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People & Places In The News
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Over the past few years the future of Pinewood Studios has seemed uncertain as its owners, Rank, sought a buyer for the world- famous Buckinghamshire facility. The spiritual home to much of the best in British film – from James Bond to the Carry On series – Pinewood’s fate was finally settled in February when Rank sold it for £62 million to a consortium led by Michael Grade.
The former head of Channel Four and BBC1 is now in place as chairman of Pinewood Studios with business part- ner Ivan Dunleavy assuming the role of chief executive.
“The future looks very rosy,” Grade explains, cheerfully. “Pinewood is the best film facility in Europe, if not in the world. It’s been very well looked after and beautifully kept by Rank. Our plans are to expand it over the next few years and to have a much greater mix of product, not just big, small and medium feature films but also television. We want to become a multi-media facility.
“Historically, Rank worked in a differ- ent way. The culture was very much about film and everything else took sec- ond place to that. But if we want to expand the business, we need to show the television community that we’re very serious about them too.”
Having Michael Grade at the forefront of another British institution seems some-
A SMALL MI RACLE
how natural. His new role ensures that the family name returns to the forefront of film and television production, main- taining a tradition established by his leg- endary uncles, Lords Delfont and Grade - something he’s obviously very proud of.
“Lew’s company, The Grade Company, still rolls on,” he adds, “and it’s actually a tenant at Pinewood. I’m delighted to see them there.” Bearing in mind this family connection, Michael Grade’s latest ven- ture might seem almost an obvious one.
“I hope that nothing I ever do is obvi- ous. When the embryonic idea was put to me by Ivan I jumped at it. I instinctively felt this was a good asset, and I thought I’d know what to do with the business.
“Ivan and I make a good team and with Steve Jaggs staying on as managing director, I think we are in good shape. Our aim is to maintain the business and then grow it as fast as we can. Just recently two new soundstages have come on stream.
“I think things are looking good in the industry. We have growing television production and the money that’s been put into the film industry through the Lottery in one way or another is feeding through. But the most important thing is that we have absolutely the most won- derful production skills in this country – and that’s something Pinewood has never lost.” ■ Anwar Brett
In the beginning was the word. Having the words is one thing, though. Rewriting the story of Jesus, as told in The New Testament, for a 90 minute animated feature is quite another. Yet it has been done, and the result is The Miracle Maker, the brainchild of S4C exec- utive producer, Christopher Grace.
“We’d already worked on animated Shakespeare, animating opera,” he explains, “as well as the Old Testament which went out on the BBC and was very successful. At first, when we were think- ing of tackling the New Testament, we thought of doing it as three half hour episodes. That’s when I realised, of course, that that’s a feature film.”
Murray Watts wrote the screenplay, and a high profile voice cast was gathered, including Ralph Fiennes (as Jesus), Richard E. Grant, Ian Holm, William Hurt, David Thewlis and Julie Christie. After sending a team out to Israel to scout loca- tions that would be recreated in the stu- dio, Grace and his collaborators - including Executive Director Derek Hayes of Cartwn Cymru, Watts and Russian Animation Director Stanislav Sokolov - came up with a design for their film which would include two distinct styles of animation.
“The historical Jesus was done in model animation in Moscow, and a third of the film - the special effects and the cel animation – was done in Cardiff and London. That squared the financial equa-
tion, because Moscow was a quarter of the cost of what it would be over here, and in any case they present their anima- tion in a way that is unique, with the light- ing and the model movements. What they’ve achieved is extraordinary.”
What they have all achieved is no less remarkable. Especially when you consider that The Miracle Maker has been picked by for US television broadcast at Easter by ABC, who are owned by Disney – a case of selling coals to Newcastle, if ever there was one.
“It is wonderful,” adds Grace, “to get a Welsh-Russian, model animated film on to prime time U.S. network television. They wanted an Easter film, and sudden- ly ours came along. I don’t know how else you would do this film in animation, I just think we got the right elements together, but it’s particularly pleasing is that we’ve done something that Hollywood hasn’t.” ■ Anwar Brett
www.themiraclemaker.com
The Miracle Maker is on general release in the UK
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