One of the stated aims of the UK Film council’s policy document for the period from April 2010 to March 2013:  UK Film: Digital Innovation and Creative Excellence, is that at least 25%  on funding will go to “non-London originated film production” – which is perhaps as much as a fourfold increase on current levels. But what exactly does this mean?

In the first place the overwhelming majority of UKFC funding is spent in London and the South-East; so things could, in fact, remain pretty much the same: 75% for London, maybe 20% for the South-East, and the same pittance for the rest of the UK.

But let’s assume for once that this isn’t another of the UKFC’s cynical exercises in moving the goal posts, it’s still worth considering what it adds up to.

Maybe 16% of the population of the population lives in London – so it’s 75% for them. The rest of us, some 84% get a quarter. Now if you work the maths out it means that, on a per capita basis, Londoners will still get some 15x more than the rest of us.

Looked at that way it obviously is another one of their exercises in re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic….

According to the Hollywood Reporter (29.12.09), “The Chinese government protects local films by limiting the number of film imports on a revenue-sharing basis to 20 per year, a quota that effectively limits Hollywood blockbusters to 20 slots annually.”

What arrogance! Just how many blockbusters does Hollywood make annually? And what about films from the rest of the world? The obviously don’t think that those count at all!

So what’s happened? The US government has complained to the World Trade Organisation that China was ‘obstructing trade by forcing foreign suppliers to distribute … through state-owned companies.’

“Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox (complain that) the Chinese rules cost them tens of millions of dollars each year in lost business opportunities.”

It should come as no surprise that the WTO has come down on their side.

What hypocrisy! Foreign films have no access to the US market unless the rights have been acquired by the Hollywood majors – and on their terms as well. Theirs is a 100% obstruction of ‘foreign suppliers’.

What a bunch of government-backed bullying thugs.

Swedish films’ share of the box office went up from 19% to 32.4 over the past twelve months.  Much of this was down to the success of the Millennium trilogy of crime thrillers based on Stieg Larsson’s best-sellers. Hollywood’s share fell to 54%. But, guess what, Hollywood has announced its intention to acquire the remake rights to these thrillers – yet another example of how the Americans see the rest of the world as a source of raw materials for them to exploit with the same logic as an oil giant or mining corporation.

The Swedish experience is far from unique with local productions seeing major rises at the box office pretty much across the world. Of course the one exception is the UK which continues to be 95% US dominated – to the shame of everything from the British government to the UKFC

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?

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…

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

Amazon Web Services provides software developers with direct access to Amazon’s robust technology platform. Build on Amazon’s suite of web services to enable and enhance your applications. Leverage Amazon’s experience in web-scale computing to build your own applications that can scale on demand to meet your needs. Build your own business using Amazon’s rich store of product data and information about the Internet. Visit our Solutions Catalog to see some of the possibilities:

http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/aws-solutions/

To participate in the Amazon Web Services Program, you will need to follow these steps:

1. Register to become an AWS developer:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/registration/registration-form.html

2. Visit the AWS homepage where you will find links to resources that will help you get started:
http://aws.amazon.com

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.

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!

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.