Report by Peter Fraser
‘I don’t know about a film production industry’ said low-budget producer Chris Atkins, ‘…sometimes I think that we work in a tax avoidance industry.’
The occasion was this year’s Independent Film Parliament (IFP) and the subject for debate was how to build a sustainable and diverse British film culture. Oh that old chestnut you might be thinking…but not quite. As at other utopian gatherings – say, the League of Nations, the communist Internationals, the round-table knights seeking the Holy Grail, the POWs in The Great Escape - the topic ignited impassioned opinion.
Not least from Ben Gibson, director of the London Film School, who launched a rip-snorting challenge to Atkins after the afore-mentioned indiscretion. The Gibson-Atkins contention - sounds like an airport bestseller - hinged upon the purpose of public funding: should the likely profitability of a film be a criterion for public funding (as per Atkins) or should public funding exist primarily to create ‘additionality’ (as per Gibson): films of cultural value that might otherwise struggle to be made? The honour at stake in this verbal joust was whether market value, i.e. profit, is an effective index of cultural value.
That is, whether we can rely upon an international free market to produce a cinema that is representative of local, in this case British, culture. If this was the recurring question then ‘No’ was the recurring rejoinder. If the market cannot be trusted then public intervention is necessary, hence the Gibson-Atkins ultimatum; if public intervention is necessary then what intentions should it have and how should it be carried out? Further tax breaks for British film from the UK Film Council? Further tax avoidance? But what is culturally British film, how can we define it, and why is it often so bad?
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The first Independent Film Parliament was held in 2003 ‘to develop and share ideas on structures and policy in an open, public forum […] to feedback from the less visible, specialist or cultural sector, in the interest of developing audiences and maintaining access on screen to the widest diversity of voices, forms and perspective.’ The first Parliament forwarded policy suggestions resulting from its discussions to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the UK Film Council and Ofcom.
Some of the proposals from the first Parliament were: selective tax allowances for UK production and distribution; support for independent cinemas; open debate about how to achieve national distribution of British, European and World cinemas; greater cooperation with Europe; transparency in public funding; regional investment; increased provision for film investment from British television broadcasters.
Sub-titled ‘Local Film Culture, Global Exchange’, the second Parliament kicked off this year with a heartening volley from Stephen Woolley, producer of The Crying Game and director of recent release Stoned, urging for an identifiably British cinema. “Instead of making transatlantic films we need films which go deeper into our own culture. Go to Almodovar for Spain, Chabrol for France. The more reflective of a culture, the more exciting the film is.” Yet he admitted the difficulties. ‘To get any film off the ground you must have an American deal.’ He considers this to be a ‘very worrying’ trend.
‘Worrying’ because to gain finance and distribution British films suborn their content to the perceived cultural imperatives of the US domestic market, obviously the market for which US films are primarily made. In the UK and Ireland North American films or co-productions form an incredible 97.3% of all films in distribution and exhibition. This means that we’re watching films that are alien to an indigenous British culture (except insofar as that culture has already been Americanised) and those films that are British, or partly British, are inevitably transatlantic in flavour.
The figures on the IFP website are stark: Only 6% of screens are dedicated to non-mainstream programming; under 5% of screens are in rural locations; foreign language films represent 4.6% of UK box office (gross); last year UK feature production fell from
44 to 27; almost 70 % of film sales to the industry came from London.
Canadian lawyer Peter S. Grant describes this as an example of ‘market failure’ because ‘it can be demonstrated that the market does not show what the audience wants to see.’
So, first of all, how does the market fail?
At the Parliament Grant argued that this failure results from the peculiar characteristics of cultural products. In his book Blockbusters and Trade Wars, written with Chris Wood, he says that, ‘economists are referring to the failure of the market [for cultural products] as a whole to do what markets are presumed to do best, that is, to lead to the greatest possible outcome for the greatest number of participants. Or, as economists would say, to maximise social welfare.’ This is particularly evident in the film industry.
According to Grant a cultural product is different to a usual commodity because it communicates ideas rather than serving a utilitarian purpose. Therefore each product tends to result from a one-time process with high initial costs. As per William Goldman’s infamous aphorism about Hollywood, ‘nobody knows’ what will be a hit because the worth of a cultural product – which is experiential in nature - is not tangible like the effect of a cleaning detergent for example. It’s therefore impossible to invest in cultural products without risk and the greater the investment the higher the risk will be.
However those cultural products - the very few - that are commercially successful tend to be extremely lucrative precisely because of their uniqueness. Detergent can be swapped for another brand with highly comparable results but the uniqueness of a film confers a monopoly. So revenue from successes covers the costs of the many failures.
So what about the film industry today?
Because films have historically been so expensive to make, Hollywood has relied upon big-budget star-driven formula blockbusters with saturation publicity to pull the crowds and recoup the costs. According to the founding director of the IFP Holly Aylett ‘of some 2500 features made in the US, 460 are released in the cinemas of which about 50 are profitable, a hit ratio of 2.5%.’ Genre is a way to standardise the films so that they can be effectively packaged and marketed as commodities to minimise financial risk. In addition the desire to minimise risk leads to the tendency to go with the ‘known quantity’ and aim for broader – less culturally specific – markets likewise painted in broad brushstrokes.
Only those countries with large domestic markets, such as the United States or India, can afford to make culturally specific films again and again, although even then there is a limit to how localised and original the films can be. Hollywood churns out hundreds of films a year to maximise its chances of getting the all-important hit and through its economic dominance ensures that these films fill British cinemas. Exhibitors are attracted to Hollywood films for the same reasons: there are more of them, more widely publicised, with stars and consistent genres that diminish risk, even though no one knows in advance what’s genuinely likely to succeed and what isn’t.
In theory this should not prevent exhibitors from allowing other films onto their screens. However in practice the Hollywood studios will allow the exhibitors to screen their most sought-after blockbusters only if the exhibitors also agree to screen a package of other films, whatever the likely prospects of those films. Simply by that way the screening of alternatives is limited. There has been little room for independence because historically the small group of exhibitors allied with Hollywood have owned the overwhelming majority of British cinemas and independent cinemas struggle to compete with the publicity surrounding North American releases, which of course is all pervasive.
There leaves little room for indigenous British expression, or for European and World representation in our cinemas, and little genuine diversity – in any sense – even among North American films (low-budget indie auteurs being the mould-breaking exception but often only to the extent that they become another genre).
Not only that, but the situation has recently worsened: in August 2004 the company Terra Firma bought both the Odeon and UCI cinema chains – 35% of the exhibition market – and in December Cineworld UK took over UGC. According to Holly Aylett, ‘Up until that takeover UGC had demonstrated the best record for the range of films exhibited by a multiplex chain.’ The involvement of trans-national companies with no cinematic heritage looks to be a growing trend in the industry and they may soon supersede Hollywood.
Absolutely deadpan, Aylett notes that ‘Terra Firma bought into landfill sites and waste recycling with the same considerations.’
As Grant and Wood point out in their book, few cultural products are commercially successful but many are successful on other levels, in terms of their social value in ‘such subjective areas as social cohesion, national identity and cultural sovereignty’, values not easily captured by the market. He stresses that there is neither perfect choice nor perfect competition in the film industry. Consumers cannot know in advance that they will get their experiential value for money and therefore rely upon publicity to guide them and there is no direct competition, as between different brands of detergents, because the experiential/cultural contents of each film are not identical despite attempts at standardisation through genre films or marketing strategies.
In this context where the major players dominate film culture how can original and local film culture be produced? A low budget film might be made and it might recoup its costs were it shown in UK cinemas or on television but the closed distribution, exhibition and television markets seem to militate against this. Yet without broader exposure how can British films hope to establish a British film culture?
Potential help comes in the form of a ‘Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity’ from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). This declares the dual nature of cultural products, cultural and economic, and gives signatory states the right to protect indigenous culture superseding trade agreements that would treat cultural products purely as commodities therefore entirely subject to market forces. Needless to say, the United States and transnationals have protested against this and while every country has now signed the convention except for the USA and Israel, at least thirty countries will have to ratify it at the national level for it to become operative.
Given the insufficiency of the market to create thriving local film cultures Mr Grant suggested his toolkit of measures at the IFP for government intervention.
These are, very superficially: the support of public broadcasting; scheduling quotas for British broadcasters to broadcast British productions; expenditure requirements for broadcasters in British film projects; national ownership of conventional broadcasting; competition policy to avoid monopoly; subsidies for British independent film.
However the question arises, what is ‘British’ and would we simply replace one form of domination with another through a limiting category? Anti-trust legislation can prevent monopoly but could also conceivably limit genuine pluralism. Who defines what is the nation and what is in the national interest? Isn’t this just another form of censorship?
Grant has suggested a points-score test based on certain aspects of subject matter such as UK locations, characters, source materials etc; percentage of expenditure in the UK and percentage of UK professionals employed, to identify culturally British productions for funding. The DCMS is currently consulting with the industry on the test.
Grant admits that all of his suggested policies ‘have weaknesses and strengths’ and that their precise implementation would be ‘culturally relative’ to different nation-states. However he thinks them necessary in some form and his ‘toolkit’ has been blessed by the UNESCO declaration. Indeed action is becoming all the more urgent.
Digital and media convergence in the coming years allow the possibility of greater accessibility to the industry for local independent filmmakers but only if their rights are protected. For example if the Digital Screen Network (installing digital projectors in cinemas enabling the exhibition of digital films without the expense of a film print) is to offer exhibition for alternative films then it must not simply continue the current trend of North American films domination.
In addition, as MEP Ruth Hieronymi emphasised at the Parliament, if the internet is to offer new opportunities for distribution and exhibition then European Audiovisual law will have to change to ensure that ‘point-to-point’ services in the information industry are not treated simply as e-commerce without any cultural emphasis. Otherwise this new frontier will quickly be foreclosed by the same transnationals entering the film industry.
Finally, two important points raised at the Parliament:
Firstly, the issue of culturally specific, independent and challenging films to find exposure is also a fundamental issue of freedom of expression. Free expression is de facto compromised in a society where culture is so suborned to foreign interests.
Secondly, why are British films often so bad? Greater opportunities for expression will not in themselves bring better, more meaningful or diverse films without a renewal of film culture more generally, particularly through education. In his 2002 address as the new Chairman of the Film Council Alan Parker suggested that sustainability in the British film industry was impossible while British films were dependent on public subsidies however necessary they might be in the short-term. Here we return to the earlier comments of Chris Atkins regarding ‘tax avoidance’ that inflates film budgets as people jump onboard to take advantage.
Alan Parker’s answer, over-simplified here, was to open up to foreign investment wherever possible and to aim for international success. This was controversial to say the least and would seem to potentially relegate a culturally specific cinema to the margins.
Yet perhaps as Stephen Woolley suggested it is cultural specificity that makes films so memorable. Sustainability is applicable in artistic terms as well as economic.
Without education there is no sustainable film culture. Without investment and education in the regions then there is no British film culture: only London.
There has been long-standing government confusion regarding whether to treat films as business or art. Now that the DCMS has responsibility for the industry things seem to have shifted in the direction of the art. This is all to the good because it may redress some of the balance between these models. The IFP sub-title this year ‘Local Film Culture, Global Exchange’ emphasises that film has a use value, a cultural value, a national value as well as an international exchange value. It is shortsighted to see them as necessarily mutually exclusive (‘the French hit ratio is approximately 10%, although France only produces about 100 features a year’ - Aylett), but is perhaps even worse to thoughtlessly privilege the latter over the former and thus foreclose the creative and expressive possibilities of this most powerful and universal of mediums.
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