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This spring, Large, the 10th feature film supported by the Yorkshire Media Production Agency, began shooting on location in Birmingham. Since when was Birmingham in Yorkshire, you may well ask.
“We are not just involved in devel- oping films in the region, but in helping Yorkshire film-makers too,” explains Colin Pons, managing director of the YMPA. “Large is produced for Picture Palace North by Alex Usborne who is from Sheffield and with whom we’ve had a relationship since our early days as the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Production Fund.”
Usborne started out making docu- mentaries on quirky local subjects, which eventually were networked on TV, and then snapped up the rights for Irvine Welsh’s The Acid House Trilogy before Trainspotting raised the Scottish writer’s profile. The pro- ducer made one segment of The Acid House, The Granton Star Cause, for
Channel 4 and then got backing to complete the trilogy as a feature film. The YMPA had input on the film made in Scotland and has now moved on to the latest Usborne ven- ture, Large, a hard-edged teen come- dy scripted by Justin Edgar.
IN GOD’S
IN GOD’S
How Yorkshire spurs on new film-makers
The YMPA is providing 15% of the finance in a partnership with Film Four, Film 4 Lab and the Film Consortium. Since emerging from Sheffield Independent Film and dis- pensing subsidies from the city for script development and seed funding (usually in no more than three-figure sums) for aspiring film-makers, it has progressed to its involvement on sev- eral large-scale movies.
Largely funded by the European Regional Development Fund (aimed at regenerating areas where traditional industries have collapsed) and Yorkshire Arts, it provides develop- ment finance, production investment and support for feature and short films, TV, video and multi-media work. Increasingly it is looking for a return on its investment from movies to plough back into its operation.
It has to be said that none of its cinema features so far - they include Among Giants, Fanny and Elvis, and Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? – has been a money-spinner on the scale of a certain film made in Yorkshire without its help - The Full Monty.
But as its screenwriter Simon Beaufoy says, “Just about the only person to benefit financially from the film’s worldwide success was Rupert Murdoch [20th Century Fox, the dis- tributors].” Beaufoy has been grateful to the YMPA for assistance on his three subsequent films, Among Giants, The Darkest Light (which he co-direct- ed) and Never Better, a comedy about Yorkshire hairdressers starring Alan Rickman and Rachel Griffiths.
On the question of box office suc- cess or otherwise, Pons points out that these days a film generates income over a longer period with video release and TV sales and that the deal that the YMPA gives varies on each film. “The Acid House has probably given us the best return on our investment so far,” he says.
Their biggest investment has been on Fanny and Elvis. “Maybe this was where we lost our way a bit,” admits Pons. “Instead of becoming involved
in something with an already estab- lished writer on a mainstream pro- ject, we now feel the type of film we should be involved in is The Acid House and others on small and medi- um budgets which are coming in from the fringes.”
But the work of the YMPA is not all about money. Part of the deal when they become involved with a film is that young film-makers from the region are given trainee placements. This is something that has impressed New Zealand actress Kerry Fox, who has starred in two of YMPA’s films, The Darkest Light and Fanny and Elvis.
She said: “We had a trainee camera assistant whom we taught how to make really good capuccino. You could see him blossom and I saw him
later at the Fanny and Elvis premiere in Leeds and he is a different person now. He’s really into film and you know that one day he will be a really good film-maker. You could see the evi- dence of what the YMPA are doing.”
Among the films the YMPA will be taking to the Cannes Festival this year is Secret Society, a romantic comedy about women’s sumo wrest- ing from Northern Film School grad- uates Imogen Kimmel and Catriona McGowan, and Blood, a first-time feature by Sheffield-born Simon Markham and Charly Cantor, a 117- minute sci-fi drama which was filmed in their home city on a bud- get of £115,000.
“The YMPA were fantastic,” says Markham. “They showed a lot of com- mitment in terms of what they put into, both the investment
to get the project going
and then help in promot-
ing it now it’s completed.
They showed a lot of guts
in going for a film that was
shot on a low budget and
has a subject that’s quite provocative.”
While feature film-mak- ing may be the most visible side of their work, in many ways development support for new emerging produc- tion companies is the real lifeblood of their operation.
The YMPA recognises that short films remain key to the development of regional talent and sup- ports several each year, often in partnership with other funders such as Yorkshire Arts.
The YMPA is one of only five regional funds across the country - “they’ve developed in different places for different reasons” according to Pons, who was one of the prime movers behind the formation of the Federation of Film Funders to ensure that the increasingly important role they play in the national film industry is recognised. ■ IAN SOUTAR
Photos top left: Colin Pons, Managing Director of YMPA; below: Ann Tobin, Development Executive, YMPA with actor Gary McCormack; inset above: Screen Commissioner Liz Rymer
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