Apologies for the lack of updates on the blog front lately. Holiday, ten days at the Cambridge Film Festival and pressure of work have all meant that I have been away from my computer for longer than I had intended.
There has been quite a shake-up in the film world since last we spoke. The new coalition government has pulled the plug on the UK Film Council and in our part of the world, ScreenEast has called in the administrators.
For the UK film industry in general and film-making in the East of England these two institutions were more than talking shops, they were a means for getting films made and helping first time directors and writers to get their visions on the screen.
Their demise has a very real effect on the future of the British film industry and the type of films that will be made. Don’t worry about the James Bonds or the Harry Potters of the future they will still be made. They are the big-budget UK-US co-productions. It is the mid-scale films like Made In Dagenham, Mrs Henderson Presents or The Duchess which will really be in jeopardy.
These films are too expensive to survive just on the UK arthouse market as funding, as well as screen space, is becoming increasingly difficult to come by in the UK. Small budget films like those produced by Ken Loach or Andrea Arnold will continue reasonably unaffected as long as the BFI continues to fund small-scale movies. These films frequently shot on HD video and often without professional casts are made in a quick guerilla-film-making style.
But, one stage up films like those of director Mike Leigh could be hard hit. Mike Leigh rehearses with actors for extended periods of time before cameras roll. His films are consequently more expensive than those of Ken Loach.
Likewise film-makers like Stephen Frears who produce great ensemble films could find it becomes harder to make films like The Queen or Tamara Drewe in this country and if that happens then we as a nation will be much worse off.
The strength of any nation’s cinema is that it provides a wide spectrum of cinema-going fare from the low budget slices of life like Red Road and Morvern Callar to the spectacles of Quantum of Solace and Atonement.
America will always supply the budgets for the heritage and literature adaptations but it is the comparatively expensive middle ground movies that will suffer. Ways need to be found so that films like Tamara Drewe and Made in Dagenham – films about UK life, made for UK audiences still get made. Film helps give a nation a sense of identity – both at home and abroad.
Also we need to make sure that films still get made in East Anglia too. We have a great tradition of film-making in this area, particularly with ScreenEast’s location unit attracting film productions to locations in this area. Only just recently, they persuaded The Scouting Book For Boys to relocate from north Wales to the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts.
There is talk of the UK government giving the UK Film budget to the Arts Council to distribute. While that is fine for some films, we don’t want our entire UK production slate to be experimental art projects.
We don’t want them to be big UK-Hollywood co-productions either. For many UK cinemagoers, particularly those who enjoy independent cinema, it is the mid-scale movies, things like Little Voice, Scandal and The Full Monty which gives us our voice – helps define who we are as a nation.
Let’s not lose our sense of identity.
