Brighton-based film production company, Spice Factory, are now one of the UK film industry's biggest success stories. In a week that sees two pf their productions (Out on a Limb and Guy X) being released, Close-Up Film writer, Justin Whitton, chats to founder and joint MD, Michael Cowan.
Spice Factory describes itself as the fastest growing and most dynamic film production company operating in the UK . The claim is certainly a bold one, but the evidence is very convincing. In a little over a decade, Spice Factory has produced over 50 films and worked with some of the biggest names in cinema, while establishing an international financial footing that should see it flourish in years to come.
It was the film version of Merchant of Venice , released last year, that really elevated the Spice Factory profile. The film was written and directed by Michael Radford, starred Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons, and grossed over £50 million to become the company's highest earner to date. The momentum has been maintained, with two new films opening in the UK next week: Lord of War , an action film about international arms dealers starring Nicolas Cage, and Guy X , a black comedy set in an Arctic military base.
Spice Factory has been hailed as a much-needed success story for British cinema. But the irony is that the company's remarkable achievements have been achieved with little support, financial or otherwise, from the British film industry. Merchant of Venice is a case in point. It took much persuading for the UK Film Council to eventually contribute to the budget, despite the obvious promise of commercial success.
Indeed, it is appropriate that Spice Factory is based in the heart of cosmopolitan Brighton because the majority of the company's projects have been made on the continent, with foreign money. Michael Cowan, a founder and now Joint Managing Director of Spice Factory with Jason Piette, is unequivocal about the preference for European locations and people. "Labour is cheaper in Europe , especially in the old Eastern Bloc", he notes. "In a few years' time, it will be China and India . The UK has priced itself out of the market". Cowan's belief that there is a considerable market outside the UK is also enforced by the demand side of its business: more than 80% of Spice Factory's ticket sales are overseas.
Cowan's emphasis on the business side of filmmaking is striking, and certainly at odds with the traditional view that British cinema is all about loss-making art. Spice Factory has been featured in British Film Magazine - but also in Business Edge. Cowan not only uses words like investment and finance structuring, but convinces you that he knows what they mean. The company is constantly looking for new sources of finance to tap into, such as the landmark American Independent Film Fund (which will assist production of commercial, independent films in the United States ) and the imminent FearFactory (which will specialise in producing low-budget genre films).
"Any new project starts with the script", says Cowan. "The screenplay is the filmmaking equivalent of a piece of land. It's the artistic source for the project. The next step is putting together a sensible budget and then finding the funding". Structuring a film around financing requires experience, but Cowan and Piette have plenty of experience - and an astonishing network of contacts around the world. Spice Factory has a distribution company in France and a DVD company in Italy .
All this success seems a long way away from the company's rather romantic beginnings in 1994. Cowan and Piette ran the fledgling business from the attic of D'Arcy's, the Brighton seafood restaurant owned by Cowan's mother. The two came together as a screenwriting team but, given their previous experience and success, it was not surprising that they eventually turned to film financing and production. Cowan had founded and run a video distribution company, Iguana Video, after leaving London International Film School; Piette, a Cambridge graduate, had produced commercials and television dramas for Lombard Productions. From their new offices, conveniently situated in the city centre, they now employ a dozen people. Most of them started as interns, and Cowand and Piette have overseen their development into key members of the Spice Factory team.
Cowan's aims for the future of Spice Factory are, unsurprisingly, ambitious. "We want to build a media business, rather than just remain a production company", he says. "We want to be more in control of what we do". Plans include starting a DVD label, as well as buying other companies and, eventually, going public. At the same time, Spice Factory will continue to produce relatively low-budget films that constitute a good blend between money and art - or, as Cowan puts it, "films that we like, and that there will be a market for".
The company's capacity to move seamlessly between different genres looks set to continue. Forthcoming projects include the sci-fi Eclipse (which Cowan describes as " Dead Calm in space"), a comedy entitled Bob's Not Gay and Baker Street (a Harold Becker-directed drama about a little-known London bank robbery). For cinemagoers weary of increasingly bland offerings from Hollywood in particular, this Spice is truly the variety of life.
Justin Whitton
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