Page 8 - 10_Bafta ACADEMY_Paul McCartney & Heather Mills_ok

STEVE NORRIS
Continued from page 4
Just on those figures alone, you get a sense of how the business has grown and the extent to which the production sector has had to change and evolve. In fact, I would argue that this growth has forced as great a transformation in this sector as at any time during the evolution of cinema since its invention some 100 years ago.
Our talent, both in front of and behind the cam- era, has been world renowned for so long (just look at the number of British and American Academy Award nominees during the nineties if you doubt me!) that we almost take it for granted.
However it is the extent to which this talent pool has been expanded by a new generation that is one of the success stories of the past five years. Add to this the expansion in our film infrastructure over the same period whilst maintaining our international reputation for producing quality work and I believe we earn the right to claim that the UK is still the best production centre in the world.
I believe, all things considered, this stands for the production of any audio-visual product, television, commercials, music or corporate video, as well as film.
The $64,000 question for me must be, “how can we keep it that way?”
Firstly, we have to invest in people and by that I mean we have to train them, we have to expand on what we’re already doing and we have to do it now. The technological changes that we face in the coming years will mean that we will have to completely rethink the way we identify and nurture talent across all disciplines.
After close to two years of hard slog, the Skills Investment Fund, set up by Skillset as part of the 1998 Film Policy Review, has raised some £900,000 plus from production levies to invest in training. All credit to Dinah Caine and her team for their fantastic work, but I have to say that if we believe that this sum alone is going to make the kind of difference our industry needs, we are never going to deliver on our real potential.
So how about this for idea number one? I would like to see a great deal more public sector money invested across all production disciplines to ensure that not only our writers and directors, but also our carpenters, camera technicians, grips, plasterers and production managers receive the same support and training as their predecessors did.
Very simply put, if we don’t have the means to build sets, or lay track, or schedule cleverly, we prob- ably won’t need directors anyway.
Secondly, we have to recognise that the facilities sector deserves support just as much as producers. Too often, facility companies have been forced to accept poor margins whilst shouldering the burden of training new people only to watch them disappear into the freelance production sector as it grows. They
take risks on capital investment in equipment knowing that that the speed of change in our industry often renders it obsolete before it is fully depreciated.
This sector truly needs a lot more help than it currently gets. There is no idea or script without the screenwriter but there is also no film without the stu- dio, or the camera, or the lights, or the visual effects.
This brings me to idea number two. Let’s try to ensure fiscal benefits in the future are shared properly by all those that are taking risks on the future of film as it is a key part of the UK’s “creative economy”.
Thirdly, we have to begin to really manage both the methods and costs of production. We have seen such an expansion in production over the past decade that we must recognise now that we are in danger of failing to produce the technical expertise necessary to meet the demand.
As a rule of thumb, labour costs make up 70% of the below-the-line costs of a film and are the single most important element in determining our competi- tiveness. In the last part of 2000, the UK industry
worked at almost full capacity and the effects were clear. Rates escalat- ed quickly for those with skills in the shortest supply and production costs rose as a result.
If we are not careful, we will see our business overheat and then have to accept the inevitable crash that will follow.
Finally, we must recognise our foreign competition and be ready to take it on. The last 10 years have seen a massive migration of production from California, mainly to Canada, but Australia, Ireland and the UK have also benefited. A combination of weaker currencies to the strong dol-
lar, developed fiscal advantages and lower labour costs have all combined to produce a seismic shift in the way in which films are made.
Nowadays, it is cost which is the deciding factor in deter- mining the location of most film and television projects and with the extraordinary breakthroughs that the visual effects sector is making in both technique and cost, more and more projects are going to take the best finan- cial package they can find.
The fact is that the UK faces the real threat of losing significant amounts of produc-
tion to Prague, Budapest, and others in the near future if the industry cannot manage its own house and ensure that its obvious qualities do not always become secondary to the ruthless economic decision- making process that producers from around the world have to face today.
It may seem odd that I write such a piece as this so recently after the UK registered its highest film pro- duction spend in history, but 2001 is likely to be a dire year for all concerned, primarily as a result of the effects of the threatened but now resolved US Screen Actors Guild strike, a salutary lesson for all on the fickleness of the production business.
Without a far more energetic and proactive indus- trial strategy our business runs the risk of losing the extraordinary momentum of the past five years.
Even worse, we also run the risk of losing the interest of a Government more film friendly than any in a generation. If we can’t give them a very real sense of what the future has to offer, we will lose them and the implications of that don’t bear thinking about. ■
“As a rule of thumb, labour costs make up 70% of the
below-the-line costs of a film and are the single most
important element in determining our competitiveness.”
6