What the Hell is wrong with UK films????

I think the main problem is that we speak English. As far as I am aware the likes of Australia and New Zealand have the same problem - our product tends not to have a real unique separator from American product that controls much of the distribution. In France there is a real movement to make home grown movies because… the audience wants to watch movies at the cinema that are in their own language. So what do we need to do in order to elevate British films and to build a sustainable British Film Industry???

Well, first lets look at what we do have:

Bankable actors. Actors sell movies. No question about it. And we have plenty of great names. Daniel Craig, Christian Bale, Jason Statham, Gerard Butler, Kate Beckinsale, Helena Bonham Carter, Keira Knightley, Hugh Laurie, Kate Winslet, James McAvoy, Simon Pegg, Ewan McGregor, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Wentworth Miller, Judi Dench, Clive Owen, Sienna Miller, Rachel Weisz, Orlando Bloom, Ian McShane, Emma Thompson, Kiefer Sutherland, Jude Law, Colin Firth, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean, Ralph Fiennes, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Helen Mirren… okay, okay. So you get the point. There is enough bankable UK talent to fill at least 24 high profile movies a year. At least!

What about bankable Directors… Er… Okay… Ridley Scott, Danny Boyle, Christopher Nolan, Sam Mendes, Tony Scott, Edgar Wright, Paul W. S. Anderson, Mike Leigh, Matthew Vaughen, David Yates, Paul Greengrass, Mike Newell, Ken Loach, Stephen Daldry, Stephen Frears, John Madden, Michael Apted, Alan Parker, Joe Wright… Again I’ll stop. I think we’ve established the ‘A’ list British directors out there… (One day you’ll read Richard Janes on this list :-)) But there are more than enough bankable directors to direct at least 24 high quality, unique and entertaining British movies a year.

So that leaves the crew… Don’t worry I am not going to list some of the amazing crew we have. However, some people in Hollywood seem to think that British movies have a small ‘look’ or ‘cottage industry’ feel about them. Ignoring the obvious examples like ‘James Bond’, ‘Indianna Jones’ and ‘Harry Potter’ there have been a number of movies made over the last few years that the audience would think were American. Movies like ‘Derailed’ or ‘The Up Side of Anger’.

So we have the ‘A’ list actors, the ‘A’ list directors and a crew capable of making blockbuster movies. So what next. Writers…

Ah… here is where we hit our first problem. Don’t we don’t have talented writers???? We have amazing writers. But their are two problems: Television and Producers.

Television: We have AMAZING television in the UK. From my traveling it is the best in the world. Brilliant, Brilliant entertaining stories - and lots of one hour specials, two parters or series where you can ‘dip in and out’ so to speak. Most of our great story tellers are writing there. And, they do it so they can pay the bills, so they can, almost for certain, see what they write get made AND because some UK television writers have created household names for themselves. On the other side of the coin, so few British films get made, their is a stigma associated with lots of British films, invariably it doesn’t pay great - or it pays the same as TV (unlike the US where a spec script can sell for $600,000 against $1,000,000 which makes it worth writing specs in between other work as the reward, if you can sell it, is so much greater) AND there are so few places that will pay for the development of a screenplay. There have been some wonderful television that would have made excellent, excellent movie material which could have done brilliantly at the world box office. I’m talking of Horatio Hornblower, Sharp, some of the Mi5 / Spooks episodes, Gulliver’s Travels, Shackleton, Man and Boy, The Second Coming… (I’d even LOVE to see the BBC allow a feature version of Dr. Who with Pierce Brosnan in the lead - I have it from a good source he’d be up for it!!) Again, I could go on and on. Some really great writing that would have suited the big screen really well and would have been unique enough to break away from American product both at home cinemas and internationally.

Producers: There is an enormous lack of them! I don’t mean the people you bump into in Soho House who claim to be producers! It’s always amazes me how many UK producers will introduce themselves as a ‘Creative Producer’. Meaning they aren’t really good with the money side of things, or perhaps putting together a unit, or perhaps working with the director to lead an army… No they are really good at developing story… Hummm… In fact, most producers who have claimed this ‘Creative Producer’ title went on to given me dreadful scripts to read. There are, of course, a hand full of really great producers who know how to put together movies and understand story - some names you’ll know and some names you won’t. But their aren’t that many. This is where Hollywood really gets one over on the British system. WE NEED GOOD PRODUCERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If we could establish a way to nurture talented producers we would be on the road to creating a sustainable film industry. We need people who understand story and the value of writers, who understand how distribution and sales work and ultimately who understand business!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are a lot of ways to find financing for British movies you just need to be devoted and creative in your approach - (But also have the cash to do it!!!)

 

 

Two Great British Producers. Tom Bevan & Eric Fellner of Working Title

So in summary… I, Richard Janes, believe the first thing we need to do to build a strong, vibrant and profitable British Film Industry is to find/train more quality producers and then fund them, even to a small degree, to work with writers, develop stories and buy options. Our British writers are more than capable of writing movies the cinema audience will LOVE!!! Funding films can come later down the line. The most important thing now is to have viable projects with someone at the head who can drive projects to success. I’ve got ideas on how this can happen, but this I will have to save for another day… But the idea doesn’t cost a fortune. Some one please send me a UK project so I can move back and be a part of the UK Industry resurgence!!!

I’m going to email a number of UK agents, producers and financiers now and invite them to comment on this blog (see comments below and feel free to add to them). Perhaps they can offer another side to the story. In the mean time, I’ve got a very busy week this week. Last week, we turned in the full treatment on the Disney Superhero movie I am writing - so I am eagerly awaiting their notes, I’m working on a new treatment for a thriller based on the international water crisis, we are trying to put together the financing paperwork for my Errol Flynn movie (it looks like it will be a UK/Australian Co-Production so the paperwork is huge!) AND ‘Fakers’ suddenly seems to be selling like hot cakes - so we are trying to deal with the paperwork on that. Very soon, when I pluck up enough courage, I will write a whole blog on the mistakes I made with both producing and directing my first movie!!!! Oh my!!!!

Have a good week,

Richard

 

 

Lets make her proud!!

Cinema is alive and well in the UK…

A bit of good news for the industry at large is that the cinema remains the first choice for U.K. consumers to watch movies, according to research published today. A survey conducted by legal eagles Olswang in conjunction with research giant YouGov finds that the theater is the primary place to watch movies. The popularity of watching movies on the big screen continues because it offers a unique “experience” in a society where choice and control are becoming increasingly important. DVD came in second with 53% spending at least an hour a week watching movies from DVD’s and 41% watching TV shows from DVD for at least an hour a week.

This is all great! But, what we have been failing to do is to get our home audience interested in home grown movies. With such a great market (historically the UK has been one of the best markets for a growing cinema audience when other territories like the US see a decline) we really NEED to get people seeing British movies.

So for my next few blogs I’m going to look at how the British film Industry can become the GREAT BRITISH FILM INDUSTRY… I really believe it can be done - we’ve got BRILLIANT stories to tell, perhaps the best crews in the world, a huge amount of talented ‘Star’ actors who mean something to financiers AND an audience who loves movies and spend money going to the movie theater - and yet the British Film Industry is a part time beast that fails more than it succeeds.

And my fix isn’t bringing back the days of HUGE tax incentives that Prime Minister Blair and Brown cut down with out any notice - my fixes are long term. One day, if it hasn’t been sorted out before I can get to the level I need to be, I’ll rejuvinate the British Film Industry… Then it’ll be Sir Richard Janes…

Toodle Pip for now.

P.S. - Sorry for the two week break. I’ve been working hard on the Disney screenplay and we’ve also been working on a new advertising format for the blog site. As you can see from above my page is the test page and we haven’t got it right just yet. Oh… and we’ve just launched a new blog community in England. You can see it here: www.FoodBloggers.co.uk - next month we’ll be launching a community for music, gardening and the fashion industry. It certainly is ALL happening