Bigger Picture Research

Film Policy Review 2012: Some initial thoughts

The Film Policy Review Panel, chaired by Lord Smith, finally reported today.

It’s impossible in a blog post to give a balanced assessment of every one of the Panel’s 56 recommendations, so what follows is a selection of first impressions.

This is a companion piece to a guest post on BOP Consulting’s blog,  published here. 

 1. Much is familiar in the Panel’s report from earlier public policy statements. It’s possible, as I’ve done here, to cross-reference the Panel’s recommendations with those of the 1998 Film Policy Review Group and subsequent action taken by film bodies including the UK Film Council.

In so doing it's apparent that the latest Review builds on a great deal of what has gone before. As far as I can see, fewer than a dozen of the Panel’s recommendations lack any antecedent. Leaving aside the presentational shift placing audiences at the heart of film policy, this is very much an evolution and not a revolution in approach.

2. Community cinema (big screen programming run by volunteers for the local community not profit) has long been under-valued by public film bodies, despite the obvious potential for audience development at a local level. So it’s gratifying to see the Panel advocating financial support for ‘clusters of local cinemas and film societies across the Nations and Regions of the UK’ (recommendation 3) and ‘local film clubs and societies in areas of rural deprivation or isolation’ (recommendation 5).

3. Film education bodies proliferated under the UK Film Council, so their consolidation (recommendation 7) is something of a reversal. But more important than who delivers support on the ground is the question of the Department for Education’s ongoing commitment to film education in England, and the status of moving image learning within the National Curriculum. The Panel worries DfE support might be in jeopardy, yet without it there really is little future for ‘a new unified offer for film education’.

4. The Panel has not totally resisted the temptations of gimmickry and faddism. Of the former, the idea of a British film brand makes sense when coordinating overseas sales, but on home turf a ‘British film week’ (recommendation 2) could backfire if the flow of branded product is anything less than first class. And the idea that a strategy is needed to set out how film can ‘enhance social cohesion’ (recommendation 4) is unconvincing without more concrete evidence of need and benefit.

5. There’s little to quibble over in the Panel’s recommendations for development, production and distribution funding. Re-aligning the interests of producers and distributors through joint ventures, continuation of the Vision Awards for development, recycling recoupment of public funding for future filmmaking by successful producers, and rewarding key creatives with a recoupment share all seem sensible measures in pursuit of quality and to help build longer-term capacity in the independent sector. 

6. Less convincing is the Panel’s prescription for reversing the ‘long history of failure to connect policies for the film and television sectors.’ The Panel proposes establishing Memoranda of Understanding with all the major broadcasters, but the only precedent, a memorandum signed by UKFC and BBC in 2006, was largely unsuccessful. And that’s despite the BBC’s sympathy for the cause, unlike BSkyB whose support for independent British film is risible.

In fairness the Panel does acknowledge this, recommending ‘legislative solutions’ as a backstop (recommendation 32), and we can only hope the threat is taken seriously. (The Panel’s proposed review of the UK film acquisitions market is long-overdue [recommendation 33], and the findings could prove critical during MOU negotiations).

7. In total the Panel recommends development of no fewer than six new strategies (UK-Wide film network; film and social cohesion; international sales; co-production; talent in the regions; and private investment strategies), alongside reworking several already in existence.

That’s an awful lot of work for the BFI and its partners, and some careful scheduling will be required. Sensibly the Panel has not prescribed an action plan (unlike the 1998 Film Policy Review Group, whose plan slipped almost immediately). Nonetheless, some sense of the relative priority of the Panel’s proposals would have been helpful.

8. The Panel deserves credit for considering the role of hard evidence in policymaking and in assessing the performance of public film bodies. The section on ‘Research and Knowledge’, built on a recommendation (number 53) to strengthen the BFI’s research function with an expanded remit and, importantly, sufficient resources, is very welcome (as any regular reader of this blog will appreciate).

The report calls for a 'radically new approach [...] to collecting and making available information, particularly in the wake of the Government's commitment to open data'. Quite right. Meanwhile, the proposal to review film policy and the BFI’s performance every three years is also welcome (recommendation 56). Regular independent review should help keep the policy cycle fresh and guard against complacency.

I’ve not touched on any of the recommendations around exhibition, skills, exports or film heritage, but there are plenty of good ideas to back up the Panel’s aspirations in these areas. Overall, I think the report deserves our close attention and look forward to the Government’s response.

Happy New Year, by the way.

Why Donna Anton gets my vote for BFI Governor

The election is underway to find David Thompson's successor as BFI Member Governor.

To quote the blurb, Governors are no less than “the guardians and shapers of Britain's moving image heritage and culture, as well as being responsible for awarding Lottery film funds and for the strategic direction of the Government's lead agency for film.”

Guardian, shaper and administrator: you need a special kind of person for this unpaid public office of poetry and prose.

It’s a testament to the BFI’s standing that it has attracted four excellent candidates on paper, including Watershed’s Head of Programme Mark Cosgrove, Professor Sylvia Harvey of the University of Leeds and BAFTA magnet Peter Kosminsky.

As impressive as these candidates are, my vote goes to Donna Anton. I’ve known Donna for several years now, first when she chaired the British Federation of Film Societies and latterly in her capacity as Director of the Cornwall Film Festival. Donna can guard and shape and administrate with the best of them, and she’s by far the most responsible person I know in West Cornwall.

But it’s not the fact of our acquaintance that secured my X in the box. When the election materials arrived in the post I was prepared to judge each candidate on the strength of their supporting statements.

It’s here that I feel Donna scores highest marks. She’s the only one to pitch her candidacy in terms of the needs and interests of the BFI membership. Hardly surprising given Donna’s film society background, with community action and volunteering at its core.

As importantly, I’m hoping audiences will feature at the heart of the next iteration of film policy (not producers, or distributors or any other sectoral interest group). The BFI is uniquely positioned to capitalise on this in a way the UK Film Council never was. If elected, Donna’s experience as festival director and film society volunteer in tune with non-metropolitan audiences will add further heft to a Board already well served by industry and academic voices. Somebody needs to speak up for members from a demand-side perspective, and that's why Donna gets my vote.

Voting, open to all BFI members and Sight & Sound subscribers, closes at noon on Tuesday 20 December. Full details here.

What do we need to know? Part 1: industry contributors

“The lack of authoritative, widely available statistics for UK film, video and television, is both a symptom and a cause of the troubles affecting the industry.”
Introduction to the BFI Film and Television Handbook 1993, the first to include a section dedicated to market intelligence

“If we cannot measure trends in performance, we cannot establish with any degree of certainty whether this action plan is having any effect and whether and how it needs to be modified.”
A Bigger Picture, Film Policy Review Group, 1998

“[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.”
Donald Rumsfeld, former United States Secretary of Defense

 

What do we need to know? That is the question I put to a number of film industry insiders, analysts, academics and interested observers over the last few weeks.

As worded, the question implies some degree of empirical evidence is necessary to the film business and the state apparatus that supports it, though I was quite prepared to hear from people who felt the contrary was true. Of course, nobody did. In fact, everyone I approached was clear that research and statistics are essential in one form or another, as a means to a variety of ends.

There was plenty of agreement among those I consulted about the types of information of greatest utility and, therefore, value. There were also understandable differences in the relative weight accorded to particular categories of knowledge, and in the reasoning behind individuals’ choices; a reminder that there is no simple answer to the question ‘what do we need to know?’ because it very much depends on where the respondent stands in relation to the industry, and the nature of their interest.

Answers to the question also depend on the direction and goals of public policy for film, as Karsten Grummitt (Dodona Research) points out in his contribution, and it may be premature to draw firm conclusions about what is needed until DCMS and the BFI have formally set out their stall (we can expect a public consultation on draft proposals in due course).

Nevertheless, the idea that some consideration of evidence is necessary for effective policymaking and implementation, as Adam Minns (Pact) argues, is surely true (a conclusion shared by the Film Policy Review Group, quoted above).

As Adam goes on to explain, the issue then becomes how best to harness and balance the respective roles of public and private sector data providers in meeting the demands of evidence-based policy. Steve Perrin (Digital Funding Partnership) is in no doubt of the benefits of public agencies working alongside commercial data providers in this regard.

Of course it’s not just public policy that needs to stay informed of the latest research findings, as the quote above from the introduction to the 1993 BFI Film and Television Handbook makes clear. Nic Wistreich (Netribution) points out that demand for hard data has always been high among diligent film professionals, particularly for business planning to attract investors. Nic introduces the idea that the wider dissemination of such information by public film agencies can serve a ‘common good’, a theme that runs through a number of other contributions.

Though not framed as such, Arvind Ethan David (Slingshot Studios) evokes the idea of the common good when he writes of the ‘informational asymmetry’ between the major Hollywood studios and just about everyone else. In this context, public agencies can perform a vital service by making market intelligence available to local industry players and policymakers- provided that all parties know how to use it.

Producer Stephen Follows (Catsnake) gives another example of the common good when he describes the value derived from research commissioned by the UK Film Council’s Distribution & Exhibition department. Stephen contends this would never have found such free expression by a private source. A number of contributors, including Paul Homer (Phoenix Cinema), Julia Vickers (BFFS) and Alison Small, point to other UK Film Council research publications (the Statistical Yearbook, UK production tracking etc.) as prime examples of service to the common good.

That’s not to suggest UK Film Council output escapes criticism. On the contrary, several contributors, including a number of those previously mentioned, suggest areas for improvement.

For example, Jon Barrenechea (Duke of York’s Picturehouse) detects certain biases in the Statistical Yearbook, and calls for greater emphasis on audience research in a striking parallel with the Film Policy Review Group’s proposal (dating back to 1998) to establish ‘a permanent audience research capability for use by the whole industry - a film industry equivalent of the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board’.

In many cases, gaps in the existing public data record fall into the category of what Donald Rumsfeld once quaintly termed ‘known unknowns’. That is, knowledge deficiencies of which we are aware. Thus, Stephen Follows cites the lamentable lack of data about first time producers and micro budget filmmaking. We understand these represent significant areas of activity (both in their likely scale and as a formative stage in career building), but they occur below the ‘industry radar’ (Nic Wistreich makes a related point when he notes the UK Film Council does not track productions budgeted under £500k).

Clive Davies-Frayne (Filmutopia) gives the lack of readily available data about return on investment (ROI) for British film projects as another example of a ‘known unknown’ that can seriously hamper investment decisions, yet there is no easy way to address this omission.

Emma Biggins (Multistory Films), speaking from direct experience, observes that first time producers are likely to encounter more ‘known unknowns’ than established players by virtue of limited access to privileged, insider data (and, given their relative inexperience, new entrants doubtless also encounter a good many ‘unknown unknowns’. Although they won’t know it, of course).

One way to tackle many of the most common ‘known unknowns’ cited by contributors is to find some way to mine the rich seams of data held by private companies, a point made most persuasively by Angus Finney. Angus argues the common good can be usefully served by more concerted data sharing by sales companies, and he claims measures can be taken to overcome objections to this on the grounds of commercial sensitivity.
 
So: the contributions reported below cover a very wide terrain. The most salient conclusion to draw is that the act of gathering, analysing and disseminating film research and statistics is too important to be ignored. If you think that sounds portentous, I can go further: the question of who does what and to what end needs urgent consideration in the next phase of film policy development.

The remainder of this post gives voice to the views of industry contributors name-checked above. A follow-up post will do likewise from the perspective of academia and the wider research community. And in a final post concluding this series I’ll attempt to draw the various threads together and offer some thoughts on future options.

My thanks to all the contributors, and please feel free to join the discussion through the comments box.


Karsten Grummitt, Managing Director, Dodona Research; author of the Black Dove blog
“The question of what types of data public agencies ought to be collecting and disseminating is really meaningless in the absence of an agreement as to the goals of the public agency. In the case of film this agreement is generally elusive because film is both a cultural product and a business, and the boundary between these two aspects is both fluid and fundamentally unclear. A cynic might suggest that the only time the two aspects truly come together is when the business asks for a cultural subsidy so that it can turn a profit.

Keeping them separate, and considering first the question of culture, it’s hard to see the need for any data collection at all. In pretty well every country worldwide, defending cultural patrimony in the film business means rigging statistics to claim every film you can as a national film. Co-productions are a well-established way to get the numbers up, and the UK Film Council got pretty inventive with the idea of culturally British or whatever it was. The market share of national films is important to film agencies, it’s their reason for being. But to the public, country of origin statistics are irrelevant: film is a responsive, not to say opportunistic, business with very short product life cycles. If audiences show a taste for films about, for example, the British monarchy, appropriate films will generally turn up to meet the demand.

Looking at the question from a business point of view, insofar as a great deal of data gathered about the film industry is gathered by private organisations (including mine), interventions by public agencies to disseminate it more widely are genuinely useful, as indeed are the data collection activities of film agencies. But it can be a rather negative kind of usefulness: one look at the numbers and it’s pretty clear that huge swathes of the film business are not a business. Investors would do well to study the data.

Whether it might be useful for public agencies to disseminate different types of data is another question. What film entrepreneurs or investors arguably most need to know (after how to judge a script) is how much money a project might make, with the favourite route to a guesstimate being the performance of comparable films. In this area, public agencies are inhibited by the blanket prohibition on revealing data relating to individual firms.

At present I would guess it is still effectively impossible to obtain, meaningfully estimate, or model data concerning the income from a single film that has enjoyed any appreciable life as a commercial entity. There are too many sources of income earned in, hopefully, too many territories. Some relevant data is available from established sources, most of it is not. Only those closely involved in the production and exploitation of the film are in a position to see the full picture and, given the state of accounting in parts of the motion picture industry, even this may be questionable. So this doesn’t seem to me an area where the state or its agencies could produce reliable data, or should tread.”


Adam Minns, director of policy, Pact
“There is absolutely a role for public agencies and/or Government to gather and publish market information – any policy or market intervention by Government should be based on a reliable evidence base, and in the film industry there are a lot of interventions! Without that evidence base, we run the risk of regulators or politicians being captured by the most powerful interest groups.
 
That doesn’t mean that bodies such as Pact don’t have an important role in this area either. Pact will commission many reports and studies over the year to inform our campaigning – on anything from exports, to the size of the production sector, through to our recent report on building a sustainable film industry. Obviously we want the data to stand up to scrutiny if we are going to persuade the regulator or Government to act on it. But equally, as a trade association, we serve the interests of independent film, television and digital media producers. We can be the first to identify trends or gaps in Government’s understanding, but our work is not a substitute for the Government or another independent body conducting its own research to establish the accuracy of our analysis, or at the very least employing someone who is comfortable with data to interrogate it.
 
What sort of data do we need in film? We thought the annual yearbook produced by the Film Council, some of it based on data from industry stakeholders, was very useful as a one-stop overview of the film sector and would welcome its continuation through an independent body or a Government department. We would have to be careful to preserve the granular understanding of the film business, though – ONS data is often too high level, for example.
 
What sort of data don’t we need? Pact does not think it is the role of the public sector to tell companies how to develop their businesses, so we would be nervous about a public body commissioning research into specific issues as part of an agenda. Nor should the public sector try to replace the industry – we don’t need public money to be spent on research that the market is providing already, particularly where that data is part of a business to business service already.”


Steve Perrin, Chief Executive, Digital Funding Partnership (UK); former Head of RSU, UK Film Council and Managing Director, Nielsen EDI
“The UK film industry may be deficient in a number of areas. However, statistics is not one of them. Web sites abound with box office data, production costs, profit estimates etc. Equally, the mainstream press have an apparent love affair with such data, using them to draw conclusions that are in the main spurious. Until now, the UK Film Council has filled the role of co-ordinating, quality controlling, commenting on and disseminating such data in a manner that is authoritative, insightful and universally accepted as a veridical picture of the industry.
 
With the imminent closure of the UKFC, it is as yet unclear where this function will reside, if indeed anywhere at all. It is thus imperative that all relevant parties, both commercial and public, seek to determine the future direction of statistical analysis and data dissemination if the UK, the third largest box office generator in the world, is not to become the only major country in the modern world without such a facility. Such a state of affairs would be highly detrimental to an industry that is worth billions to the UK economy.” 

 

Nic Wistreich, Director, Netribution; editor of The Film Finance Handbook
“Netribution has always had a steady flow of questions from people wanting to find good film data - indeed one of our most successful sections when we launched was the statistics sections as there was very little online other than the MPA yearbook. Mostly the data is for preparing business plans for films or sometimes investors trying to judge the value of a business plan. But good data also informs general understanding of the market for all sorts of people - technology providers, platforms, academics - even kids trying to convince their parents that a career in filmmaking isn't a dead-end option.

But most importantly, I think, it's a 'common good' - i.e. it's public investment into something that makes life easier for many people inside and outside the industry without prejudice. This kind of universal service not only benefits the film community, it comes with no barriers to access and is non-discriminatory. It's like the free press lists that the Scottish Arts Council used to make available to anyone via their website - by saving small arts organisations the trouble of compiling this themselves it's a kind of universal in-kind grant.

Of course it could be significantly improved. One big shortfall is failure to track production activity below £500k, not to mention short films, indie-documentary, community video and the broad range of professional production in the UK outside film and TV.

And then there's the web. Aside from any data from iTunes and the VoD services, how many British filmmakers have their work on YouTube and similar sites? How many collective views have they had? I know of British filmmakers posting work to YouTube with over 4 million views, who make a living from this, yet are completely unknown and disconnected from conventional film circles.

It would also be interesting to see more data offered raw as a CSV/XML so third parties could build apps around it.  For instance - cross referencing box office records in the UK for the last decade or more against FindAnyFilm.com or IMDB would be incredibly useful for those putting investment plans together to be able to pull together a list of the top ten grossing foreign language documentaries, or gangster films not starring Ray Winstone, or films longer than 4 hours, for instance.”


Arvind Ethan David, CEO, Slingshot Studios
“I think my starting point is that the informational asymmetry between the bulk of producers (and policy makers) on the one hand, and the Studios, is a serious impediment to both sound business strategy or policy making.   A longer post on this subject can be found here.
 
As that post starts to suggest, the problem is not just in what data is available, it’s also in what data the press, the public and the policy makers tend to fixate on – though the second is in part a function of the former. When even the minister in charge feels free to talk about BO [box office] as the key indicator of profitability without reference to costs or other revenue streams, you start to realize how bad the problem is.
 
I think the UKFC’s soon to be defunct policy unit did valuable work in collecting data, but a less good job in making it available in usable forms to the industry.  The Statistical Yearbook was fine, but what would have been more useful is raw data, available online, and searchable, sliceable, and capable of manipulation and republishing in an open govt. model.   It’s worrying that this function has been more or less lost, and whilst the industry has it in separate pots (BVA, [Rentrak] EDI, Screen, etc etc) it’s not clear who – outside the Studios – has the motivation to collate it and use it for the broader good.
 
Perhaps the BFI or PACT could negotiate a low cost ‘cottage industry’ discount to [Rentrak]’s full Flash service and the BVA lobbied to make their data more available...?
 
Even then, though, I fear a little that comparative innumeracy amongst our producers would make it of limited use to them, but at least distributors, sales agents, financiers, consultants and (hope against hope) policy framers could have access to better data.”


Stephen Follows, Producer, Catsnake
“What do we need to know?  Two things – who are we, and what do we need to improve?
 
Who Are We?
It’s easy to measure the number of large to mid-level productions as they are ‘on the radar’ of the industry.  However this ignores a huge number of small to micro budget productions in the UK.  To my knowledge the best measure of UK films is the UKFC’s annual report and the British Council’s annual Cannes book.  But these are very surface level and don’t give us the full picture.
 
It also counts productions, not personnel.  I have been asked on a number of occasions how many producers there are in the UK and I honestly have no idea!  I know how many members the New Producers’ Alliance had, how many on the Raindance lists, etc but these are sporadic, anecdotal pieces of data picked up in the course of conversations.  
 
I recognise that the problem is far from simple as defining who is a producer isn’t an easy task but we should at least have someone/some body trying.  Without a union or any qualifications needed to do the job we have no way of knowing even on what order of magnitude the number is.  The more success a producer has the easier it is to measure them (published numbers include the number of UK producers at the Cannes Producer’s Network, the number of producers supported by regional screen agencies, etc) but this only counts the producers after they’ve had some success.  How can we help producers at the start of their careers if we don’t know who they are or even how many of them there are?!
 
And if we’re going to have a system that only provides support when the producers come forward themselves then we need a much clearer system and aim to help a broader number of people.  At the moment early-stage producers create their own informal support networks by getting to know people randomly and floundering for a while.
 
The current system only tracks and helps producers who have done ‘something’ and ignores the ones that need help the most.
 
What Do We Need to Work On?
I have found Peter Buckingham’s research and analysis on film audiences fascinating and extremely helpful in my job as a producer.  An institution like the UKFC is the only place that such a body of work could have amassed and it’s very sad to think that it will stop.  I can’t see any private organisation being so supportive of such work and also so free with the findings.
 
The thing that always seemed strange to me was why his work isn’t more widely known.  Peter and the UKFC are hardly secretive about their results but still there is widespread ignorance on the issue in the independent film sector.  I’m not sure what was failing here but there exists a gap between the creation of the data / analysis and the very professionals that need to know.  It could be a problem of the UKFC not having the resources to promote it, a poor promotion strategy or producers’ unwillingness to seek out such data – I don’t know.  But I’m sure that a wider understanding of Peter Buckingham’s audience research would help improve UK films commercially.”


Paul Homer, Chief Executive, Phoenix Cinema, East Finchley
“Industry statistics, when accurate, collated and properly analysed are vital to any business in the industry.  They enable us to make informed decisions about how and where to grow our business.  How much to spend on advertising, how to best serve our customers and how we compare with industry averages.
 
The role of the Film Council in this area has, over the last few years, become indispensable.  Previously there was no one-stop shop to find the information one needed.  With the advent of the Film Council suddenly there was loads of useful data, well presented and well analysed.
 
Not only that, but crucially for an organisation of our size, this data was publicly available.  We didn’t have to rely on headline information from the far-too-expensive Screen Digest – which whilst great are an unjustifiable expense for our organisation.
 
The demise of the Film Council has been interesting, as it appears that almost all of its functions, and thus spending, have been transferred to other organisation.  The argument about saving money then is not valid here.  However what is as yet unclear is whether the vital work carried out by the stats unit will also continue.  It seems like madness for such a mature sector to suddenly rid itself of such important information.  Information without which the sector will be poorer, figuratively and literally.
 
The industry needs this data to continue to be gathered and analysed and it needs to be freely available to the industry.”


Julia Vickers, Partnerships and Development Consultant, British Federation of Film Societies
"I believe it's vital that we keep track of what's happening across all parts of the industry - with resources becoming ever more limited it's the only way to ensure there is evidenced best value for money (be it public, corporate or personal).

The inclusion of BFFS-originated data in the UKFC Statistical Yearbook's Exhibition chapter has helped to raise the profile of the UK's thriving community cinema movement. Provided we have the means to do so, we will continue to collect data about film societies and other community cinema providers through our annual survey and updates to our Community Cinema Database, to complement whatever future arrangements are made for UK film research more generally."


Alison Small, Consultant; former Senior Executive International Production, Office of the British Film Commissioner, UK Film Council
“I sometimes feel like a lone voice banging on about the importance of the information coming out of the research that UKFC puts together. The information on levels of production is the tip of the iceberg, and the ability to look at where production takes place in the UK, the companies producing those films, the budget levels and the backers is essential information to anyone looking to develop business, from regional post production facilities to well established studios in the South of England.”

[This contribution originally appeared as a comment in response to an earlier post. I’ve reproduced it, with permission, because of its relevance here]


Jon Barrenechea, General Manager, Duke of York's Picturehouse; author of the Splendor Cinema blog
“For years, the UKFC’s annual yearbook was a fascinating (if somewhat biased) insight into the UK’s film industry which went beyond the usual production-focused numbers and delved deep into the guts of what the business is made of: movies, the people who make, distribute and ultimately show them.

With the demise of the UKFC and the ‘bonfire of the quangos’, where will we get this information? How do decision makers get their information without paying exorbitant market research fees? What will the new and ‘improved’ BFI do to let us know how it’s spending lottery money?

I’ve worked as an exhibitor for the last seven years and I recently completed a Master’s degree where I researched the UK film industry for my dissertation. I have read every report, yearbook, white paper and research around the film business that has been published in the past decade. I’ve also attended quite a few international events, conferences and training courses on the continent where the UKFC Yearbook was praised for its thoroughness. The CNC in France are the only other body to produce such a comprehensive document.

There are two sides to the question- what did we need to know during the UKFC’s time, and what do we need to know now, post-UKFC? One frustration I always have had with the Yearbook is the way it merges the amount of public funding for distribution and exhibition into one category, making it almost impossible to accurately quantify the amount of money given to support either of these (very) different fields. My suspicion is that the reason was that the support for exhibition was so paltry so as to be an embarrassing figure on its own, and the combined number gave the Council a better, rounder statistic to throw around.

So, post-UKFC, what do we need? For me, understanding audiences is the beginning, middle and end. The numbers are important, of course, but they exist in a vacuum unless we understand what is the audience experience and opinion of what happens on the ground. More focus groups, surveys, polls and opinion is needed (and this can help shape public policy). Most of the research done in this area is commercial, proprietary and therefore inaccessible to most. The Arts Council published a couple of reports which delve deep into the participation and engagement of audiences in the arts, but sadly, there is no film-specific information.

So, to conclude, we need numbers, yes, but we need them to be objective and specific, and to link to what is happening on the ground, in cinemas, and some thorough analysis that links the two in a cause-effect way, so that we can both allocate public funds responsibly and so that those in decision-making positions can make informed choices.”


Clive Davies-Frayne, Managing Director, Filmutopia; author of Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog
“I'm not sure that the kind of data that would be useful is possible to get. I remember discussing film financing with a guy in the City of London. He told me that films could get plenty of investment if they could get the return/risk figures right. So, offering a high ROI, with a less than 30% risk of failure.

One of the biggest problems in presenting a coherent business plan to investors is providing reliable data on ROI on similar projects. From my perspective: accurate figures of what returns to the producers can be expected for British movies, for the various sales opportunities and territories. So, what are the actual economics of a limited print UK theatrical distribution, in a particular genre? I have no idea at all about how that could be achieved, but I do know that the lack of open and accurate data is a hurdle that doesn't help the industry.”


Emma Biggins, Producer, Multistory Films
“The UKFC research pages were a starting point for me, and certainly gives a very broad idea of the bigger picture (excuse the pun) i.e. number of films being made each year, how many are indies, etc, (although I think the definition of an independent film is skewed). But it also spurred me on to try and find other sources of information - mostly these were actual production companies and other producers, hence why I gave the UKFC as a research reference in my blog post.

But in truth, in terms of statistics and how they and the UK Film Council website affected my decisions, their influence was minimal. As a micro-budget first-time producer the information I really wanted and needed was near impossible to find - how all these films get financed, budget information (real budgets!), sales information - (and how much revenue actually goes to the producer/production company). Statistics on indie production companies and their growth and viability based on their slates of films and the amount of equity they are maintaining in each film (if any). All this information is always well guarded, I often find myself exploring with envy, a lot of Australian film web sites. Their film industry, it's upkeep and incentives are so much more attractive and accessible.”

Angus Finney, author of The International Film Business: A Market Guide Beyond Hollywood
“I think we need some basic research done beyond just the key stats and analysis thrown up by the production sector. That said, I'd like to see what happened re the dwindling co-productions (specifically UK-EU partners), and to track that landscape in detail going forwards. For example, a change in UK-spend laws let alone a visionary move into Eurimages would throw up a plethora of interesting data if decent benchmarking exists.

The areas that need more data are in the sales, international distribution and export arena. Real figures, not just guff. Cost of reaching the market (AFM, Cannes, Berlin), cost of festival launches (from Cannes to Toronto to Rotterdam, etc), sales commission spreads, price ranges, etc. Sales companies love to say that this information is commercially sensitive (I know, I ran one), but pooling this information could be done in a productive manner without any one company being exposed or damaged.  

We need more data on what happens to vertically integrated companies who are operating and re-structuring to the new content value chain. Especially those with one foot in TV and digital content (plus music etc - think Warp), and the other in feature film.

What this would throw up is more business model data and analysis, which would attract further academic as well as practitioner insights. None of the UKFC data dug into this area in depth. We need this to understand how content production, distribution and, ultimately, revenue streams are adapting to the new user-driven, multi-platform world that arrived earlier than just yesterday.”

On sustainability: UK film policy after the UK Film Council

So there we have it. Earlier this week the culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, confirmed the widely rumoured transfer to the British Film Institute of responsibility for delivering UK film policy. Though understandably guarded, industry responses have been broadly positive, welcoming news that Lottery funding for film will increase to £43 million by 2014, and the existing tax credit will continue for the foreseeable future.

Other changes were announced, including the agglomeration of all but one of the Regional Screen Agencies into Creative England, while Film London takes the lead in promoting inward investment.

What the Minister didn’t say, of course, is how all these changes will manifest themselves. We’re told there’s a period of due diligence to go through, in addition to the obligatory industry consultation. ‘This is the beginning of a process,’ said the Minister on Monday, ‘not the end.’

Alongside the legal legwork and attentive listening, Vaizey will chair a Ministerial Film Forum to meet every six months starting in January. The Minister said the group, whose membership is yet to be announced, will start with a ‘run around the houses to address key issues.’

I’d like to humbly suggest the very first task of the Forum should be to establish the parameters of ‘a sustainable independent British film industry’, one of the stated goals for film policy set out in the Minister’s speech. It’s a phrase that needs to be unpacked for it to have any genuine utility, and it comes with plenty of historical baggage. Oh yes.

For starters, the word ‘sustainable’ has warm and positive connotations, making it popular within policy circles. But just take a moment to consider the concept- what does it actually mean?

Truth is, when deployed without further elaboration it is an entirely empty term. And its use within the context of film policy obscures rather than illuminates a number of heavyweight issues, which is probably why the UK Film Council chose to drop it a few years back. But it wasn’t always thus.

To explain further, let’s make a distinction between what we’ll call the hard concept of sustainability and the soft. The hard conception implies an enterprise capable of perpetuating itself (and, ideally, growing) without outside support or influence. It’s a version of what Sir Alan Parker, former UK Film Council Chair, dismissed as the ‘self-sustaining, purely British film industry’ that ‘has been the Holy Grail for Government and industry for many years’.  In contrast, the soft concept is the idea that a given state can be maintained at a desired level without exhausting available resources. Doesn’t sound so compelling, but it may be much more realistic.

If a course of action is pursued in accordance with the hard concept, the question of success comes down to whether or not outside support or influence is required to keep the industry afloat. If the soft conception determines policy then the question instead becomes: what level of activity is it desirable to maintain? Either way, attention must be paid to what the end destination looks like, and what route to take to get there.

Later in Sir Alan’s speech, delivered back in 2002, he poured scorn on the idea of ‘building a stable of rights owning film production companies’ as the basis for a sustainable industry. Sustainability, the early UK Film Council argument ran, was attainable only by means of distribution-led production operating from a film hub of world-class skills and infrastructure capable of attracting international investment.

Not everyone bought the argument (far from it), and in the years to follow the lack of credible evidence of ‘sustainability’ didn’t help to win over the naysayers. Problem was, no formal success criteria were ever adopted internally or approved externally. So while plenty of data were collected, analysed and published, and arguments mounted about specific achievements, the case was never convincingly made in terms of sustainability. There was no coherent framework for judging the various statistics in a way that could either substantiate or repudiate the argument.

The enemy of reason is not ignorance of facts, but a lack of understanding. And here we come to the nub of the matter. What’s needed, right from the start of this ‘exciting new vision for the British film industry’ (that’s the Minister talking), is clarity around the objectives for film, and- most importantly- a set of indicators (that may be quantitative, qualitative or both) against which to gather market intelligence and judge progress towards the goal.

It won’t be an easy task, because there are likely to be many factors at play in a sustainable industry (however one chooses to define it, whether a hard or soft conception, or something in between).* But the transparency, discipline and rigour involved are crucial to ensure both continuing support for film policy among industry players and its successful delivery over the coming years.

If you’ve followed this blog before, you can probably guess where this is leading. I think what’s really needed, and was conspicuous by its absence from last Monday’s speech, is a film policy research function capable of gathering, interpreting and disseminating data that speak directly to the indicators derived from agreement of what constitutes a sustainable industry.

I'm not going to get into the question of whether 'a sustainable independent British film industry' is even the best and most appropriate goal of film policy. Whatever the goal, my argument remains the same. It comes down to transparency, accountability and good governance.

In closing I’d like to offer up one further thought while it occurs to me. The Minister’s speech specifically mentions Pact’s proposals, but what does sustainability mean outside the direct interests of producers and production companies? What does it look like from the perspective of sales agents, post-production houses, distributors, facilities companies, exhibitors & film societies, retailers etc.? In other words, what does sustainability mean in the context of every other link in the supply chain (or value chain, if you prefer to look at things that way)? How do these perspectives cohere and diverge? Can one industrial policy accommodate them all, and is it even desirable to do so? Sir Alan didn’t think so, back in 2002. ‘We are not one film industry’, he said. ‘but many industries. One solution doesn’t fit all.’ The Minister would do well to remember this when drawing up the invitation list for his first Film Forum.

 

* (A side note- is ‘a sustainable industry’ the same as a collection of ‘sustainable organisations’? There’s some slipperiness in the Minister’s speech: the terms of debate shift in scale, back and forth, from the level of individual companies to a whole class of industry.)

A quick film business blog round up

Keeping up to date with industry commentators and the musings of well-placed insiders is one of the more enjoyable aspects of maintaining this blog. Reading widely around the subject has become a necessary habit, and it rarely becomes onerous.

The print-led trade press has always performed a valuable service in this regard, marshalling fact and opinion in digestible portions. But the internet- particularly web 2.0 platforms like Twitter, blogs and the like- puts readers/listeners/viewers in touch with developments in a more immediate and less filtered way.

Best of all, it’s possible (as suits your needs) to move seamlessly between eavesdropping and networking, between bearing mute witness to and actively participating in an ongoing conversation among the informed, the interested or the idly curious.

Quite how dynamic this free and fulsome exchange of film business information has become is evidenced by the blog roll in the right hand sidebar, which has grown enormously since this blog started, and continues to expand (although it is still only a fraction of what’s out there).

Anyway, I want to draw attention to some recent additions that make an excellent contribution to the ongoing conversation.

I’ll start with the most recent of recent additions, The A.K.A. Indie Film Blog. Author and industry consultant Jeremy Juuso kicked off this blog last month with a post about Cantor Fitzgerald’s movie futures market, the Cantor Exchange.

Juuso is author of Getting the Money: A Step-by-Step Guide for Writing Business Plans for Film, and I first strayed across his writings from a link on Ted Hope’s blog to a post on Baseline Research’s Research Wrap site about the box office chances of ‘self-released specialty films’ in the US.

It’s a canny and provocative analysis (witness Hope’s commentary), and the issues raised are absolutely pertinent at this time of shifting film distribution models.

As well as filing copy for Baseline Research, Juuso runs a consultancy whose web site hosts a marvellous array of freely accessible film data.

Throughout 2009 Juuso published monthly PDF reports listing independent and ‘independent-style’ films released theatrically in the US. Among the data included for each title are details of their theatrical release pattern and box office numbers, the involvement of above-the-line star talent, plus estimates of the budget and a summary of financing sources.

The information is derived from various online and public sources, and each title takes Juuso around 2-3 hours to research. ‘The goal’, as Juuso told me when I enquired about his approach, ‘is to paint a clearer picture for filmmakers and investors of just what kind of landscape they face when launching an indie film geared toward the US market.’

The result is a detailed release catalogue, of obvious benefit to anyone drafting a business plan or thinking of acting on one (or, for that matter, anyone trying to understand the way the contemporary indie sector operates in the US).

Screen Finance used to provide a similar service in the UK (for the price of a subscription), until it bit the dust last year (the bfi Library tells me the last issue of Screen Finance they hold is dated 17 December 2009, following Tim Adler’s departure to manage the London bureau of Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood blog). In the absence of Screen Finance, I’d love to see Juuso’s approach replicated in the UK and Europe.

Alongside the monthly PDFs you can find The A.K.A. Report 2009, an overview of the US theatrical market based on analysis of summary data. And returning to where we began, the first post on Juuso’s A.K.A. blog lays bare the operation of the Cantor Exchange in lucid detail (check out entertainment attorney Roger Goff's blog for another view of the same). If, like me, you’re only dimly aware of terms like ‘going long’ and the ‘short position’ from coverage of the global banking crisis, Juuso’s post lifts the shroud on this arcane world and makes it comprehensible.

Now to a blog of a very different order. David Graham is CEO of Attentional, a television industry data provider and consultancy that supplies, among other things, BARB data to the UK Film Council, and is responsible for a number of film-related projects over the years including a study of the economic impact of the UK screen industries (with Cambridge Econometrics and Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates).

Graham’s newly launched blog, Building an Entertainment Powerhouse, takes a critical look at the current model for UK TV, setting out alternatives informed by a staunchly (but not unthinking) free market approach. There’s an engaging openness about the posts, and Graham has the advantage of working from hard data in crafting and elaborating his position. Check out, for example, his posts on the desirability of a European Pay-TV platform, and the growth of internet-based TV viewing and its implications for the licence fee. It’s still relatively early days, but this blog is definitely one to watch and will no doubt become more relevant if the general election goes David Cameron’s way tomorrow.

Over the coming weeks I plan to introduce other relevant industry blogs in a similar way, so if you have any suggestions for inclusion I’d be grateful to hear them. I’m particularly interested to learn about film business blogs from outside the UK and US.

UK cinema admissions and UK feature production activity, Q1 2010

Volcanic hyperemesis and bureaucratic incompetence conspired to keep me and the family in Portugal for a week longer than planned, hence the lack of recent posts. But at least we enjoyed a few more days at arm’s length from election campaigning (more of which later).

Looking across various news feeds, trade publications and assorted correspondence I see it’s been quite a fecund period for the type of research of interest here. I won’t attempt to cover it all in a single post, so expect a burst of activity over the next week as I work through the backlog.

To ease back into the swing of things, let’s begin with a UK-themed update on first quarter activity.

First off, cinema admissions. Last week, cinema advertising firm Pearl and Dean (P&D) was finally sold off for £1 after four years on the market. Regular readers will recall P&D forms one half of the Cinema Advertising Association (along with Digital Cinema Media), the trade association whose charitable work includes releasing monthly admissions data compiled by Nielsen EDI/Rentrak. Here’s hoping P&D’s new owners continue in this same vein in future.

In the meantime, the CAA has released admissions numbers for March, allowing us to gauge the strength of the UK theatrical market during the first quarter of the year. It’s a positive picture, with a total of 14,482,606 tickets shifted in March- the strongest performance for the month in recent memory.

This brings the total for the first three months of the year to 43,957,027, up 6% on the same period in 2009, and the highest figure since 2002 (Figure 1). Clearly the big screen continues to work its magic on audiences.

Figure 1: UK cinema admissions, Q1 (January to March) 2002 to 2010

Source: CAA/ Rentrak

Turning to UK feature production, the UK Film Council has released the latest data from its regular tracking work, covering the first three months of the year. 23 feature films with budgets of £500k or more started principal photography in the UK during this period, the lowest number since 2005 (Table 1).

Source: UK Film Council

The number of UK domestic features (those made by a UK production company and produced wholly or partly in the UK) and inward investment features (those that are ‘substantially financed and controlled from outside the UK, where the production is attracted to the UK because of script requirements, the UK’s infrastructure or UK tax incentives’) both fell from the level seen in 2009. On the positive side, the decline in UK co-production activity appears to have stabilised, for the time being at least.

The money spent in the UK on making these features stood at £426.5 million, which is considerably lower than the amount spent in 2009 (£485.1 million), but remains higher than the levels of previous years (Table 2).

Source: UK Film Council

Honouring their commitment to provide market intelligence specifically about UK independent films, the UK Film Council reports 2010 saw less activity than in recent years (Table 3), although this is ‘principally due to the decline in co-productions’.

Source: UK Film Council

Interestingly, the median budget of UK independent films (£3.0 million) was higher during the first quarter of 2010 than it has been for some time (between 2007 and 2009 the figure hovered around £1.9 million). This is due to the fact that four of the 18 UK indie features had budgets over £5 million.

The report ends with a projection of full year production activity based on Q1 results. The UK Film Council tentatively suggests the year could see UK production spend hit £907 million in 2010, making it ‘one of the better years on record’.

Given the hefty contribution of inward investment activity to this total, much will depend on the continued attractiveness of the UK as a production base for US studio productions; and the outcome of the general election may prove influential. If we're to believe the pundits, a hung Parliament may further weaken the pound on the international currency markets, and a stronger dollar makes the UK more attractive for inward investment features.

While on the subject of the election, Labour is the only party to mention film explicitly in their manifesto. ‘The strength of Britain’s film industry’, we’re told, ‘is a source of pride'. Labour has committed to maintain the film tax credit and to proceed with the BFI/ UK Film Council merger. In other words, business as we've come to expect it, except of course there’ll be a lot less public money available for film over the next Parliament.

Meanwhile, neither the Liberal Democrats nor the Conservatives mention film in their manifestos, which is hardly surprising given all the urgent matters of State requiring attention (in which context, Labour’s manifesto reference is all the more remarkable).

The Liberal Democrats talk of safeguarding the future of ‘Britain’s creative industries’ by ‘supporting upgrades to our digital infrastructure and taking action to tackle illegal file-sharing’, and of fostering ‘an environment in which all forms of creativity are able to flourish’. This will be principally by means of a Creative Enterprise Fund offering ‘training, mentoring and small grants or loans to help creative businesses get off the ground’. But past evidence suggests getting creative businesses off the ground is rarely a problem- it's keeping them afloat and thriving that proves challenging.

The Conservative manifesto makes only glancing reference to ‘arts and heritage’, but not film per se. This is disappointing, especially given publication late last year of Maud Mansfield’s ‘Report on the British Film Industry for Shadow DCMS’. It's a rather admirable document, both balanced and well-researched.

Alas, none of it found its way into the main manifesto, which talks of ‘making Britain a European hub for hi-tech, digital and creative industries’ (whatever that means). We do know the Conservatives plan to scrap the Regional Development Agencies, which will affect the Regional Screen Agencies whom they co-fund and, therefore, support for film in England.

There's little point in speculating further about future film policy. We'll know more next week...

RIP NPA

As a rule I don't post 'straight' news stories unless they have a specific research angle. But rules are there to be broken, as our MPs keep reminding us, and I feel moved to record my thoughts on this particular story. It's not even a fresh item, which shows how rubbish I am at this sort of thing.

Anyway, the New Producers Alliance announced on 8 March it has closed for business, which is a huge pity. I once gave a talk about UKFC research to an NPA audience at the invitation of former CEO David Castro, and it was a great evening during which I learned as much as I hope those attending did. And earlier this month I was due to appear on a panel discussing marketing and distribution as part of the NPA's 9 Point Producer Training programme, but the session was pulled when the company started to wind up its operations.

The announcement, made on the NPA web site, blames 'the recession and increased competition for training', which have 'contributed to a loss of membership income.' I wonder whether these two factors are linked, as more players enter the training arena to supplement income from other sources hit by the economic downturn. Here's how Netribution covers the story.

This is bad news all round, as the Netribution post makes clear. Independent filmmaking has never been an easy path to tread, and while digital wotnots and social doodabs have handed the creative tools to the self-organising masses, money remains tighter than ever and competition for audience attention is at its fiercest. To be sure, these are exhilarating and dizzying times for aspiring producers. But dizziness, as any five year old who has puked on their own shoes will tell you, can be disorientating with unfortunate consequences.

Which is where organisations like the NPA can really prove their worth, offering much needed advice and support, training and networking opportunities, and generating a sense of common purpose and collective identity.

Arguably, the NPA may have fallen victim to the explosion of 'free' networking and peer support that now exists for indie filmmakers, on both sides of the Atlantic. But as with all these things, there remains a need for trusted brands who offer high quality services to complement the free stuff. After all, no one ever got a balanced diet gorging vol-au-vents stacked high at a complimentary buffet.

Still, premium services have to be made to pay, and maybe this is just another reminder that the cult of free (yup, that includes blogs) has far reaching consequences at all levels of business and culture. Speaking of which, there are two excellent posts by Michael R Barnard on this very subject over on Truly Free Film (part one looks at the fate of the film biz trade press, and part two laments the rise of 'near free' Redbox DVD rentals).

Montage: Studionomics subverted; streamed performances at the cinema; UNESCO film study

Last month I wrote a piece about data-driven guesswork (aka studionomics) endemic in the film business. The team behind MarqueeStars.com, which served as an example in the post, has since responded in kind with an article outlining their philosophy and intentions (‘Wolves in the Number Cruncher’s Hen House’).

Actually it’s more like a declaration of independence; far from being in thrall to studionomics, it turns out Marquee Stars is there to subvert it.

Tao Jonez (for 'tis their pseudonym) writes of the entertainment business evolving ‘along increasingly dysfunctional lines’:

‘Studio bosses and distribution execs have developed an unconscious addiction for the data wranglers and trend spotters in ways that stifle creativity … much of it unnecessary and, frankly, not sufficiently supported by the data … at least not to the extent that their numerical parameters are enforced.’

Siding with filmmakers rather than the suits, Marquee Stars strikes a blow against ‘numeric oppression’, providing a service ‘for the victims of the number addicts’:

‘We do it fairly and honestly; we do it using corroborated data; but we do it as a skeptical double-check on the mind-numbing pronouncements we hear from studio bureaucrats, territorial film buyers and foreign sales agents.’

All of which I find very refreshing and really rather admirable. It just goes to show you shouldn’t judge a web site by its animated avatar.

Onto research of another kind, with news that Professor Martin Barker of Aberystwyth University has teamed up with Picturehouse Cinemas to study alternative content streamed in cinemas (ballet, plays, opera etc.). 

The research (‘Steamed Performances’) serves an academic and commercial purpose, and was prompted after Professor Barker attended a streamed performance of Phèdre, with Helen Mirren, during which he 'noticed some unusual things’:

‘Some people appeared to dress up for the cinema as though they were going to the theatre.  Many people didn’t know whether or not to clap.  It made [Prof. Barker] wonder about the senses in which the performance was ‘live’ and how this affected people’s enjoyment and participation.’

From a commercial point of view the research presents an opportunity to examine audience demand for such events, and to discover what makes this type of programming special.  Streamed performances are becoming increasingly common; the number of such events rose from 31 in 2007 to 67 in 2008 according to Screen Digest data reproduced in the UK Film Council’s Statistical Yearbook 2009 (see Chapter 10).

Just as significantly, audience numbers can be impressive. Earlier this year the National Theatre launched NT Live, with the aforementioned performance of Phèdre, which was streamed in 73 venues across the UK to an audience of 14,000. More recently, a performance of All’s Well that Ends Well was attended by 11,000 people in the UK alone (these figures are taken from the NT Live web site).

The fieldwork is currently underway and Professor Barker is aiming for over 1,000 survey responses from streamed performance audience members. If you’ve been to a performance and fancy sharing your experience you can complete the questionnaire online here (a Welsh language version is also available here). Best of all, the research team promises to publish the results on the Steamed Performances web site. And if they can get Helen Mirren to read the report out live, I'll be first in the queue at the cinema.

Speaking of academic research publications, Nikki Finke, the doyenne of film biz bloggers, posted recently about a report issued by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the Institut de la statistique du Québec (available here as a PDF download).

The UIS report is a measured and generally well written survey of film statistics based on data obtained from 101 countries for the years 2005-2006 (well written with the exception of one unfortunate mixed metaphor: ‘Digital film production has given birth to a two-edged sword.’ Youch!).

The accompanying press release, and Nikki Finke’s coverage, leads with the finding that Nigeria’s film industry is the world’s second most prolific producer of feature films after India. But hang on a mo: the 872 Nigerian productions counted in 2005 were shot in ‘video format’. As the report authors go on to point out, ‘the robust position of Nigeria film production is due to the fact that the films are shot in digital video format in two or three weeks on small budgets’.  Which is hardly a strong basis upon which to compare national production levels across developing and developed countries, a point noted in a number of the comments left on Finke’s blog.

In fairness the report authors are assiduous in qualifying their description of these data, and in turn pose some thoughtful questions about African production practices:

‘Are we seeing here a sustainable trend [towards the video format], and if so, what are its implications? Will there be a positive influence on film production in Africa in general, and in particular in other countries in West Africa, where it is practically non-existent?’

Given that 99% of the 4,871 cinemas reported in Nigeria are ‘video theatres’, the shift to video also has implications for the exhibition sector.

The report also addresses rates of co-production activity in different countries, the nationality of distribution companies, cinema admissions by country of origin, rates of digital production and the language in which films are made.

However, the main story does not emerge from the data, but from the context of their collection. The UIS report confirms what anyone who has ever tried to source international film data already knows: there are some dirty great holes in the data record, particularly across the developing world. Still, it’s good to see UNESCO making the effort.

UK film: cash strapped and (mostly) crap? Discuss.

I’m too preoccupied with a work deadline to blog at any length this week, but I can’t let pass the current hand wringing afflicting commentators on the state of the British film industry.

Last week saw publication in The Independent of an article by Arifa Akbar subtitled ‘Britain's film industry faces its most hostile environment in years’.

The basis of the article appears to be a press release (read ‘advertorial’) issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers claiming that 59 British film production companies went bust during the last 18 months.

PwC spokesman Nick George puts this squarely down to the recession: "due to the credit crunch, sources of financing for smaller indie films have dried up - meaning many plots remain on the story board". Yet production companies have always come and gone, so are things getting worse? Unfortunately there’s no comparison with the rate of insolvencies in previous periods, so we have to take it on trust that matters have deteriorated as the article suggests.

And then to add insult to injury, quite literally, critic Jason Solomons exercised his right to free expression by taking a pop at the quality of British films in a feature article in last Sunday’s Observer. In a word, far too many of them are ‘crap’ according to the wisdom of Solomons.

It may be harsh (and I’m in no position to agree or disagree, having seen very few Brit movies of late), but it's a timely debate against a backdrop of company insolvencies, diminishing public cash for film and changes in film policy that may flow from the proposed merger of the UKFC and BFI.

Question is, are these two lamentable observations related? If we accept Solomons's diagnosis, is the lack of secure and adequate finance for British films responsible for the crap? Are under-developed or ill-conceived properties pushed into production simply to suit the vicissitudes of funding? Or are perfectly viable projects stymied by financial uncertainty, when hard pressed producers are forced to spend too much of their time chasing the money and keeping the ship afloat? Etc.

If so, what's to be done? As one step towards a cure, Solomons is probably right to think that “far more time [should be] put into scriptwriters and a more stringent line taken by producers who should not go into production unless the script is strong enough.”

In the longer term, I also agree with Solomons’s view that consumer education is needed to help widen public tastes for more adventurous British films (yes it’s presumptuous, possibly elitist and smacks of social engineering. But that’s education for you).

But none of these solutions address the core issue (if indeed it is) about the need for financial certainty and a readiness to invest on the part of private investors. History tells us that simply throwing money at film production is no guarantee of quality product. In fact the opposite appears to be true. Projects financed primarily as vehicles for one tax benefit or another, or in response to public sector largesse when times are good, are unlikely to be dazzlers because they don't have to be. To get films of any quality the driving purpose must be audience engagement with a compelling story told well. That means keeping at least one eye on the market, to ensure a project is in tune with what works. But there also has to be space for nurturing artistic vision, which is where public money can prove beneficial. 

Truth be told there's no easy answer, and certainly not one I can expound here. But I'm certain of one thing: Solomons's suggestion that one screen in every multiplex should be dedicated to showing British films (excluding Harry Potter, Bond etc.) is totally barmy, and the sort of anti-market initiative that is likely to prove counter-productive. The last thing we need is for British films to be put in a remedial class on their own because they can't hack it with the rest. Nothing could prove a greater turn off to the audience.

Unfortunately it’s hard to gauge how the debate sparked by Solomons's piece is going because the Observer doesn’t allow comments to be posted online (how very old media). I understand the Shooting People bulletin boards are in a twitter over the article, but it's a members-only forum. Maybe the Lords Communication Committee, which must now be close to passing its judgment on the British film industry, will pick up on some, or all, of the above. We'll see.

Some thoughts on the UKFC and BFI merger

Professionally speaking I’m agnostic about the merits of yesterday’s announcement by the Film Minister, Siôn Simon, of plans to merge the UK Film Council (UKFC) and the British Film Institute (BFI).

In broad public policy terms it’s a step in the same direction towards greater consolidation that gave rise to the UKFC in the first place, with the merging of a number of functions and agencies in 2000. But agnostic does not mean disinterested, and as I’ve worked for and with both organisations in the past I’d like to share some initial thoughts.

Reading between the lines the merger is a done deal, although it’s billed in the press releases issued by DCMS, UKFC and BFI as a proposal at this stage. But we’re not talking about a proposal that’s up for public consultation; it’s closer in spirit to a betrothal, a public statement of intended matrimony that just needs someone to order the wedding cake, book the honeymoon and decide on the wording of the wedding vows.

Inevitably, given the nature of the parties involved, it’s going to be a wedding by committee: the Minister will chair a project board of representatives from the BFI and UKFC, to ‘consider the practical and legal issues that would need to be resolved before such a merger could take place.’ As the press release reveals, this task is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

So this union is going to happen, barring any last minute intervention (some  unanticipated ‘lawful impediment’, declared from the back of the registry office?). It’s unlikely the outcome of next year’s general election will have any impact: if anything a win by the Conservatives will confirm the expedience of the proposal. David Cameron sent a warning shot across the bows of ‘the Quango state’ earlier in the summer, and any move towards streamlining and efficiencies among NDPBs like the UK Film Council will surely find favour. And with public finances in the parlous state they’re in, quite apart from the hole in DCMS’s departmental budget and the sapping of arts funding by the Olympics, the drive to save money will be just as necessary among cultural bodies if Labour pull off a surprise at the polls.

Either way, the financial case makes sense in the short- to medium-term, as Tim Bevan, the UK Film Council’s new chair, acknowledges in the press release:

‘We know that the climate for public funding is going to get much tougher, and it's therefore sensible that we ask ourselves why there are two publicly funded film organisations in the UK. We need to look at the scope for savings across the board, to push as much money as we can into new film activity.’

Both the UKFC and BFI top brass have signalled their support for the proposal- no public statement would have been possible without it. Which suggests an awful lot of work has already been conducted behind the scenes, a point confirmed in the BFI press release.

As the junior partner in this relationship (though a long-standing and venerable institution, the BFI is funded by the UKFC, as well as through other income streams) the BFI stands in theory to lose more than the UKFC as a result of the merger, a fact implied in the BFI press release’s concluding statement:

‘The Board of Governors of the British Film Institute welcomes the DCMS initiative to rationalise the funding and governance of the way we support film in Britain, as announced today after a long period of discussion. The new Film Minister has assured BFI chairman, Greg Dyke, that both the identity and critical cultural mandate of the British Film Institute will be paramount in this process.’

A quick digression: Whither television? you may ask.  Greg Dyke, a TV man to his boots, presides over an organisation that carries film in its title but whose remit extends to the moving image in all its forms, including the gogglebox (the BFI’s Royal Charter puts it thus: ‘…to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout Our United Kingdom’). To this end the BFI National Archive holds TV works alongside its film holdings, the NFT hosts television screenings, talks and seasons, the BFI Library carries TV-related books and materials and BFI Publishing, now an imprint of Palgrave, includes TV-themed books in its back-catalogue.

Yet the UKFC is most stridently a film body. Will the merger help to soften this position (arguably the logic of media convergence makes it increasingly untenable in any case- plus the Conservatives have indicated they’d like to add video games to its remit)? Or will the BFI’s TV focus shift into the background, or out of shot altogether? It’s hard to imagine the latter, so we can only await with interest the implications of the former.

The stage is thus set for what Andrew Pulver, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, calls ‘the biggest upheaval in almost a decade’ to face the British film landscape. And just in closing here are my initial hopes for the outcome:

1. The UK Film Council’s research activity should continue (specifically the work of the Research & Statistics Unit), with the welcome possibility of closer association with the BFI Library's databases and enquiry service. There’s a tantalising prospect.
2. Sight and Sound’s editorial independence should be preserved at all costs. Among many other valuable services the magazine provides a unique forum for discussing UK film policy, and it has not been shy of airing debate even, on occasion, at the expense of the UK Film Council. That is as it should be, and care is needed to ensure the merged film body doesn’t exert undue influence over the magazine’s independent voice.
3. The BFI’s Education department should be preserved and strengthened in the new film body, placing learning at the very heart of it’s mission. Learning is the golden thread that runs throughout the UK Film Council’s current remit: informed and motivated audiences are likely to watch more and better, and more diverse, films provided they have the opportunity to do so. So whether we’re talking about funding UK production, support for distribution and exhibition or the promotion of film heritage, learning is key.
4. The National Archive should be set free from the merged body and incorporated as a stand alone, self-governing trust. Its work is too valuable, and the financial demands of its activities are too great, for the Archive to occupy only a proportion of the senior management’s time of a single public film body charged with a panoply of responsibilities. The Archive deserves and requires leadership that is 100% focussed on the task at hand and not diverted by the competing demands of wider film policy, and it should have a direct line of accountability to government, perhaps along the lines of the British Library.

Your comments please.

On the compatibility of 'cinema' and 'Britain'

As I write, the Edinburgh International Film Festival is in full swing. EIFF has long championed the best and brightest of our national cinema, and this year’s British Gala strand, from which the annual Michael Powell Award-winner will be drawn, offers up a gratifyingly eclectic mix. EIFF also publishes the indispensable Film UK Guide to British Film, listing key details of all British fiction feature and short films completed in the last year (the 2009 edition can be downloaded here.)

And either by happy chance or design the UK Film Council has just launched a major new report on the cultural impact of British cinema. The research, Stories We Tell Ourselves: The Cultural Impact of UK Film 1946-2006, was conducted by a research team drawn from Birkbeck University (led by Professor Ian Christie), Media Consulting Group and NARVAL Media. It marks the first concerted effort to measure, analyse and describe the impact of our national cinema on the wider culture at home and abroad. In the terms of a classic British understatement, this is no mean feat.

In recognition of the scale of the challenge, the foreword, from UKFC CEO John Woodward, indicates the report's preliminary status as a starting point for further enquiry and debate (scholarly or otherwise), rather than being the last, definitive word on the subject. The report can be filed under 'Pending further attention', and I look forward to reading what others make of it. My own view is that this is a thoughtful and stimulating beginning to what deserves to become a fecund arena of future study.

The researchers examined two samples of films drawn from a database of all UK feature-length films known to have been released over the reference period 1946-2006. The first comprised an 'intuitive list' of 200 such films that are widely regarded as 'significant and of lasting value' (ranging from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp [1943] to This is England [2006]; the full list is available in the report appendices). The second sample was drawn randomly from the database, and 'devised as a check against the unavoidable subjectivity of the intuitive list'. The two samples overlap; Lawrence of Arabia (1962), for example, crops up in both.

In broad terms the researchers found that the films in the random sample tend to reinforce mainstream British values, whereas those in the intuitive sample 'tended to challenge or satirise those values.'

The research team also examined 30 'culturally significant films' in detail, using three indices to gauge their impact: 'original impact (box office, awards)', 'extended impact (DVD re-issues, restorations)', and 'wider impact (citations in other media, evidence of esteem etc.)'.

In addition, the researchers identified four main categories of cultural impact: 'censorship and notoriety' (e.g. A Clockwork Orange), 'quotations in other media such as songs, TV shows' etc., 'Zeitgeist moments' and 'cumulative impact where films have [...] contributed to long-term changes in social and cultural attitudes.'

But the report offers much more than an assessment of impact. It also re-examines the complexion of British cinema over the reference period, challenging some of the more pervasive assumptions about it (like the idea that World War II is one of the most common settings for British films in the postwar period; turns out that films set in the 'long 19th century' (1800-1914) are more abundant). The study also highlights the role of national and regional representation in British film, and looks at how the representation of ethnicity manifests itself. There's also a section on how Britishness in films is perceived outside the UK, and the contribution that public policy has made to cultural impact.  

A number of things struck me while reading the report, a few of which I feel confident to share (the rest require further thought). The first is a slight sense of unease about the very idea of cultural impact. I can't quite get my head around the notion. Film doesn't sit askance from culture, and as such I wonder about the nature of 'impact'. As presented there is a sense of 'A' doing something to 'B', when in reality 'A' and 'B' are intertwined and likely to share a reciprocal relationship. What's missing in this account is how British film has been influenced by other cultural practices and artefacts.

This extends to the influence of other national cinemas on our own, because film travels widely. I did a little exercise a few months back where I looked at the film titles cited by over 40 successful British filmmakers as their key influence or all time favourite. The information came from profiles compiled and published on the Telegraph Film page, and the table of filmmakers and titles can be downloaded here.

Of the 43 directors, writers and producers quizzed, seven gave a British film as their key inspiration. Nearly as many (six) cited a French film. And, unsurprisingly, the majority (22 in total) offered up a US movie, including recent Academy Award winner Danny Boyle (who listed John Carpenter's The Thing [1983]).

Finally, the absence of audience reception analysis is also an issue, which the authors acknowledge. As culture is lived experience, and not simply the sum of all that is recorded either on the page, canvas, music sheet, celluloid/hard drive etc., any account of impact has to examine how we make meaning out of sensory stimulation. How does our sense of 'Britishness' inflect our reading of film, and vice versa? As this is likely to be grounded in our everyday experience of living in Britain (or as outsiders spectating from afar) we should be looking to cultural anthropologists for such insights. As the UK Film Council is unlikely to fund such research, will the academic community step up to the plate? I hope so.

Montage: French film production in 2008; PEVE Digital Entertainment conference; MPAA research 2008

Two items of interest emerged from Paris in the last couple of weeks, beginning with publication by the Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC) of data showing the strength and vitality of French film production in 2008.

Both the level of production and total production investment rose for the second year running, with the number of films made totalling 240 (up from 228 in 2007), backed by investment of 1.49 billion euros (1.22 billion euros from French sources, an increase of 29% on 2007).

According to a report in Variety, the economic slump had not taken effect by the time most 2008 movies went into production, and historically French film production has proved relatively resilient during financial downturns. Patrick Lamassoure, Film France managing director, is quoted as saying:
"The French production system isn't based on equity. Money doesn't come from banks; it comes principally from TV stations, CNC subsidy coin and minimum guarantees from domestic distributors.”

Last week also saw Paris play host to the annual Screen Digest PEVE Digital Entertainment conference. According to the press release, ‘the home entertainment industry has much to be optimistic about’, despite the economic downturn.

This upbeat assessment is based on facts and figures presented over the two days of the conference, which included a keynote address by David Bishop, President of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, who noted that home entertainment is a $50bn-a-year business that 'continues to be a critical revenue  stream for our parent companies' and that ‘consumers are still buying packaged media in significant numbers'. 

Screen Digest's Dan Cryan told delegates the biggest challenge they face is in persuading consumers to pay for content that is currently available for free. Piracy is not the only competition according to data presented by Cryan: by 2011, ‘ad-funded, free to view TV shows will account for 10 times more US consumption than paid-for online content. Both pricing and windowing strategies must be rethought...if paid-for content is to compete with free’.

Further details of what sounds like a really fascinating event can be found here.

Finally, Pamela McClintock, writing in Variety earlier in the week, offers some interesting speculation as to why the MPAA’s annual theatrical market data publication has not yet surfaced.

‘So far’, she reports, ‘the 2008 report is missing in action despite the fact that it was a record-breaking year at both the domestic and international box office.’

McClintock suspects the MPAA ‘doesn't want to publicly tout the health of the box office during the economic crisis. Nor does [Dan Glickman, MPAA Chair and CEO] want to give Washington politicos ammunition. In January, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) blasted a provision in the stimulus package that would have provided $246 million in tax breaks for studios and filmmakers. Coburn's argument: Why should Hollywood get a handout when the box office is going gangbusters?’

But according to McClintock we won’t have to wait for much longer. The MPAA has confirmed the report is due for publication online following Glickman's appearance at the ShoWest event next Tuesday.

(Now, far be it for me to indulge in my own conspiracy theories, but I note that ShoWest is run by the Nielsen Film Group, part of the Nielsen Company that also owns The Hollywood Reporter, a rival to  Variety...is that what stoked McClintock's interest?).

Watch live as UK Film Council gives evidence to Lords Committee 25.03.09

The Lords Communications Committee enquiry into the British film and television industries will today hear evidence from John Woodward (CEO) and Stuart Till (Chair) of the UK Film Council. They'll be followed in the hot seat by Luke Crawley and Martin Spence of BECTU.

Just to prove the Upper House has made it into the 21st Century, both sessions can be viewed online from the parliamentlive.tv web site. Live coverage is due to begin just before 10.30am GMT.

>>>UPDATE: 8.00pm GMT>>> I just came across Nicol Wistreich's written submission to the Committee, posted on the Netribution web site. It's well worth a look for an indie production perspective.

Box office on the move comes to the iPod and iPhone

‘Insanely great’ is the punchy epithet applied by author Steven Levy to describe the development and rise of the Apple Mac computer. After initial success there followed a period of waning fortunes in the late 1990s, until the iMac turned around the iconic company’s performance. But it was the development of iTunes and the iPod that had a truly transformative effect, not just on Apple’s stock price but also on the way we buy and listen to recorded music. As a result the music business has changed forever.

The iPod has since developed into an interactive multi-media centre, able to screen films and TV shows, and the iPod Touch and iPhone variants also allow users to surf the internet. Organising and playing back music is just one of many features of new generation iPods, and there is now a burgeoning interest in ‘apps’, little software add-ons that allow users to play games, check stock prices, keep up to date with social networks and so on. And now, thanks to Rentrak, users can also track box office figures in the US and internationally through their iPod Touch or iPhone.

Rentrak is offering the service through its first consumer applications, known as FilmScope and FilmScope WorldWide.

According to Rentrak’s press release, FilmScope ‘will provide film enthusiasts with top line U.S. domestic box office results and expanded film information, [while] FilmScope Worldwide will offer an international perspective with box office intelligence on multiple international territories, all of which was previously only available to Rentrak subscribers.’

And there’s more: you can also use the Rentrak database to search for film information, by actor, title or director, alongside a calendar feature that provides a schedule of upcoming film releases. The service also allows users to book tickets for theatrical screenings and consult film reviews (although I’m not sure if this is available outside the US). It’s basically IMDb on the move, with the added bonus of up to date boffo numbers.

Here’s what Ron Giambra, Renrak’s executive vice president of theatrical, has to say: "Film fans have never been able to access this level of detailed information so quickly, all by using FilmScope. FilmScope allows iPhone and iPod Touch consumers a fun and comprehensive way to find out everything they ever wanted to know about new and previously released movies and the actors, directors and studios behind them."

The launch of this service comes a few weeks after Webalo revealed it had entered into a deal with Lionsgate to make market intelligence data available to executives via their smartphones. That was a business-to-business application, which simply took a company’s existing data and fed it to remote handsets whenever someone needed the information.

The Rentrak service is aimed at consumers, and provides access to the company’s box office data. You’d probably expect to pay a premium for such a privilege. Not so. FilmScope services are available for a one-off fee of £2.99 ($4.99) for U.S. domestic box office information and £5.99 ($9.99) for FilmScope Worldwide. That’s less than the cost of a cinema ticket in the West End. And there’s absolutely no subscription charge.

What an insanely great idea.

Nielsen and Cinetel pact in Italy

I’ve not posted as regularly as normal in recent days due to the exigencies of a crushing work deadline (unlike the late [perennially late] Douglas Adams, I don’t like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by).

In consequence I’ve built up a backlog of posts, which I’ll crack through over the coming days.

First up: some welcome news from Italy. Earlier this week Cinetel, which tracks local box office in the territory, signed an agreement with Nielsen EDI allowing it to use EDI’s proprietary box office applications (Flash, Flash Wireless and FilmSource).

According to a report by Cineuropa, this will ‘allow for easier analysis of Italian data published on the web, and access to data on the US market and four other European territories’. The quid pro quo is that Cinetel will share its Italian data with EDI, adding the territory to the latter’s roster of international box office tracking services.

That’s a bonus for EDI’s subscribers, and it should auger well for the rest us. Consolidation of this sort can bring a welcome degree of standardisation to box office data collection, and EDI is also pretty good at making its headline data available in the public domain for those of us not fortunate enough to subscribe to the full service.

Lords Committee examines the UK film and TV industries

Last week the House of Lords Communications Committee announced an inquiry into the UK film and television industries. So now’s your chance to have a say about the way you see things going: the deadline for written evidence is 23 March 2009 (details are available on the Committee’s web site).

But even if you don’t feel moved to contribute, this announcement is welcome for the simple reason that we can expect a deluge of evidence to hit the public domain once the Committee issues its report later in the year. Lovely stuff.

Anyway, back to the inquiry. Lord Fowler, Chair of the Committee, set the context in his launch statement:

"The film and television industries already make a very important contribution to the UK economy.  But companies are under financial pressure both because of structural changes in the industries and the effects of the recession.  We shall assess the prospects for film and television production in the UK and what might be done to improve them. We will look into the financing of the film industry, and in particular how the 2006 changes to the tax regime have affected it."

The last time a Parliamentary committee looked at the film business the terms of reference were much narrower. The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which published its report in September 2003, posed a simple enough question: is there a British film industry?

It concluded in the affirmative (hardly a surprise) and gave a much needed fillip to arguments in favour of continuing tax relief to support UK production (this was a time when the sale and leaseback regime was under review and there was considerable nervousness about whether tax support might be scrapped altogether). The Committee recommended the government should explore linking certification for tax relief to cultural criteria (and not just financial measures) and that’s what eventually happened in the form of the cultural test.

Spool forward six years and the Lords Committee will be examining whether this was such a good idea after all. The administration of the cultural test has been widely praised for being transparent and straightforward enough. But there’s no denying it has had a negative impact on co-production activity, which has fallen dramatically since 2006 because, as the UK Film Council has stated, ‘the tax break incentivises spend inside the UK and therefore not production outside the UK’. A report by Oxford Economics, described in a previous post, claims the tax credit system risks ‘parochialising’ the UK industry unless it can be extended to overseas activity linked to UK production. Let’s see what their Lordships make of that.

The scope of the present inquiry is satisfyingly broad. The Committee has welcomed evidence on the following questions:

• What do the UK film and television industries currently contribute to the UK economy and British culture and how might this be enhanced?
• Have the 2006 changes to the tax credit system been of benefit to the UK film industry?  What effect has it had?
• Is the UK Film Council meeting its objectives of giving support to production and export of British films and could it do more to assist the UK film industry’s contribution to the UK economy?
• Is the current business environment in the UK offering the industries opportunities for the emergence of new talent or the acquisition of the managerial and technical skills required by the film and television industries?

One of the shortcomings of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s examination of the British film industry in 2002/03 was that it confined itself almost exclusively to the production sector. Thankfully the Lords committee is not so constrained, and they are also inviting evidence on the following, crucial, questions:

• How do the current UK arrangements for raising finance and distributing/ exhibiting films affect the commercial success of the UK film industry? How might changes in international film production and distribution affect the UK film industry?

In addition I hope the inquiry also looks at the links between the film and TV sectors, and not simply consider them separately. With Film4’s future uncertain given Channel 4’s current difficulties, continued pressure on acquisition budgets and the promise and challenges of digital convergence for anyone in search of an audience, now is a very good time to re-evaluate the relationship between broadcasters and the film business.

Taking solace from quanta

According to enigmax, writing for TorrentFreak, Mr Bond’s 22nd big screen outing (Quantum of Solace) leaked onto the Internet before it bowed in the US last weekend.

That’s despite a massive counter-piracy campaign in the UK (where the film opened two weeks ago) involving cinema staff donning night vision goggles (supplied by Q?) to catch camcorder users in the act.

This news came in the same week that Detica, a business and technology consultancy, urged the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) ‘to shift the focus of its consultation process away from enforcement when considering legislative options for addressing illicit peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing.’

Detica reckons enforcement is too costly and time-consuming so efforts should instead be directed towards giving consumers access to reasonably (and flexibly) priced legal downloads. This sounds like a sensible option given that an army of begoggled cinema ushers still failed to prevent the camcordering of everyone's favourite spy. 

So has peer-to-peer filesharing had any material impact on Bond’s theatrical performance? Yes, probably. But we’ll never know for certain the order of magnitude involved.

Yet the film’s distributors and producers can take some comfort from the early box office results. QoS had a record-breaking opening day in the UK, and went on to amass £15.4 million by the end of the first weekend.

And despite its online availability, QoS had the highest US opening of any previous film in the franchise, grossing around $70 million according to early estimates (Casino Royale managed around $40 million in its opening weekend at about the same time of year).

Which just goes to prove that in times of financial uncertainty, some bonds are a much safer bet than others.

Economic uncertainties

Last week’s volatility in the financial markets (is volatility the right word to describe a rout?) prompted a slew of stories about how recession-proof the movie industry is/is not (delete as applicable). I thought we’d dealt with the matter at the beginning of September, but apparently not. It keeps surfacing in one form or another.

Take, for example, a story prompted by a press release from US-based research outfit SNL Kagan. The release is entitled SNL Kagan Study Confirms That Hollywood Movies Still Thrive during Tough Times, and it’d be reasonable to assume this refers to the Tough Times we’re currently experiencing.

But the study looks at 2007, not 2008. So when analyst Derek Baine says, ‘When the going gets tough, consumers go to the movies. Historically, theaters have been fairly recession proof, and this year looks to be no exception’, it’s not exactly clear whether he’s talking about the situation in 2007, or projecting from his 2007 data to make a prediction about 2008.

Recessionary thinking

On the day (30.08.08) the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke in a Guardian interview of 'arguably the worst' economic downturn in sixty years, the same newspaper published a feature about the worsening economy and its impact on Hollywood.

I posted on the subject a few weeks back, reporting the divergent views of industry watchers on the question of whether the film industry is recession proof, as commonly imagined.

The feature article, which made it to the front page of The Guardian Guide, repeats the refrain that Hollywood can ride out hard times because people like to escape from their economic woes, finding diversion and consolation in the (relatively) cheap thrills available at the picture house.

But John Marrs, who penned the article, offers little in the way of hard evidence to support his case; and what there is presents a muddled picture.

Number crunching the credit crunch

Is cinema-going recession-proof? Let’s hold that question in mind while we consider the latest admissions data to be published by the Cinema Advertising Association.

Figures for the UK show that June admissions fared better than the same month in 2007, up 5.3% to 11,820,185 on the back of films like Sex and the City and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Despite this, the total for the first half of the year is down by 5.2% on the same period in 2007. Yet July and August are shaping up well, buoyed by the strong performance of The Dark Knight, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Mamma Mia!, and family favourites WALL E and Kung Fu Panda; then later in the year there's a Bond and Harry Potter waiting to take a bow. So will 2008  trump 2007? It's too early to predict, not least because factors like the weather, as well as sporting events (the Olympics), can have seasonal effects on cinema going habits.

And then, of course, there are the wider economic uncertainties, with talk of recession hanging in the air like the unwelcome smog in Beijing. Returning to our opening question, opinion appears divided about whether cinema-going, and the film business more widely, is recession-proof.