How many Business Link Advisers does it take to change a Light bulb?

Friday 18 December and I’m down to attend Northwest Business Link’s seminar ‘Innovation in Arts And Media’ at ‘The Sandbox – University of Central Lancashire’.

I drive over, road conditions are not good and there is nowhere to park – but because of the snow and the slippery pavements I doubt I’ll get a ticket on a side street nearby.

The ‘Sandbox’ is located on the top floor of UCLAN’s new media building. And what a building it is! I doubt if many of the students will get to work in an environment like this when they graduate (let alone get a job in the media either). It all makes me think. “Is this a vision of the future, or is this what you have to spend in order to attract enough students and enough research grants to Preston in order to pay media staff salaries?”

I arrive a bit late. Not to worry, as it appears to be the case that us ‘arts and media’ people are probably outnumbered by Business Link Advisers. Whilst hanging around drinking coffee waiting to see if any more turn up, I find myself in conversation with Yusuf Musa, who’s the ‘Digital and Creative Adviser’. Now it might be the case that he could advise me as to who might be a decent firm of accountants – and I am not knocking the guy – but he has no idea about the UK film industry.

Actually it’s worse than no idea, he’s just another person who’s part of this enormous chain which stretches from the European Regional Development Fund and central government, to Regional Development Agencies, to ‘Business Links’, to whatever else it is that’s housed in shiny new offices with the resources to go on ‘fact-finding missions’, to hire fancy conference centres, to lay on excellent buffets, to provide ‘networking opportunities’, and to have a head full of  Film Council/New Labour New Speak. Happy shiny people….

Various people made short presentations with no particular common link. Head of the ‘Sandbox’ – a media-lab which uses play-based methods: Lego, an inflatable Wendy house, adult-sized primary school furniture in happy shiny colours – showed off their amazing software a told us about how they sold their creative solutions brain-storming services to some of the country’s biggest clients, and how they were going to be setting up a branch in Singapore. He then quite rightly left the room and went back to his office; I mean, the Sandbox is for people for whom £100,000 fees represents value for money.

I hung around for a while eating a few canapés and left. Fortunately no one had left a ticket on my frosted windscreen.

But I can’t leave it at that. These organisations exist. And at least the business ones have an orientation towards business. What I think needs to happen is for us: the region’s filmmakers, short film night organisers and film festival programmers, to organise a seminar where we invite the Business Link staff to come and tell us what they can do for us. We need somewhere we can afford (i.e. for free); and where people can either bring sandwiches or get food from the bar.

Here’s what I’d have as the theme: Denmark has the same size population as the Northwest of England, but it’s never had anything like Manchester United, Liverpool, the Beatles and so on, and so it doesn’t command the same degree of global awareness. Denmark produces approximately 20 £2million+ budget feature films per year of which most are box-office successes. Why then doesn’t the Northwest? What steps need to be taken and how can Business Link contribute?

Time for a reality check – a posting to Shooting People. org

Recently two completely different things have been being conflated in these bulletins: productions for which a market exists (e.g. advertising, corporate, training, factual for large niche interest groups, wedding, etc) and which should thus be realistically budgeted; and productions with no access to any markets (short and long narrative fiction, ‘art’) which, if left to their own devices, could, and would, only be made on a spare time ‘hobby’ basis by people with other sources of income (state benefits, bar work, part time teaching, pension).

Access is the key word in the above. Clearly there is a fair amount of interest here in short films, as instanced by the fact that ’short film nights’ have become a regular feature in many towns and cities. But that isn’t a market because, in its present form, it generates effectively no income.

Now I know that many rather bristle at being referred to by words such as ‘amateur’, or ‘hobbyist’, but that’s what we are.

Right now there is only one market for short fiction: the UKFC – either directly or by proxy through the tiny amounts it gives to its RSAs, or to whatever are the currently fashionable minority groups – largely as a  meaningless exercise in social engineering.

Short film schemes are part of the UKFC’s ‘talent spotting’ – a notion that someone somewhere might make something that Lenny Crookes (New Cinema Fund)thinks is worth watching, who can then be developed by the UKFC. This, of course, is seen as a joke; commissioned work is seriously under-funded and, on completion, put on a shelf to gather dust – they cannot be put anywhere else as they have no access to any markets.

Once in a blue moon someone in London does, as a result of courting nepotism, make it through to UKFC-financed feature film development (the UKFC has recently announced that, in future 25% will go to the regions, which is around about a 4-fold increase). The prospect of the resulting film breaking even is less than one in twenty, regardless of its quality or merit, as it will have no meaningful access to any markets. What’s more the highly-paid arts administrators see it as their duty to ‘train’ the producers of these films in the intricacies of film finance by making their awards dependent on ‘match-funding’. But no one is going to invest in any UK independent feature film by first or second time producers and directors who are Shooting People members. All it adds up to is ‘we’ll give you far less than your film would cost to make, but we’ll only actually give you half of that – the rest you’ll just have to get from deferrals and in kind’.

Does the UKFC do anything to create a sustainable market for British filmmaking?

Do they call for the establishing of theatrical exhibition quotas, which would simply bring the UK into line with most other countries?

Do they call for similar quotas to those regulating most other forms of terrestrial TV programming to be extended to films?

Do they call for broadcasters to restore whatever little support they once gave through regular UK short film seasons?

Do they call for the introduction of an “unrated 18″ certificate, again in line with many other countries?

Do they complain to the monopolies and mergers commission about the whole raft of restrictive practices which disadvantage UK filmmaking?

Do they actively promote a UK film festival culture in which a hugely multi-award winning short like Chris Jones ‘Gone Fishing’, would be screened at more than only two ‘British’ festivals?

But, more importantly, do you? Are you an active member of any organisations which campaigns on your behalf on any of these issues? Do you ever even write to your MP or the press?

Or are you nothing more than an ‘amateur’ or a ‘hobbyist’?

Jon Williams

writer/producer Diary of a Bad Lad – www.bad-lad.com

The campaign to reform the VRA http://reformthevrauk.blogspot.com/

North-West New Wave – which is dedicated to raising the profile of new underground independent filmmaking, and which has already established itself as a major thread at both the Salford and Pennine Film FestivaLS.

Regular speaker/workshop leader for Manchester-based ‘Future Artists’ which is seriously dedicated to developing and communicating about new models for independent film production, distribution and exhibition.

And a 61 year old with ME and a heart condition…

Indie Filmmakers! If you dont already know this, get ready to copy this now…

Greetings brothers and sisters. Here’s the lesson…

Filmmakers, you can make your film, whatever the length, available as a download exclusively from your own site, and you will.

Curators, if you negotiate the permissions you can make compilations of short films, whatever the length, available as a download exclusively from your own site.

And the way to do it is through Amazon.com’s (not co.uk)back room. For really tiny fees you can upload your film/compilation to an Amazon server. You then put the appropriate link on your site and that’s it.

Do a ‘Radiohead’ – open a PayPal business account, create a ‘donate now’ button (which takes as long as it takes to read the very simple instructions) and then copy and paste the code to where you want it to be on the page you’re constructing. Give your visitors some suggestions – price of a coffee, ginsters pie, Tesco jeans, – use your imagination. They go to the donate page, make one, or not, and download your movie from a very reliable service.

Now you go out and start telling the world that they can download your movie exclusively from you and pay what they like.

Now it’s time for me to come round with the plate… No, there is no link to ‘download Diary of a Bad Lad now’ – why? because we haven’t finished setting up yet and the information was too important to keep to ourselves.

But ask yourself, “How much is this information potentially worth to me?” Is it worth the price of a totally extras laden just released exclusively from our sites Diary of a Bad Lad DVD for an introductory special offer price of just 9.95 including P&P?

Sure I could tell you how amazing the film is (“…shows just what UK independent filmmakers could and should be making../” Ben Blaine), you can google the reviews so far – just avoid the ‘blogcritics’ one, it’s by some rural American college teacher who says he couldn’t get into it and then proceeded to spit feathers and spoilers all over the page…

But if you are of little faith you can watch it for free on www.dailymotion.com/renderyardchannel all over this weekend. I’ll even go so far as to say if you then want to buy it and you post a review anywhere on the net, tell me and I’ll let you have two copies for the price of one and you’ve solved a Christmas present for someone.

BTW the trailer has had over 110,000 views now on dailymotion – and we’ll be getting some advertising revenue. You cannot do this on your own, this is all down to Mark Reid at renderyard.com
Mark is a total live wire and a total inspiration who might do the same for you with no strings attached (other than he thinks your film is worth it).

See, not just one piece of valuable information but a bonus bit too.

OK, lesson over, details and links follow. Best, Jonxxx

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Why is it that most British Film Festivals ignore most British films?

Chris Jones – he of the Guerilla Filmmakers Handbook, some well-regarded low-budget features, and no slouch when it comes to promotion – has recently published some film fest data on his multi-award-winning named-cast 35mm short, “Gone Fishing”. Any film which has picked up thirty-six (yes, 36) awards to date and which came within a gnat’s kneecap of getting an Academy award nomination, is not something to be ignored; except when it comes to the UK. Out of all the many UK festivals Chris submitted to – and remember that he is someone with a bit of a reputation – the film was accepted by a grand total of …two.

So, if that’s what happens when you’re Chris Jones, what chance is there for the rest of us?

Don’t just be annoyed, do something…. And one thing you can do is to sing the praises of the Cornish Film Festival – a fantastic event with a near total focus on Cornish filmmaking; and of the Salford Film Festival which this year made the burgeoning North West New Wave of underground shorts and features one its main strands.  What’s more this festival is now working with these filmmakers with the aim of taking the ‘best of the fest’ out across the region.

Read the government’s laughable ‘big brother’ response to the Campaign to Reform the VRA’s letter!

 

Below ‘Big Brother’ ends up saying: “The BBFC classification is a guarantee that DVDs will not contain anything illegal.  It would be impossible to ensure that that were the case were films not classified; we believe that the public has a right to that guarantee”.    In that case shouldn’t the government have the right to classify all books, magazines, CDs, and so on in order to guarantee that they “will not contain anything illegal”. And I presume they mean by that anything covered by the current laws of libel, obscenity, incitement and so on? The BBFC is not staffed by judges. They are not qualified to judge whether anything is illegal or not! Their function is simply to protect minors from unsuitable material. They even freely admit that they do not make cuts in 18 films – if it’s porn they’ll rate it ”R18″ – as this would contravene Europen Human Rights legislation on freedom of speech. Hence there would be no difference between an ‘18′ and an ‘unrated-18′. In both cases any question of the legality of the content is nothing to do with the BBFC, only the judiciary. Reading a reply like what follows really does make my flesh creep!   

Oh yes, you might be interested to know that the VRA is actually policed by Trading Standards who, outside of whether it’s a pirate DVD or not, are in no position to judge the legality of the content. In fact my own researches have shown that by the way in which many Trading Standards officers interpret the Video Recordings Act the BBFC routinely oversteps the mark by suggesting that they have to classify all content on a DVD. I myself queried the BBFC on what they would do about classifying any text files, such as a copy of the script, included in a collection of DVD extras. Their reply was that they were sure that they could come up with a way of doing that – and presumably charging for it as well!                                                             

 

 17 November 2009

 

 

Our Ref: 127522

 

Dear Mr Williams

 

Thank you and your co-signatories for your email of 3 November to Sion Simon, about the Video Recordings Act 1984. I have been asked to reply to you.

 

As you are aware it has recently come to light that certain provisions of the Video Recordings Act 1984 (VRA) and the labelling Regulations made under it should have been notified to the European Commission in accordance with the Technical Standards Directive (83/189/EEC). We have now notified the necessary provisions and the Regulations made under it and therefore we will be in a position to rectify this problem as soon as possible.  

 

The Government has no plans to include an amendment to allow the sale of ‘unrated’ films to 18+ adults, or to make any amendments. Our focus is on re-enacting the Bill, and the swiftest way to do that is not to make any amendments. Possible amendments must be properly considered and consulted on and the timetable on this Bill does not allow for this. In any event, the Government would not support an amendment that meant that some films were unrated. The BBFC classification is a guarantee that DVDs will not contain anything illegal.  It would be impossible to ensure that that were the case were films not classified; we believe that the public has a right to that guarantee.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Gemma Hersh

Public Engagement and Recognition Unit

 

Here’s how the Regional Screen Agencies could support British indie films at no cost!

Make a film on little or no money and you don’t qualify for a tax-break. Make it independently of the UKFC and you won’t get any awards either. But here’s a simple way in which around £3,000 could given to anyone producing a feature film, or a collection of shorts on DVD.  And it wouldn’t involve any form-filling at all.

All it requires is for the Video Recordings Act (1984) to be ammended so that it allows films to be released as ‘unrated-18′ – just like they can be in quite a few other countries besides the USA.  At a stroke independent filmmakers would no longer have to pay the BBFC to classify films for theatrical release. And then for a DVD certificate. And then to classify all the extras which, when it comes to audio commentaries, the BBFC claims that these represent different versions of the film and charge accordingly. The bill could come well end up coming to more than the film cost to make.

And then there are all the organisations that have been springing up in towns and cities across the country devoted to screenings short films in anywhere from upstairs rooms in pubs to arts centres. These could be bringing out their own compilations on DVD if it wasn’t for the costs of paying the BBFC.

So, if the RSA’s really want to support British independent filmmaking and new forms of exhibition as well, they should be pointing out to the government the significant and lasting benefits of such an ammendment.

There you are. It wouldn’t even cost a penny!

Here’s some info that’s useful for indie filmmakers releasing their films on line

We all know the ‘old model’ is dead and that what we need to be doing is making our films available from our websites and telling people about them through things like Facebook. But, if you’re anything like me you probably don’t have any real idea about spreading the message. You discover that there are all sorts of ‘gurus’ out there promising you the ’secrets’ if you subscribe to their service, buy their expensive courses, and so on. But I’ve just found http://www.undergroundtraininglab.com/635/tap-into-facebook/#more-635 , and these good people have posted a video of one of their seminars. OK, it’s American and as it progresses it becomes a bit ‘hard sell’ at times, but it’s just made me feel a lot more confident. If we’re going to make a success of our own distribution we need to share stuff like this.

Steve Perrin to lead UK’s Digital Funding Group – Screen Daily headline today

Ah yes, Steve Perrin, the man who was centrally involved in the UKFC’s lottery funded ‘Digital Screens Network’ which handed out a £multi-million susidy, most of it to the US studio owned exhibition chains, which was sold as the creation of a network which would benefit foreign (not American – isn’t amazing how people don’t think that those are foreign…) non-mainstream UK independent and classic films.
The one part of this deal which was delivered was the 3D projectors that Hollywood would have paid for if the British weren’t such total mugs. The fact that Perrin used to work for Warner Bros before robbing lottery players pockets on their behalf comes as no surprise.
All that the specialist filmmakers and distributors got out of all this was a very bad taste in the mouth.

What’s the point of making derivative genre films?

My good friend Jenny Inchbald, of Asha Media, Manchester, pointed out to me that the US multiplex monopoly means that the Arthouse circuit represents the only theatrtical opportunity for independent British films. Unfortunately the UK Film Council adopted the line that the British filmakings failure was due to the failure to make multiplex fare. The result has been an endless parade of derivative genre films made on a tenth of their US equivalents’ budgets which, despite often being no worse than the dross they aim to copy, fail to secure any form of widespread release.
But it has also resulted in the UK Film Council losing increasing amounts of money as this ‘dumbing down’ strategy backfires and blows up in their face.
What’s more by being mainstream they have no arthouse appeal, will never make it on to anyone’s ‘must see list’, and are not attractive to discerning European audiences who’d much rather watch anything by Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, or Shane Meadows. As a result these films have no backend either. So, strangely, making films we’re actually proud of is probably makes better commercial sense.

American cartel controls British screens – the bare facts and the marketing myth

Today Screen Daily mentioned some devastating statistics – that 95% of the UK film market is dominated by only 10 distributors, leaving more than 80, yes 80, fighting for a share of the remaining 5% – that’s crumbs from the table which wouldn’t even feed one mouse!

http://www.screendaily.com/news/opinion/distributing-the-wealth/5005237.article#commentsubmitted

What Screen Daily fails to point out though is how the top 9  are North American, with Pathe creeping in at number 10 with a meagre 2% – whereas the American majors occupy the top 5 and take some 70%. But this is hardly surprising when you consider that most Uk screens are American owned as well.

Many have claimed that this dominance is down to a mixture of better films and better and bigger marketing. It plainly isn’t. Besides the blockbusters most screens are stuffed with often very poor fare with little marketing besides the display of foyer posters which have been re-cycled from the film’s American run, re-cycled trailers, and printed details in ‘forthcoming attractions’ programmes. On top of that they’ve been able to re-cycle prints from the american run as well, rather than having to produce new dubbed versions for non-English speaking countries. These add up to minimal prints and advertising costs – the blockbuster advertising blitzes bring in the punters and the foyer adverts take it from there. It is impossible for any other distributors to compete against such advantages.

When it comes to other industries this is called ‘dumping’ and governments take steps to protect their own producers from it.