a great
deal.
Q429 Michael Fabricant: I am sorry
that Roger Bolton is not here from BECTU. Apparently he missed
his train but I was going to tell him how well respected BECTU
is over in the US. There is a trade union which can act where
there are problems but generally there are not problems. The unions,
including UK Equity, are far more flexible than those in the United
States. Earlier on, I was talking about the arty-fartiness in
the United States possibly of British film makers or, to put it
perhaps in a more polite way, the unwillingness to regard the
film industry as an industry and to make a financial return. I
wonder if Roger Crittenden would like to talk about training at
the National Film and Television School. As well as talking about
the technical crafts and skills that are needed, do you provide
any sort of background on the commercial side of making movies
and do you try and encourage people on occasion to make a block
buster?
Mr Crittenden: Yes, we certainly
do. For instance, the producing course at the National which is
widely admired concentrates on the commercial side, on the whole
gamut from development through to exhibition. The rest of the
students, since they collaborate together, learn within the context
of that producing course and that is a main plank in the way we
work. What we find interesting is that sometimes whole groups
of graduates, including the producers, will go out and make projects
together. Their attitude to the market place is part of what informs
the kind of projects they develop and pursue. I think we can do
more but at the same time it is a very difficult balance to achieve
with reference to what I heard earlier this afternoon about culture
and the commercial. I was in Cannes. I met the head of the Danish
Film Institute who pointed out to me that the film Open Hearts
which has just been playing at The Curzon, Soho, made by Suzanne
Bier, which is certainly not a film which you would immediately
think was a big, commercial film, had more than 500,000 entrants
at the Danish box office, which is one in 10. If that happened
to a British movie of modest proportions, it would certainly be
very commercially successful. Suzanne was given a place at our
school at the same time as being given a place at the Danish school.
She chose the Danish school because it was free and that addresses
for me a whole other aspect of how we get the right talent, train
it well and make the movies that should be made. We have to charge
a fee. It is very difficult for people to make the commitment.
We do not think at the National that we are reaching the whole
community. We raise scholarships but there is still an inhibition
in large parts of the community in terms of applying to us because
people have to think about the debt and spending eight or more
thousand pounds on the fees and living for two years is a heavy
investment. The Danish school has no fees. They pay them a stipend
and the people who go through there represent the whole Danish
community. The whole Dogme initiative came from people who were
certainly not rich kids. It was initiated in the School.
Q430 Michael Fabricant: The very
first visit we made in the States last week—if we are yawning
it is not because of the lack of excitement of the evidence; it
is because certainly I am still very jet lagged—was to the
University of Southern California, which was very pleasant for
me because it is my old alma mater where I did most of
my PhD. They of course have a film school but unlike your own
it is part of a University of Southern California degree. Without
getting into the whole discussion of tuition fees, at least in
the United Kingdom we do offer a loan scheme. Presumably the National
Film and Television School would not have access to that because
you are not doing a degree if it is a two year course?
Mr Crittenden: We are doing a
degree. It is an MA.
Q431 Michael Fabricant: Are those
sorts of grants available?
Mr Crittenden: No. Career development
loans are but that is it.
Q432 Michael Fabricant: Could you
explain about the career development loans? Could you explain
a little more how many students go through each year, to give
us a feeling for the order of magnitude and impact and strength
that the school has as a provider of skills and skill sets within
the industry?
Mr Crittenden: We take 60 students
a year on the two year MA course across 10 specialisations. It
is basically a cohort of six in each area. That is writing, producing,
directing, documentary editing, camera, design, sound, composing
music for film and animation. It is a very intense two year course
for a small group of people.
Q433 Michael Fabricant: A very small
group of people. Could I ask everyone generally what is the experience
in the United Kingdom? I have a background in journalism and there
are journalism courses. Are there other good film courses as well
as your own in the United Kingdom? How many people are going through
in total each year?
Ms O'Connor: We do not know the
answer to the last part of that question in terms of exactly how
many students are studying film courses. We know only part of
the answer to the first question, are they good courses, because
there are just under 1,000 undergraduate courses aimed at film
and just over 200 postgraduate courses aimed at film. Of those,
the majority will absolutely not be aimed at training or producing
people to work in the industry. They are theoretical, academic
studies of the media. It is not always tremendously clear what
course is doing what. It is quite often not clear for the students,
for the employers and for the funders who tend to be those two
groups of people. One of the things that we are discussing with
the industry through the Film Skills Action Group is to identify
a way in which we can identify those practical film production
courses, either at undergraduate or postgraduate level, set out
a very clear statement from the industry which says, "This
is what we need to have in these courses", whatever the specialism
of the course, clearly in the commercial aspects of working in
the business, and kitemark or approve those courses that meet
industry need. That does two things. That says, one, this is what
the aim of this course is about, amongst the hundreds of other
courses that are doing different things and, two, it allows us
all to think about targeting resources to those quite often costly
production courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level and
the kind of support that needs to be harnessed from the public
purse and also support from the industry in kind, in equipment
and in delivering these courses and making them excellent.
Q434 Michael Fabricant: The BBC told
us a month ago, when I was asking them whether or not they spend
more or less money, they are not spending any less money on training.
What they did not make clear at the time was how much of it is
on film production rather than on video production, which is a
very different sort of technique. Their total budget on training
included radio as well. What, in your experience, is the role
of the BBC? Is it an important role? They spend £10 million
a year on producing films but on the training side are they still
as important as they were 20 or 30 years ago when there was a
BBC film unit, for example?
Ms Caine: Obviously, as you rightly
say, the industry has changed. Firstly, in terms of a large number
of people who work in the film industry, they do not just work
in the film industry. They will work in higher television drama,
commercials and film. The issue therefore becomes are the broadcasters
contributing to supporting developing that pool of talent and
skill. The answer to that I suppose is yes, but we are still working
on understanding. Skillset has been charged by the Secretary of
State to set up a task force which is reporting to Ofcom on its
responsibilities regarding training and how it is going to regulate
the licence holders. Part of the work we are doing is trying to
set up a common methodology which allows us to precisely assess
what investment is being made in the same way across all of those
licence holders where it is being made and that will help us to
understand whether or not people are playing their part in terms
of the levels of investment to support the level of reliance on
parts of the production chain. However, it is important to say
that for the Film and Television School, for example, the broadcasters
invest significantly. It is important to say that through Skilllset
they invest significantly and we use broadcast investment and
film investment to run some of these new entrance courses we were
talking about. It is one of the areas where I would say the broadcasting
industry and the film industry is starting to work together in
partnership to address where the synergies are but also where
the differences are.
Q435 Michael Fabricant: Are enough
people now going through training to sustain the British film
industry for the future?
Ms Caine: It is a brilliant question
because obviously there would not be a British film industry if
it was not for the creativity, the skills and the talent of the
people who work in it. Therefore, logic dictates that it has to
be calibrated in a way that enables sustainability, growth and
competitiveness. The strategy that we are about to produce with
the Film Council in September will very much address these questions
and will start to address areas where we feel there are gaps,
where there are shortages, and areas where focus is needed to
be given. It is very hard, until we start to get the research
absolutely spot on, to be able to answer that question absolutely
precisely. All I can say is we are heading in the right direction.
Q436 Derek Wyatt: It seems to me
that the University of Spoilt Children in Southern California
was for the big studios so that the undergraduates and graduates
would definitely have the legacy from the big studios. The University
for Children of Low Ability, sometimes called the University of
California, Los Angeles, deals with the independent film producer
training courses, which is quite an interesting differentiation,
as it was explained to us. Would it be more sensible for the government
to put a tender document out and say, "We just want one university
centre of excellence for film, both at undergraduate, postgraduate
and post-postgraduate" and just get on with it? In other
words, Shepperton, Pinewood and whatever would be closer connected
to a university like Brunel or Reading or Oxford or something
and really that is what is missing. We need a thunderbolt. We
do not want to be messing around at the edges. We want to get
this resolved.
Ms O'Connor: The answer to that
is something that the industry has been discussing. It is probably
not one centre of excellence but a network of centres of excellence
that either are placed around the UK so that we ensure access
to training of the highest quality, but also we cover the bases
in terms of the skills required and the different job requirements
in the industry. We might need to look at, for example, a business
centre of excellence or we might need to have a centre of excellence
that is specialising in some more of the craft and technical roles
as opposed to some of the more creative roles. We are now looking
exactly at that concept of establishing centres of excellence
where there are real economies of scale in terms of funding and
targeting support, but it is plural rather than singular.
Mr Crittenden: You need a multitude
of institutions because otherwise the cream is not going to rise
to the top. As Sir Alan Parker put it in his speech, having a
National Film and Television School which is at the centre of
that strategy is the right approach. Most European countries have
a national institution which takes people from other training,
certainly at undergraduate level, and that works effectively.
Going back one step, we at the National do a careful analysis
each year of which feeder institutions have presented good candidates.
We develop relations with those institutions where we can see
that good training is taking place, because obviously the National
represents an extraordinary investment by government and industry.
Therefore, we have to find the right talent to give that benefit
to.
Ms O'Connor: Sometimes opportunities
and talent are going to come from the further education college
sector, not just from universities and higher education. That
is something that we want to be sure is part of our thinking around
centres of excellence and screen academies generally.
Q437 Rosemary McKenna: Do any of
your organisations take advantage of the modern apprenticeships?
Ms O'Connor: Modern apprenticeship
take-up in the film industry has not been high, but we have modern
apprentices in areas like some of the facility sectors. Some of
the equipment hire and facilities companies offer modern apprenticeships
for lighting electricians and some of those technical grades.
This is something we really want to promote more. There are a
couple of barriers to that though. One is a relatively low funding
tariff, particularly for older apprentices, and there tends to
be no funding whatsoever for over 25 year olds under the modern
apprenticeship scheme. That is a big issue for the industry in
terms of its recruitment.
Q438 Rosemary McKenna: New Deal?
Ms Caine: That is an area where
the Committee could help us because the National Skills Strategy
for England is coming out at the end of this month. Wales and
Scotland have lifted the cap on age for modern apprentices which
has made a real difference to take-up but in England that does
create a significant barrier in our industry.
Derek Wyatt: I am looking to have a cinema
summit in my constituency in three weeks. It is the further education
college that has said, "We will help you build the community
cinema because we want to do the studies, nine to five, and then
allow community use at five to 10", so I was interested that
you mentioned further education.
Chairman: On that positive note, thank
you very much indeed. It has been a great pleasure to have you
here.
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