SUBMISSION 45
Memorandum submitted by the Cine Guilds
of Great Britain
The Cine Guilds of Great Britain (CGGB) is an
organisation which brings together the major "craft"
Guilds of the British film industry, thereby representing in excess
of 1,500 highly qualified and highly respected practitioners in
their various fields. Its constituent (member) Guilds are:
| AMPS | The Association of Motion Picture Sound
| Sound Technicians and Editors |
| BFDG | British Film Designers Guild
| Set Designers |
| BSC | British Society of Cinematographers
| Lighting Cameramen/Directors of Photography
|
| GBCT | Guild of British Camera Technicians
| Camera Operators/Crew |
| GBFE | Guild of British Film Editors
| Film and Sound Editors |
| GLM | Guild of Location Managers
| Location Managers |
| GSAC | Guild of Stunt and Action Co-ordinators
| Stunt Co-ordinators |
Neither the Directors' Guild nor the Writers' Guild is eligible
for membership as both act as "trades unions" for their
members in some areas of activity, which is a specific disqualification
under the Constitution of the CGGB. We do, however, maintain regular
contact with the Production Guild, the New Producers' Alliance,
BECTU, Skillset and other film "craft" organisations,
as well as the DCMS itself and the serving Film Minister.
Sadly, despite our best efforts to initiate a dialogue with
the UK Film Council, our approaches have been rebuffed and we
have found that as an organisation we are consistently omitted
from mailings on topics relating to policy and development for
the UK film industry.
We are almost certainly not unique in this, but we consider
it particularly unfortunate because—as is clear from the
information above—the CGGB is the only organisation in the
UK whose members are working primarily, if not solely, in the
Motion Picture Industry, (as opposed to Television) and which
is therefore dedicated to making Feature Films comparable to and
competitive with those produced in the US. It is important to
note, however, that while in each instance the end result is a
film made by UK technicians working in or from the UK, the majority
of the funding for these projects comes from US sources, and therefore
they are not, financially, "British Films".
Membership of the various CGGB Constituent Guilds is based
on the quality of work produced for and seen by the viewing audiences
and the Guilds of the CGGB are actively involved in promoting
training for work in the industry. Between them, members of these
Guilds have thousands of years of experience in the industry;
they are all greatly concerned about the problems of the currently
ageing workforce, and the need to bring on new talent within their
specific fields.
A major problem in this area arises from the fact that the
members of a film unit work closely together for a limited period
of time, generally to very tight deadlines, and financially they
cannot afford to "carry passengers". Therefore a person
who is known by others on the team to be competent and who will
fit in with the rest of the team will inevitably be selected over
someone who is not known to anyone on the crew.
In our view it is essential to find ways of getting trainees
known to technicians and crews working in the business as early
as possible—preferably during their training period. The
CGGB—and its member Guilds—have proposed two ways
of achieving this:
— more funding for proper "trainee" placements
on crews—as provided by schemes such as FT2 and the SIF
Network; and
— more working professionals getting involved in
the training courses.
The first is simple to achieve, in that the procedures are
already in place, but the funding needs to be expanded.
The second is more difficult; it involves persuading the
training providers (the colleges) to make use of the skills and
experience of the (in particular) Guild members who are willing,
anxious and indeed almost desperate to pass on their accumulated
knowledge and skills to a new generation of film professionals.
They (the Guilds) recognise that this almost certainly means "training
the trainers" and supporting short courses to enable the
professionals working in the industry to be more effective as
teachers.
Most of these professionals would not wish to become full-time
teachers—and indeed it would not be desirable that they
should. But more interaction between the working industry and
the training providers would help to ensure that students graduating
have the necessary skills to actually work alongside others already
in the industry—and also that those students are less "unknown
quantities" than is inevitably the case at present.
In furtherance of the second aim the CGGB has recently (11
June) met with a director of the developers of the new Studio
at Leavesden, in Hertfordshire, at the request of DCMS, to discuss
incorporating into their plans the necessary elements that would
be required for this studio development to become a primary Centre
of Excellence—a "Royal Academy"—for the
UK Motion Picture Industry. A copy of a letter dated 26 March
2003 sent to the then Minister for Film outlining this approach
is attached to this submission.
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