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Year 2000 was always going to be bumpy as the new Film Council absorbed and restructured almost all of the existing state funded film financ- ing organisations and purposely reduced the num- ber of films funded with public money.
So let me first deal with the headline grabbing business of Lottery funding before moving onto the
“Section 48 reliefs have been vital to the recent resurgence of film production in
the UK and there is now a firm foundation for growth and exports over the
Continued from page 4
place the fund man- agers are finally preparing to announce the first Film Council film investments. The proof of the pudding will start to appear in the preview theatres towards the end of this year.
The real success of
Jenny’s new £5 million
a year development
fund will only be measured over years but the com- mitment to improving the quality of British scripts on offer to film financiers is solid and my guess is that in the long-term this may well prove to have been the Film Council’s most important subsidy initiative in a productionsectorcharacterisedmainlybysmalland under-capitalised production companies.
During the same time an expert industry working party advised our Head of Training Helen Bagnall on drawing up a strategy for an annual spend of £1 million on industry training, focused on writing, script development skills and business development.
Over the coming months film training organisa- tions across the UK will be competing to deliver these new training programmes and this process too has been designed specifically to improve over time the quality of British scripts on the market.
It’s sometime overlooked that the Film Council’s commitment to film education and cul- ture is as important as the industrial remit and as the new financier of the British Film Institute, the Film Council was also pleased to be able to safe- guard the BFI’s valuable work, particularly at the National Film Theatre (undoubtedly the best spe- cialist and rep cinema on the planet) and the J Paul Getty Film Conservation Centre.
The BFI’s plans for a new flagship public film centre on the South Bank with a new NFT, museum and library are now advancing steadily and will be continued to be supported by the Film Council.
During the summer of last year the Film Council also ran a comprehensive review across the English regions of the dozens of local produc- tion funds, film archives, training structures, edu- cational initiatives, screen commissions and sub- sidised cinemas.
The cultural riches and industrial talent identi- fied across England were phenomenal and the Film Council Board responded by creating a £6 million a year Regional Investment Fund designed to encour- age the English regions to co-ordinate their cultural and industrial film activities and to develop their activities within local audio-visual economies.
The whole exercise was a salutary lesson that whilst 90% of the film industry may be in Soho, Pinewood and Shepperton, there is a massive and under- utilised talent base beyond the metropolis which deserves the opportunity to shine more brightly.
Finally, the British Film Commission also settled into its new home
inside the Film Council with its customary lack of fuss and by the end of the year our Film Commissioner Steve Norris was able to report a record £539 million of inward investment spend onproductionintheUK. Nevertheless,weareall acutely aware this coming year may well be a lot tougher with the potential Screen Actors Guild strike looming in the US.
Looking ahead in policy terms, the most important task the Council has set itself for the coming year is to carefully examine the structural faultlines in the industry and to prepare policy proposals for government which lay the founda- tions for a genuinely sustainable British industry in the long term.
Solutions will have nothing to do with relative- ly small amounts of Lottery funding, but must rely on government and industry support for policies which create a more favourable climate for invest- ment in integrated film companies capable of oper- ating effectively in the global market.
Also for this year the Board has asked for a coherent export promotion strategy for British film: • The setting up of a statistics unit designed to pub- lish market information for the benefit of the industry. • A clear response to the cultural diversity employ-
ment problems facing the industry.
• A sustained effort with the BFI to get film and ‘moving image’ studies onto the school curricula. • A plan for working alongside the industry to pro- mote more regular cinema-going in the UK.
• The re-establishment of a MEDIA desk in the UK to maximise the British film industry’s access to the next European MEDIA fund worth some £627 million over the next five years.
As for me... well, this time last year just as the Film Council came into being, Alan Parker likened me on these pages to the human cannonball, reflecting that the blast of the cannon ejecting him into the air at 90mph was nothing compared to landing in the net the other end.
A year later, I’m in mid-air praying that the net’s still there. ■
next few years”
JOHN WOODWARD, respondin
the Budget announcement that there’s to be an extension of film industry tax relief until 2005
drier, rather less sexy, but ultimately more impor- tant business of policy and strategy.
Mindful of the increasing criticism of Lottery funding for film, the Board’s first task was to create a more hard-nosed approach to state funding for films. In October last year our new funds went live. The Premiere Fund opened for business under Robert Jones and the more risky and edgy New Cinema Fund under Paul Trijbits.
The new and crucially important Development Fund under Jenny Borgars was also set up to reflect the Council’s view that unless the script’s right, you shouldn’t bother at all.
The orders were clear: no decision-making by committee, simply hire the best people we could afford, leave them to make the creative decisions, keep the bureaucracy to a minimum, work with the grain of the industry, focus on European and US partners and, above all, be as flexible as possible on the deal within the constraints laid down by government for Lottery funding.
The new funding machine is now working and after five months of learning how to politely say ‘no thank you’ whilst keeping all their teeth in
6
JOHN WOODWARD
g to