Professional Documents
Culture Documents
G 322 The British Filmindustry
G 322 The British Filmindustry
Study Notes
Unit G322 Section B
Audiences and Institutions
Part 3
The British Film Industry
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Q.1 Why do you think 3D takings went down when the number and variety
of 3D films increased in 2011?
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The UK remains the third largest consumer market for film in the world,
worth 4 billion or 7% of global revenues. Cinema going remains robust but the decline in
revenues from DVD sales represents a major challenge for the industry. UK films, including
co-productions, accounted for 21% of releases.
The significance of the film industry to the UK economy was highlighted in the
recent international trade figures published by the Office for National Statistics. The UK film
industry exported 2.1 billion worth of services in 2010. Total UK production activity in 2011
was a record 1.27 billion, with the UK spend associated with inward investment features
exceeding 1.1 billion, also the highest yet recorded.
Production - While a small number of large budget films are responsible for the
majority of UK production value, most domestic films produced in the UK
are low and micro-budget features. Of the 200 UK domestic features made in
2011, 62% were produced with budgets of less than 500,000. Over 86% of UK films
at this budget level failed to secure a theatrical release.
UK films and talent won 30 major film awards in 2011, with eight of these
awards being won at the Oscars and 15 at the BAFTAs. The 295 awards received from
20012011 represented 14% of the total of all major awards.
Punching above our weight - of the top 200 global box office successes of 20012011,
31 films are based on stories and characters created by UK writers. Together they have
earned more than $20 billion (12.3 billion) at the worldwide box office. Half of the top 20
global box office successes of the last 11 years are based on novels by UK writers. More than
half of the top 200 films released worldwide since 2001 have featured UK actors in lead or
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prominent supporting roles. UK directors were behind 24 of the 200 biggest films of the
last 11 years.
Distribution - The top 10 distributors had a 94% share of the market in
2011, the same as in 2010. Weekdays (Monday to Thursday) accounted for 42% of the
box office, the highest share since our records began.
Q.3 Why do you think there are more people going to the cinema
mid-week? Who are more likely to attend the cinema outside of
opening weekends?
Opening weekends represented 28% of the total box office. The estimated total
advertising spend was 197 million. The average advertising spend for studio-backed
UK films was 1.6 million and for UK independent films was just under 0.2 million.
Exhibition - The UK had 3,767 screens, 96 more than 2010, in 745 cinemas. The
UK had the second highest number of digital screens in Europe (behind France). The
UK had 1,475 screens capable of screening digital 3D features (54% of all digital
screens).
DVD Sales & Rentals - Despite falling revenues, DVD/Blu-ray remains the most
important element of the film value chain. In 2011, sales and rentals in the UK
generated over 1.4 billion. There were 86 million feature film physical video rentals
in 2011 (84 million in 2010) and 152 million sales (160 million in 2010). UK films
accounted for around 22% of all films sold on video. The most popular purchase on
DVD in 2011 was (not surprisingly) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
Online rental with postal delivery LOVEFiLM (www.lovefilm.com/) & Netflix
(www.netflix.com/UK) accounted for 46% of all feature film video rental transactions
in 2011.
Q.4 Why do you think there has been a decline in DVD sales in the
last few years?
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The top UK film as reported in 2002 was Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets while Gosford Park and Bend it Like Beckham lifted UK independent share to
6.5% (half the total recorded last year).
As in 2011, the UKs favourite genre was comedy (27% of box office from
23% releases) but UK audiences were less likely to visit cinemas on a weekday 68%
of the box office was generated on a weekend compared with 58% in 2011. Foreign
language films made up 36% of releases but only 2% of the box office (in 2011, there
were fewer foreign language films as a share of releases and the box office share
remained the same).
In 2002, there were 3,258 cinema screens in the UK but only four of those screens
were digital (out of 113 in the world). In home entertainment, DVD players were in a
quarter of UK households and a significant number of VHS tapes were still being sold.
On demand services were limited to near Video on Demand pay-per-view offers on
satellite and cable. Multi-channel television accounted for 22% of the UK television
audience and 59% of the population owned a mobile phone.
So what of the future? With broadband speeds increasing, smartphone and tablet
ownership on the rise and internet-enabled television sets becoming more
commonplace the period of digital transition is by no means complete. The ways in
which we choose and watch films has undergone an enormous change in the last
decade and the next one is likely to be no different.
Q.5 Summarise what has remained the same about the UK film
market over the last ten years and what has changed
dramatically?
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released
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titles including Danny Boyle's horror hit, 28 Days Later (2002), The History Boys & Last
King of Scotland (both 2006) and were also one of the many hands in Love Actually. Steve
Coogan's comedy The Parole Officer (2001) proved less successful. They are now 50% by
Fox Searchlight, the 'Indiewood' arm of 20th Century Fox. They have most recently produced
Never Let Me Go (2010) and Dredd 3D (2012)
The Film Consortium has not been as successful as was hoped,
titles such as Michael Winterbottom's acclaimed In This World
fared well (at least critically).
The Lottery franchise project failed as it didn't really
up a permanent studio system creating a series of
commercially successful titles for an international
market place. Maybe that is impossible to do in the
UK with such a diverse range of film-makers, and
social and ethnic groups, with many stories and
ideas relevant only to a regional or even local
environment. Other ways films are funded in the
UK, apart from via the three above companies are:
Assistance with funding from one of the Regional
Screen Agencies across the UK who may help
with finding crews, training or seed/development
funding for scripts. The Damned Utd (2009) about
Yorkshire based football club Leeds Utd and This Is
England (2006) both received help from Screen
Yorkshire because of parts of the production and filming taking place there.
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although
(2002)
set
Investment from Europe Bend It Like Beckham (2002) had assistance from the
Hamburg Film Fund in return for shooting some sequences in Germany, Mike Leigh has a
deal with CanalPlus in France for part-funding of his films and Ken Loach's Looking for Eric
(2009) had investment from Germany and Spain.
BBC Films (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms) and Film4 (http://www.film4.com/film4productions/current-slate) are still an important source of British cinema by funding work for
the small screen but which is then released into cinemas. The BBC has invested in films since
the 1970s, although on a much smaller scale than Channel Four, whose Film4 channel was
made available on digital Freeview in 2006, and screens seasons of British films. Working in
partnership with companies, the BBC has funded some significant films. ITV companies have
participated in film finance to a lesser extent. The expansion of cable and satellite TV has
made more films available on the small screen, but movie channels are in fierce competition
with sports and other popular channels.
Q6. How does film production in the UK seem to be very different from
the Hollywood model of large, powerful studios?
Cultural Test. The total budget of finally certified films increased from 1,002 million in 2010
to 2,119 million in 2011. This increase reflects the higher number of big budget inward
investment films made in 2010 feeding through to a higher value of final certifications in
2011. So we made a great number of Schedule 1 films in 2011, yet there are few well known
'purely British' films. This paradox becomes more complicated when we start to explore
where the money comes from.
For example, if a film is made by a British film company, but that company is owned by a
larger American group, is the production financed in the UK? And what is the significance of
distribution? If a film is 'purely British' at the production stage but it is distributed in this
country by an American company (who then claw back a chunk of the box office profits), is
this film really a success story for the British Film Industry?
British studios are used by overseas companies and a number of blockbusters have been
produced in the UK, including the Harry Potter films which have British content but are largely
American-financed. For many this situation compromises British cinema, confirming its
dependency on American involvement and its inability to develop an independent infrastructure.
On the other hand, co-production arrangements are a reality of contemporary film-making and
these do not necessarily prevent interesting films from being made.
Q7. What is the benefit to a film producer of their film being branded as British?
What is it about Britishness that is attractive to investors from outside the UK? What
is it about Britishness that makes it easy for Hollywood studios to dominate our film
market?
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Q8. How many of these could be considered British films? How many of them are coproductions where the majority of the money leaves the country? What does this say
about the scale of the UK film industry?
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Q9. Which one of these two films recently released in the UK do you think is a BBC
co-production and why?
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The Digital Screen Network Fund allowed theatrical and non-theatrical (that is, noncinema based) venues to project films on DVD or video which will provide greater
accessibility for non-mainstream (i.e. silent cinema, classics, foreign language) films for
groups like film societies, schools and community groups. It also allowed new film-makers to
show their work without having to pay for a massively expensive transfer to 16mm or 35mm
film prints. Eventually it is hoped that films will be screened via computers or the web and
transmitted 'down the line' without any traditional projection equipment.
Film Production
The money UKFC invested came from both the government, via the DCMS, and cash raised
from the National Lottery and it is likely that any UK produced film or major UK coproduction released over the last 10 years would have had some input from the Film Council
at some time.
Films were funded via a series of different channels:
1. The Premiere Fund, which looked at financing commercial mainstream titles with a
broad international appeal many of which have already been listed.
2. The New Cinema Fund, which helped to support more specialised, independent work
and 'cutting edge film-making' particularly assisting with productions from the English
regions. Recent examples have included In the Loop (2009), Man on Wire (2006) and
Adulthood (2005).
3. The Development Fund, which assisted film-makers to get ideas off the ground,
concentrating specifically on raising the quality of screenwriters. Most UK films of the
last few years would have received financial assistance of up to 25,000 for their
original drafting from this fund.
Funding feature films is a complex combination of public money, overseas investment,
bidding wars between sales agents and distribution and sponsorship deals. What the UK Film
Council did for budding movie-makers was to offer them a place to go first in search of
funding.
Although there were a number of
successful initiatives funded by the
UKFC, as well as a stream of critically
and commercially successful films, there
were also some criticism of it as an
organisation, mainly from areas of the
right wing tabloid press attacking the
fact the 'public money' has been used to
fund a 'vile sex film' such as Sex Lives
of The Potato Men (2004) or Lesbian
Vampire Killers (2008).
Criticism is not just levelled at the content of some UKFC funded films, but the fact that they
are not 'value for money', losing money at the box office and unable to compete in the
international market.
Pinewood studios in west London, where the next James Bond adventure is being filmed. The
proposal to focus lottery money on films that are likely to be commercially successful films
could be criticised by some independent film-makers, who are already aggrieved at the
Coalitions decision to abolish the UK Film Council. Mr Cameron believes that resources
should be focused on fully exploiting the potential to make the film industry even more
lucrative. He said he wanted to build on the incredible success of recent years. Our role
should be to support the sector in becoming even more dynamic and entrepreneurial, helping
UK producers to make commercially successful pictures that rival the quality and impact of
the best international productions, he said. Just as the British Film Commission has played
a crucial role in attracting the biggest and best international studios to produce their films
here, so we must incentivise UK producers to chase new markets both here and overseas.
Sowhathappenednext?
31 March 2011 was the final official day of business at the UKFC's offices in Little Portland
Street, London, and former Film Council staff today find themselves working for the British
Film Institute, which will take over many of the abolished body's functions. Others, including
the office of the British Film Commissioner, have been transferred to regional agency Film
London, which will oversee the task of promoting the UK as a film-making destination.
The decision to hand the BFI responsibility for distributing lottery funding to film-makers
came in November, partly assuaging widespread concern that the government had not
considered the future of public investment in British movies when making its decision to axe
the council. At the same time Ed Vaizey, the culture minister, further sugared the pill by
announcing that the 28m lottery grant the industry receives would be increased to around
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43m by 2014.
If ministers were rattled by the vocal support for the council, they might have been cursing
their luck in February when The King's Speech, a film part-funded by the UK Film Council,
took four Oscars at the annual Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Other productions
in the last five years alone that might never have made it to the big screen without the
council's support include Nowhere Boy, Fish Tank, In the Loop, Man on Wire, Hunger,
Happy-Go-Lucky, This is England, Vera Drake and The Last King of Scotland. Of movies
recently in cinemas or due to arrive on the big screen, Richard Ayoade's critically acclaimed
first film Submarine, Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights and the forthcoming Joe Cornishpenned comedy Attack the Block all received UKFC funding.
Three weeks ago, a National Audit Office report roundly criticised the UKFC's axing,
suggesting it was "not informed by a financial analysis of the costs and benefits of the
decision". The UKFC's entire annual budget was a reported 3m, while the cost of closing it
down and restructuring is estimated to have been almost four times that amount.
Q10. Why do you think the Coalition government decided to close down
the UKFC?
So a film that takes 1 million gross box office will leave a profit of 119,000!
There might also be other payments such as bank loans, outstanding bills and payments, or
percentage cuts for some cast and crew who have deferred on a salary and opted for profit
share in the profits.
Unless a British film has the backing in terms of money, resources, expertise and sheer clout
from a major US studio (Working Tide films has Universal, Harry Potter has Warner Bros.,
the Bond movies have MGM, United Artists and 20th Century Fox) it will be very hard for it
to make a profit.
Q11. Do you think the UK film industry needs a body like the UKFC/BFl?
Why?
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