The situation right now

The following is very much based on an entry in US indie film producer, Ted Hope’s blog: Truly Free Film.

 Ted was dealing specifically with the American context, which does have many similarities with that in the UK, but I’ve attempted to make it more UK specific.

Here’s my version of his ‘first the bad news’ beginning.

• US arthouse admissions are down 66%. I’ve never found details for arthouse admissions in the UK, but I would not be surprised if the impact of both ‘indiewood’, centralised programming, and the decline in decent film journalism had not had a significant impact here.
• Ted estimates that now only 4% of independent US features get traditional distribution. In the UK the chances are considerably less.
• Even if a film obtains a UK distributor or sales agent acquisition offer, it will not include an advance.
• Private investment has ‘withered on the vine’.
• International sales prices have dropped by 40% and presales have all but dried up.
• Recession hits non-profit making arts organisations and festivals particularly hard, they are one of the first places where cuts fall. 

This isn’t the result of a ‘Hollywood’ conspiracies. If  there’s a decline in the number of indie film oriented magazines and critics, then it’s hard to get exposure for indie films. If you’re an exhibitor, why should you take a chance on a film with no ‘A’ or ‘B’ list stars, little or no media coverage and no marketing budget? If you’re a distributor, why should you acquire, let alone pay an advance for, a film which is unlikely to make you any money?

   And if you’re an audience member who’s a fan of indie films and who doesn’t live in London, the easiest way you can see them is to download them from the internet – and if the bootleggers seem to care more for you than the ‘industry’ you’ll have few qualms about downloading for free.

   That’s the current state of ‘the old model’ –  it’s going nowhere other than off the edge of a cliff.

 The good news though is, there’s maybe an alternative.

 The social media which enable peer to peer dialogue exist. Word of mouth is far more important and far less ephemeral. You cannot afford to ignore these technologies; you have to develop a fan base, to enter into a dialogue with your audience. We have to start thinking and acting more like fringe theatre companies and bands.

   But we need more than just facebook or twitter, we need a more precise knowledge of our audiences, where they are and how to reach them. In America many theatrical screenings of ‘Four-Eyed Monsters’ have been the result of fans campaigning for their local independent cinema to put the film on – or maybe it would be better to call such people ‘friends’?

   When it comes to such as music, theatre, or fine art, it’s the writers, performers, musicians and artists who’ve been the innovators – whether in form, promotion, marketing, design, experimentation, or event organisation. As filmmakers we have to do the same.

   Once we saw film festivals as how we’d try to sell our films to sales agents and distributors. But that’s changed. Now they can play an important part in publicising your film, your website, your social networks, of building your fan base  – and communicating that it’s available on DVD.

New Scottish touring film fest

Tilda Swinton and Mark Cousins will be touring remote locations on Scotland’s east coast this August with a mobile film festival featuring such as Kurosawa’s Macbeth inspired, “Throne of Blood”, Peter Watkins “Culloden”, and a number of other classics.

But I’m not mentioning this because of the line up, but it reflects what’s been a growing call for festivals to move away from being once a year fixed location events, to doing such as ‘best of festival’ tours.

Some filmmakers have started doing this themselves, with “Morris, A Life with Bells On” being a praticular case in point. Despite having a pretty stellar cast, and a theme which easily connects with such as “The Full Monty” and “Billy Elliot”, it failed to get UK distribution. And maybe that’s been a blessing in disguise as it’s been playing to packed houses, often with several shows a day, across much of the soutwest for several months.

“When it comes to independent films, what’s the point of the BBFC?”

A copy of this post can also be found on http://www.britflicks.com

The BBFC defines its purpose as being to protect children – anyone under 18 – from unsuitable material. This may be all well and good when it comes to films on general release, or on sale at supermarket checkouts. But over 90% of these films are American productions (some with English actors and storylines) and at least six% of the rest are French productions from either Pathe or Gaumont.

   Basically British independent films don’t get  a look in because UK distributors simply can’t afford the marketing spends which the multiplex chains demand before they’ll consider booking a film. The result is that these films only get screened in specialised cinemas and arts centres which under 18s don’t go to, and the DVD’s are mainly sold via the internet to 18+ credit card holders. In short the BBFC is not ‘protecting’ anyone from these films.

   On top of that, when it comes to giving films 18 ratings the BBFC has a policy of not demanding cuts, and that this because of both European freedom of expression legislation, as well as UK public opinion – adults expect to be treated as adults. And when it comes to public screenings they don’t have any power either; local authorities grant licences for film screenings and they generally go along with BBFC ratings, but they’re perfectly happy to see unrated films shown at festivals, regular indie film nights and so on.

   You could say that its powers only apply to DVD’s, rating such material in relation to the Mary Whitehouse/Daily Mail ‘video nasty’ moral panic inspired Video Recordings Act of 1984 and its amendments of 1993 and 1994.  And under the VRA, material designed to ‘inform, educate and instruct’ is exempt, provided that it contains little sex and violence. In point of fact no one is actually obliged to submit anything to the BBFC –  but you’d be in trouble with the law if you were breaching the VRA.

   So how do you know if you need to submit or not? If, like me, you try contacting the BBFC they’ll tell you that it’s not their job to interpret the law; but if you send it they’ll classify it – and find a way of charging you for it even if it is clearly exempt. But, at the same time, they will tell you that a director’s or producer’s commentary, which you’d be forgiven for thinking was there to ‘educate and inform’, was actually a different version of the film which they’d have to classify at their standard rate of around £500 per hour.

And you better pay because you might be running the risk of a £5,000 fine, or two years in jail, maybe both.

   But who enforces the VRA. Are you going to get in trouble with the police? No. Actually you’d only be in trouble with ‘Trading Standards’, and only then if someone had made a complaint. So I contacted a wide cross section of Trading Standards offices asking for clarification as to exactly what was exempt and what was not. And just about every reply said something different, but they all agreed that it wasn’t really their job, it was up to a judge to interpret the law.

   This is a complete farce. You could say that BBFC ratings benefit Hollywood as audiences make decisions partly by classification, and the cost for them is a drop in the ocean.

   But it’s really annoying if you’re an indie filmmaker who’s made a two hour long 18 rated film, and put a lot of effort into constructing a ‘DVD extras disc’ that’s full of the sort of added value that audiences look for, and your distributor tells you that they’re going to have to cut all the audio commentaries because each one is going to add yet another £1,000 onto the BBFC bill in order to protect people who aren’t going to see the film in the first place. This is nothing more than a punitive tax on indie filmmakers and distributors!

   There are other parts of the world with more enlightened and more sensible policies. Films can be release unrated and treated as a ‘18’ in such as the USA, Norway and Germany. In Denmark an unrated film counts as a ‘15’, and Sweden is planning to introduce the same ‘unrated 15’ category within the next twelve months.

   And then there are countries such as Canada, Austria and Malta which treat DVD’s exactly the same as CD’s, books, magazines and any other media, by not rating them at all.

   On top of that, as in New Zealand recently, many media businesses have started complaining about how censorship and certification fees, just as in the UK, disadvantage niche markets. And it’s about time that more of us started complaining here as well

In its own words, when it comes to “18”, just what is the point of the BBFC

The BBFC has passed Lars von Trier’s ANTICHRIST uncut. Their line is that it isn’t a ‘sex work’, but a serious piece of filmmaking. 

They go on to point out that the film is  “acceptable at ’18’ where, in line with the consistent findings of the BBFC’s public consultations, the BBFC’s Guideline concerns will not normally override the wish that adults should be free to chose their own entertainment, within the law.”

Yes, you read that correctly, read it again just to make sure: “adults should be free to chose their own entertainment, within the law.”

Sweden considers scrapping madatory film censorship

At the moment Sweden has four levels of compulsory film classification: ‘all ages’, 7+, 11+ and 15+ (note ’15’ and not ’18’). But a government backed inquiry proposes that this is changed to a voluntary scheme provided that film companies label non-submitted films as ’15+’. Such films will, of course, still be subject to Swedish law when it comes to depictions of extreme forms of violence, sexual violence and coercion.

If the Swedes can do it, why can’t we?

For more details see: http://www.thelocal.se/19976/20090609/

“Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow” – and an interesting thought experiment

Below is a posting of mine from Shooting People.

The core of the problem is this: freedom for the pike is
death for the minnow. With regards to feature films the USA is
the pike, and the pike is always looking to find ways of
stuffing more minnows into its maw. Very many countries take
steps to defend at least part of their film industry.
Sometimes these steps involve very large sums of money.
 
For example, the EU spends .75billion euros every five years.
A sizeable chunk of this money goes into supporting the
distribution and exhibition of ‘non-national European films’.

The assumptions behind this are that, all bar one, member
states are not only protected against the ‘pike’ through
language, but also through the imposition of quotas and other
forms of regulation and support. But the pike still has
enormous financial muscle through its ability to already be in
profit through its domestic market. Hence the EU tries to
counter this by encouraging each EU country to also screen
films from its European neighbours. The result is that US
blockbusters still dominate – and why not – but they don’t
when it comes to lower budget films.

But this EU policy works differently in the UK. American
domination is essentially total. The only British films that
get general release are American owned (or occasionally
French; even more rarely as with Slumdog Millionaire,
American/French films). But not only is (actual) British
filmmaking a completely un-protected minnow, it’s also up
against large EU subsidies which further disadvantage it when
it comes to both the arthouse and festival circuits. Pretty
amazing when you think about it, isn’t it, that the Americans
have managed to turn EU policies aimed at curbing their
operations into a means of further cementing their dominance
over here.

And it’s not surprising that the UKFC and the BFI seem quite
happy with all this – just visit the UKFC website and look at
the Chairman and the board of directors. Almost all of them
are either leading executives from the US majors, or the heads
of companies which make much of their earnings from directly
servicing them (the term c*ck-suckers wouldn’t be far off the mark).
>
> I’ll finish with a thought experiment.
>
> Imagine that you live in a country in which 95% of the music
> you hear on the radio (which is 95% US owned – there’s no BBC
> and no ‘public service regulations), or find on the shelves of
> music stores, is American. Most of the rest is not British as
> there are organisations like the ‘British Music Council’ which
> gives lots of money to subsidise non-British music. Outside of
> a handful of little clubs and pubs all live performances are
> by American (plus a few other foreign) bands.
>
> The American-run ‘British Music Council’ is pretty happy with
> this state of affairs because a lot of this American music is
> recorded in fancy recording studios situated in the London
> area; but the ‘British music industry’ would do even better if
> even more tax breaks and subsidies were given to the
> Americans.
>
> The British music industry is not interested in recording and
> releasing British music as it won’t get played, performed, etc
> and so won’t make any money.
>
> Now what would you think of any musician who turned round and
> said to another who was actively campaigning against this
> state of affairs, “get over it, don’t fight it (man) let
> someone else do it (who?), you’ll just do your head in. Hey,
> why don’t we go back to talking about the problems you get
> when you lend people box sets of your (American) CD’s.”
>
> A growing number of us are starting to do something about it.
> Anyone who wants to join in is welcome to contact me directly.
>
> Best wishes Jon Willaims

Vanity Executive Producing – Part Two

When we were working on Diary of a Bad Lad, Michael and I kicked around the idea of doing a trilogy of genre-bending moc-docs – with a the possibilities of each release revitalising sales of the others, of bringing out the ‘three volume box set’, the ‘connoisseurs edition’ and so on. And the ideas weren’t bad either.

   Second in the series was “Serial Cannibal”, a film set in a near future in which small documentary crews could get the chance of interviewing a convicted serial killer, held in a special ‘secure house’, and awaiting deportation to France in exchange for a batch of asylum seekers; with their efforts being recorded, ‘Big Brother’ style, by hidden cameras. A sort of modern day version of throwing Christians to the lions, only with desperate filmmakers.

   But the last was to be the sickest of all, the ‘were we really going too far this time’ moment. And we started telling people that the basic idea was: Fred and Rose West’s home videos.

   But there was much more to it than that. It involved a return to our Bad Lad creation, ‘Tommy Morghen’. Tommy had become an executive producer, credited not only with Bad Lad, but also Serial Cannibal. Tommy gets a surprise visit from one of the children (a son) of a couple modelled on the Wests, but obviously with different names, who is offering the tapes for sale; and he reckons Tommy Morghen may just be unprincipled enough to buy them. But what the son fails to reckon with is Tommy’s decision to make a documentary about all the issues this raises and which will, amongst other things, cost him his soul.

   And then what did we find out? Only that Film London had green-lit under their ‘Microwave’ scheme an openly ‘Wests-inspired’ (how could the Wests inspire anything?) film called ‘Mom and Dad’, which was a piece of pure exploitation; and that Film London had even fewer principles than Tommy Morghen.

   But, unlike North West Vision, Film London had made a distribution deal with ‘Revolver’ who simultaneously released the film across all platforms on the Boxing Day 2008 weekend – the one weekend when no Box-office figures are collected because nobody goes to the cinema, which is pretty much the same as getting it all over and done with before anyone noticed; and before anyone started asking if this barrel-bottom-scraping was what Film London really should be doing in the first place.

   Still, at least they were trying to be commercial, and they did green-light ‘Shifty’, which was critically very well received – but which you wouldn’t be able to see in a thirty mile radius around a very large town with a premiership football team like Blackburn.

   ‘Shifty’, £100,000 production budget from Film London, and then an additional £156,000 of marketing money from the Film Council’s ‘Specialised Prints and Advertising Fund’ awarded to the film’s distributor, Metrodome, so that it could open on 50, instead of only 25, screens – which works out as a subsidy of £6240 per additional screen. And, as the Film Council usually operates a ‘match-funding’ policy, it’s fair to assume that Metrodome was spending the same amount, and so the film enjoyed a marketing spend of over £300,000, as well as a lot of very favourable free media publicity.

   But after only four weeks fifty screens had shrunk to five, with the film taking a site average of  £568  -which is still more than Fast and Furious (£386) or 17 Again (£545) – and a current gross of £137,264. So it looks as though Shifty will close without even grossing its Film Council marketing subsidy.

   I want to make it quite plain that I am not knocking ‘Shifty’.  It’s a film that opened with a site average which put it well in the top ten by this criteria. And for anyone who cares to look at the figures they’ll see that the multiplexes routinely have Hollywood product playing on hundreds of screens racking up multi-million takings from smaller site averages.

   This is what the problem is – without quotas most of us won’t be able to see British independent films with a profit making potential like Shifty in our local cinema. We have to challenge the likes of the Film Council, North west Vision and Film London who are using tax payer and lottery players’ money for what are ‘vanity executive producing projects’ whilst doing nothing that would actually make a difference.

  We deserve better than this.

Mike Leigh joins in in condemning Hollywood’s dominance over British screens

I just found this…

From: The Guardian, 29 April 2009

‘Mike Leigh, speaking at Queen Mary University of London this week… condemned the “tragedy that innovative, important, entertaining work is being made, but doesn’t get an airing on our screens – because we are flooded with material from the mostly sterile source of Hollywood”. In film, he added, “there is, and always has been, tons of unadulterated shit”.’

Vanity Executive Producing Part 1 – North West Vision

Last year, 2008, Liverpool was European capital of culture. To coincide with this Liverpool resident and famous filmmaker, Alex Cox, proposed that 8 £100k micro-budget features be produced. Alex thought that one or two of the films might go on to some commercial success and thus demonstrate that such projects were worthwhile. But his scheme never got off the ground.

The local Regional Screen Agency, North West Vision had other ideas. They managed to pitch the idea of commissioning three £250k micro-budget to the Liverpool Culture Company, the UK Film Council and BBC Films. I was there when they presented their scheme to some of the region’s filmmakers in 2007. The idea was aimed at developing new feature filmmaking, that initially twelve proposals would be chosen – to be progressively whittled down to three, with feedback and mentoring thrown in. The one condition was that at least the producer, director, or writer had to come from Liverpool.

The result? Terence Davies’ personal documentary, Of Time and the City – a film with very little connection with the aims of the original brief and well capable of obtaining funding from outside of the scheme; still it did go on to get quite widespread exhibition and critical acclaim and North West Vision could bask in the rosy glow.

But then there was “Kicks” and “Salvage”. “Kicks” was an idea that a couple of Londoners had had kicking around for a long time. Despite the fact that they had explicitly stated that “eligibility for the scheme depended entirely upon the main applicant being Liverpool-based”, North West Vision, presumably bowing to pressure from the Film Council, brought in a Liverpudlian Leigh Campbell to give the story a local angle and greenlit the project.

But at least “Salvage” was made by a team from the Northwest.

OK, so “Of Time and the City” got the limelight. But the other two demonstrate that, other than having pre-sold the TV rights to the BBC as part of the scheme, NWV seems to have been at a complete loss as to how to get these films out there.  Searching Google suggest that both films did get shown in Liverpool during November,  but with none of the attending fanfare (or reviews) for Of Time and the City. I’m left with the feeling that they were shown once. But they are also scheduled to be screened at the Edinburgh Film Fest in June – by which time each £250,000 will have produced not one, but two screenings!  When it comes to vanity executive producing, is this a record?

Some key points and suggestions on self-distribution

Recently http://braintrustdv.com/wordpress/roundtable-self-distribution/ invited contributions to a debate on self-distribution which they published unedited.

But for people in more of a hurry here’s what for me are the key points:

“I. Remove Barriers Preventing People From Seeing Your Film

Put up digital versions of your film online (streaming, downloadable, etc.) for a pay-what-you-like price, put it up on as many streaming sites as possible, and tell people to pay-what-they-like back at your site if they like it. Sell DVDs/Blu-Ray versions online at cost and give people the option to donate even more if they really like your film. I would rather have 1000 people see my film for free than have 2 people pay me $15 for a DVD. If 1000 people see your movie, then maybe a few will really like it and want to pay something for the experience; what they give you far surpasses selling fixed-cost versions.

II. Give People Freedom To Pass Your Film Along

Release your film under the Creative Commons license so that people can make copies and give them to others who might like it. Put something in the video that directs them back to your site where they can make a donation. The more people that see it, the more likely it is that someone really likes it and wants to support your artistic endeavors.

III. Ask Everyone To Help Spread The Word

I love independent films and would love to spread the word about your film along my network, my site, etc. My experience is that many of your friends, family, and co-workers feel the same way. The same goes for all of the filmmakers, critics, and bloggers that love independent film. You never know where a spark can come from and it can come at any time. A single blog post about one of my short films drove 30,000 viewers to it. To put this in perspective, if 30,000 people see your independent feature then more people have seen your film than 99.9% of all independent features ever made.”

Reid Gershbein.

Jon adds: At first glance giving your film away for free might sound pretty strange. But consider this: the ‘conventional’ distribution deal means giving your film to a distributor probably for no advance. The distributor manages to get it on in at best a tiny handful of cinemas with the aim of generating a few reviews. Doing this costs them much more than the film makes. You now ‘owe’ the distributor for these expenses/losses.  

“The current model of both the film industry and the most independents is “self” centred. Or in other words, MY job is to convince you to buy into MY film. The industry does this with posters, newspaper ads and schmoozing critics—independents do it with Facebook pages, websites, twitter and blogs. The bottom line though is it’s all just people shouting for attention to a world that hates being shouted at.

There is an answer. Mutual-marketing or tribal marketing. In simple terms we become individuals advocates, not just for our own movies, but for the movies the we discover that we believe are worth sharing. Not as some kind of tedious “you promote mine and I’ll promote yours” cartel of doom, I mean promote the whole of your scene with integrity and passion. The most powerful tool in ‘mutual-distribution’ is the phrase “Guys, this film is awesome…”

Clive Davies-Frayne

 

Tony Comstock raised some very important questions about how filmmakers can spend a lot of money applying to festivals and asks what the point is if the best you can get out of it is the offer of a distribution deal which won’t make you any money?  

It’s well worth reading  more of  what he has to say at:

“How Film Festivals and Distribution Deals Kill Independent Films Part 3, A Room Full of Strangers.” (Follow Tony on Twitter.)

“* Films benefit from ANY press and media attention. If I’m smart, I’ll skip sending news releases to Variety and Moviemaker—like several hundred other no-name directors—and engage local and community news reporters instead.

* Joint Ventures. Instead of trying to reach 5000 people who might buy my film, wouldn’t it be smarter to partner with one person who already has a reach of 5000 people? This way all I need to do is impress one person.”

Angelo Bell