** I wrote this article in 2012 when BIFA and Raindance were a lot younger than they are now. I was going to do a ‘cheat’ and update this – but have decided to let this rant stand as it is. Please enjoy and see if you can add some comments at the bottom.
– Elliot Grove, London, August 2018
With the British Independent Film Awards around the corner, once again the eyes of the world will be focused on British film and filmmakers.
Britain’s film-makers and British film are constantly battling to break out, struggling to find the finance to make enough good films to create a viable industry. Among the things holding them back is …
…a pile of lies – or misconceptions, if you prefer – masquerading as truisms.
Here are a few of the more common ones.
1. If you have a good script, it will get produced.
This is one of the biggest and best lies.
A perfect illustration of huge naivety believing that parts of our imperfect world (including film-making, of all things) are in perfect running order.
The reality is much more frightening: if you have a good script in this country, you are likely to have a problem.
Bad scripts, or at least mediocre scripts, are much easier to read than good scripts and producers are not known for their reading skills so much as their financial acumen.
When accounting meets literacy, there can only be one winner. You don’t need to go to film school to work that one out.
2. Soho is Britain’s Beverley Hills.
This lie is not as outlandish as it sounds.
Obviously most film-makers’ Soho offices are less grand – okay, drab – by comparison. And there are not many hills in Soho, either. None, in fact. Nor is there as much sunshine as you find in BH.
But, as in Beverley Hills, there is a lot of talent concentrated in one place in Soho, so the two are linked in that sense.
What makes this statement a lie nevertheless is that, in Soho, you actually bump into film people in the street all the time, and they are amiably human, while in Beverly Hills the talent is locked up in cars trapped in traffic jams.
Long live Soho.
3. Britain hasn’t made a great film since The Full Monty.
Perhaps you think this lie is more absurd than mendacious. The Full Monty? A great film? Be serious.
If it wasn’t one of your favourites, substitute any one of dozens of other successful British titles from the last 10, 20, 50 years.
Billy Elliott. Ghandi, Notes On A Scandal, Performance, Don’t Look Back, Atonement, Control, This Is England, Slumdog Millionaire, Son of Babylon, King’s Speech and on and on and on.
Say, if you will, there hasn’t been a great British film since The Lodger in 1927.
The point – the lie – is the suggestion that Britain has lost its power to make a decent movie. That it lost it some time ago (a few years ago, a few decades ago, whatever) and not only hasn’t made anything decent recently, it never will again.
Palpably untrue!
Just watch out for the films nominated for this year’s British Independent Film Awards and the new British films coming out this year.And the terrific new British films at this year’s Raindance Film Festival. And by the way, Ben Wheatley’s DOWN TERRACE screened at Raidance in 2009. Largely ignored by the British industry, Ben went to the States and came storming back with Kill List. Many call Ben’s first two films PDG (Pretty damn Good). His Another field In England smashed pre-conceived distribution notions too.
Britain can and will make more memorable movies.
The sad fact is that it will not make as many as it might unless it has greater self-belief.
4. Some scripts are more TV than film.
Only in the fantasy world of film could anyone get away with objecting to something on such flimsy ground.
This is like complaining that an architect’s drawings could never add up to a skyscraper because they fit into an envelop.
Where is the imagination to see that anything can be made to work as film rather than TV if handled creatively.
If Beckett can find majesty in a tale of two tramps, if Proust can find the whole of life in a tea break, great films, not TV, could be made from a limerick or less if there is an idea involved.
5. British actors can’t open a film.
If opening a film means guaranteeing packed houses for a film from the off regardless of the script, certainly Britain is short of sure things.
Mind you, so is America every few years. Only it gets around the failing by running huge publicity campaigns. Indeed, without massive and expensive publicity even America’s best would have trouble luring many potatoes off their couches.
Besides, Britain does have big draw names, from established entities like Catherine and Kate, Sean and Anthony to newcomers such as Christian, Hugh, Benedict, Edward, Tom, James, Ewan and Orlando.
They and dozens of other quality actors can all lodge a title in a film goers’s mind, even without publicity, and open a picture very well.
If they seem to do so less successfully than their American colleagues, it is most likely that they are robbed of the press and publicity coverage they deserve.
6. Gangster films give the most realistic depiction of modern Britain.
A hard one to disagree with, this one. For Britain does seem to have a knack for looking at criminals with a cold, hard, accurate eye.
But, despite the pervasive sense of a country swamped by crime, these cruel flicks in no way reflect the reality of life in Britain for most people today.
They only seem so valuable because there are too few engaging films dealing with more conventional people. That is the mystery, or crime, that there are not many more convincing movies about ordinary society.
Is it so dull that it can’t make great cinema?
Or is ordinary society not interested in seeing films about itself?
7. Britain is only good at period pieces.
There is no denying that the country has a canny way of looking at its past, and it is not short of a few centuries of past to look at either.
So it is not surprising that it churns out a fair number of them.
Is this a flaw? As Julius Caesar might have said: Did the Greeks not write about their past? Was that not honourable?
There still needs to be scripts looking at the present day certainly.
But even Hollywood tends to devote a fair share of its budget on period pieces, especially given America’s relatively short history. They just cleverly disguise them with other, more vibrant names.
Westerns. Colonial period. Pioneer days. The Twenties. The Forties. War films.
8. British film scripts are too wordy.
The implication is that other counties, meaning America, know when to shut up and let the visuals make the movie.
That they know how to write scripts that make great movies.
Oh, yes, they do. Sometimes.
The flaw in the argument is to suggest that they know how to write successfully all the time. As if they never produce turkeys. This is a porkie on a grand scale.
Consider how many monkeys they have tinkering with hundreds of scripts day after day after day. Then consider that they only release the best of these, a fair share of which are actually written by Brits.
Then consider how many of these – not the British scripts – are flops! Unless, of course, you have never seen a bad Hollywood film! What’s extraordinary is not how well Americans write but how badly.
9. Brits prefer Hollywood films.
Oh, no, they don’t!
This is a classic case of chicken and egg. Or, in this instance, more like big, wild Woolly Mammoth and egg.
If truth be told, if Brits prefer any country’s cinema more than their own, it is most likely French or Chinese or the work of some other nation that produces insightful, thought movies.
But if it is Saturday night and the media have been telling you for months that Spiders/Snakes/Machetes in a Bed/Plane/Refrigerator is THE movie to see and it is playing on 18 of your 19 local screens, with the unnoticed British oeuvre scheduled for the final six seat auditorium, guess which one Brits are going to flock to?
So decent but unadvertised British films open and die by Sunday morning, leaving the coffers empty and unable to fund future, more adventurous films and US behemoths ride laughing all the way to the top of the box office.
Fight Apathy
This is where Raindance comes in, and it is where you come in. Certain festivals, like Raindance, have become a key way for filmmakers to launch their films into Europe. Which means Raindance needs your support in order to get bums on seats during the festival screenings, and get eyeballs of websites before the screenings.
If you think you can help, email me at info@raindance.co.uk and we will put your energy and your communication skills to good use.
To make the festival easier to navigate, we have divided our movies into strands: Simply scan this list and see which strand appeals to your sense of taste and adventure.
See you at the festival!
Elliot Grove
About Elliot Grove
Photo Credit Jay Brooks / BIFA 2015
Few people know more filmmakers and screenwriters than Elliot Grove. Elliot is the founder of Raindance Film Festival (1993) and the British Independent Film Awards (1998). He has produced over 700 hundred short films and five feature films: the multi-award-winning The Living and the Dead (2006), Deadly Virtues (2013), AMBER (2017), Love is Thicker Than Water (2018) and the SWSX Grand Jury Prize winner Alice (2019). He teaches screenwriting and producing in the UK, Europe, Asia and America.
Elliot has written three books which have become industry standards: Raindance Writers’ Lab: Write + Sell the Hot Screenplay, now in its second edition, Raindance Producers’ Lab: Lo-To-No Budget Filmmaking and Beginning Filmmaking: 100 Easy Steps from Script to Screen (Professional Media Practice).
In 2009 he was awarded a PhD for services to film education.
I have to disagree with a few of your points, but will only highlight the one about British films. This is a debate that still goes on between me and friends and I'd like to know what do you call a British film – one made entirely with British money and whose revenues and profit go back to the UK? Or one that employs British actors regardless of where the money comes from? In my humble opinion, The King's Spreech isn't a British production as the money and investors were from the US. Similarly, and many people will be outraged, the Harry Potter films either , nor is Downton Abbey. All made with US investment and money, and therefore any revenues going back to the US. The few truly British films like This is England or London to Brighton are definitely British and yes, have done well. But it is a sad fact that Britain doesn't churn out many projects and with the dissolution of the UK Film Council, this will be even less so and everyone will be turning to the US for funding. Again, this is my humble opinion about the state of the British film industry.
Hi Georgia:
We aregued and debated the 'what makes an independent British film for a decade when i started the British Independetn Film Awards – and know what? I still am not sure!
😉
Having said that, there are 2 types of British films – those made here by the service industry, and those truly independent ie financed without the assistance of a studio. As to the natioanlity of the money, few 100% British funded films are ever made.
Dont you think?
Hi,
I kind of disagree with some of the these points, but I think the salient point, of these points, shows the divergence between Pan-American audiences and British Audiences, the Pan-American film institute and the British Film Institute. (Not even taking Europe into the equation… sheesh).
These points seem to be more targeted towards producers, and could be more or less decoded as to being a rule of thumb for film financing and budgeting.
Everyone knows that the BFI's golden years where 1983-2000; however, saying that; the National Lottery and it's contributions towards "British" films for "British" audiences, have been stern and tepid, but have not been commercial successes as some American produced British movies.
With the exception of the obvious films, American producers know what American audiences want to see from the BFI and whether you're left-wing or right-wing, unfortunately for aspiring British producers; British films stop at the Buck.
I wouldn't call it a 'keen' observation, but aren't many US films UK/US Co-Productions? Many British Film makers go to the US to make their careers.
When I look at other awards (that are not BIFA), it saddens me when the so-called category of Best British Film is full of features that have primarily been financed by Hollywood studios.
The only reason they are classified as British films is thanks to HMRC (ah, the HMRC – I received many a P60 from their *special* film tax unit – made me feel all special) and the tax incentive our government has for making it easier for Hollywood to control our film industry. Is Skyfall British? Only insofar that the bulk of the talent behind it is? Money and profit goes back to Hollywood. Likewise for Harry Potter. In fact, Warners were so concerned about the tax incentives our Government were proposing that they threatened to take the entire production away from the UK and to the Czech Republic. They did the same thing with The Hobbit – demanding $120 million subsidy and changes to union and copyright law before the production could go ahead.
Already Pinewood Studios has been taken over by the likes of Disney – many of the offices there have been given over to Disney for upcoming productions. It's going to be VERY difficult for British-financed indie productions to compete with getting studio space as a consequence. We have Three Mills and the like, but space is tight.
We absolutely must, must MUST fight to encourage more private (and public) investors to make British films without the reliance on Hollywood. We must dictate our own future and not from the likes of the big Hollywood studio system. We must stop pandering to them.
5. British actors can’t open a film.
I guess whoever said that hasn't seen a James Bond movie in the last fifty years. Skyfall didn't do too badly.
Georgia – well in my humble (Belgian) opinion – I think that movies (and even TV for that matter) with only one finance source are no longer possible. Most are co-productions. I know people in the UK have gone wild for the Danish TV series The Killing – Borge – but those series are all 'co productions' between Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and German backers. But still they are considered Danish – no one even thinks of 'argue' against that because people over here in Eruope are used to this kind of co-operation as otherwise we wouldn't be able to produce anything anymore!!! For some reason the UK still is hanging on to this 'this is our money – this is not our money' or 'this is British money and it should only be used for an all British crew'. And losing friends in many parts of the world seeing this as a dated idea and even a dangerous idea. You talk about those 'British movies not being British because of the money isn't British' well ask anyone outside the UK and they will say without any feeling of doubt 'it are British movies' and won't understand your POV. They see a British crew, British actors, a British setting and for this they consider it 'British' and where the money is from isn't an issue. You may say that the revenues go back to the US but are all those people (crew & cast) working on the project not paid? Would they have had a job if that movie or TV hadn't been made? The money earned by them isn't that staying in Britian? Plus because the actors involved in these project become well know to the public isn't that a plus to hire them for a truly British films that will for this have a better change to lure the public into the theatres to see it? And do you honestly believe that all the money in Hollywood is US money? I'm sure that those who invest in movies in Hollywood will also accept none US money if an none US investor offers it!
Elliot – I agree that 'no British' actor can't open a movie' is not really true – British actors are know to be 'good'. I only think that as you said – there isn't enough money to promote them and perhaps people should start thinking of a proper promotion funding program for each movie like the US does. Coke didn't become the number one drink because it was good or healthy but because it had well oiled promotion organisation behind it that made people believe that drinking coke was 'cool' and 'the in thing to do'!!! It's what happened to the Dutch painter Van Gogh – he himself was lousy to promote himself and he died poor his nephew was a good in promoting and selling the family made a fortune since he handled the paintings of his uncle! I rest my case —
Some of those lies I've heard before but why do you keep hating on producers? Saying that producers aren't known for their reading skills. I'm a producer and I studied English Literature at University and I've read everything from Dante's Inferno to the Satanic Verses. I think a lot of new directors and writers really don't understand the role of a producer and think we're only good for managing the bills and a post like that only re-enforces that myth. Please change it!