‘GONE ARE THE DAYS OF JUST THINKING ABOUT THE UK MARKET. YOU NEED FRESH IDEAS THAT TRAVEL INTERNATIONALLY’ THE BRIT 50 p30


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GUEST LIST ROUND TABLE


■ Alison Owen set up Ruby Films in 1999. She is in post with Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of Jane Eyre (see p38).


■ Jeremy Thomas founded Recorded Picture Company in 1974. He is in post on David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method (see p39).


■ Stephen Woolley set up Number 9 Films with Elizabeth Karlsen in 2002. Their most recent fi lm is Made In Dagenham (see p31).


■ Nira Park set up the UK’s Big Talk in 1995 and has scored success in both TV and fi lm. Upcoming projects include Paul and Attack The Block (see p36).


Q Does the strength of TV in the UK help or hinder fi lm production?


Nira Park I set up Big Talk from an attic some 15 years ago and we were still in that attic until about four years ago. We’ve only been able to survive through continuing TV productions. That’s where our main talent relationships come from and for many years our overhead. TV is harder than it used to be, but it is still easier to get television productions off the ground than to get a fi lm greenlit. The turnaround is faster and the funding is simpler and more reliable. Alison Owen And there is always an audience in television. It’s always been the great advantage and disadvantage of the fi lm industry that we share a language with the US, depending on where we are in the economic cycle and exchange rate. The UK would be able to be much stronger if it were culturally protected like, for example, the French industry. You don’t get so much of a problem with TV because people always want to watch local television. Jeremy Thomas The English language could be a disadvantage. France, Italy, Spain and Japan are protected by their language but our cinema is so dominated by industrialised product that we don’t even


■ Robin Gutch is managing director of the UK’s Warp Films. The company’s Tyrannosaur, directed by Paddy Considine, premieres at Sundance (see p45).


■ Andrew Eaton is co-director of Revolution Films with Michael Winterbottom. His latest production is fi lm and TV series The Trip (see p40).


■ Damian Jones’ credits include The History Boys and Adulthood. The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent, is about to start shooting (see p30).


Stephen Woolley


have a chance. And when these digital screens are put in by the UK Film Council at large expense, you still can’t get into them.


Q It appears that a lot of great US talent is migrating to TV.


Robin Gutch Perhaps TV is becoming the intelligent story form of the generation that is to come, because fi lm-makers are going to think, ‘If that’s what you can do on TV, will cinema any longer be the ultimate aim?’ Jeremy Thomas When you look at the quality, the budgets, the outstanding writing, the level of these series in America, they are a different budget, a different world. We are the 51st state in cinema and now TV is very hard competition. Andrew Eaton TV money is so much better for us, the deal is so much better for us because of the terms of trade. We’ve done a couple of shows in the last few years which were paid for by TV money predominantly. We did a show for BBC2 called The Trip; the fi rst thing Michael [Winterbottom] and I did was to cut it into a fi lm for Toronto, and we sold it for quite a lot of money. The BBC wanted to stop us showing it at the London Film Festival a couple of days before it went on TV and we were amazed they would think like that. It’s only extra publicity for what’s on TV. If we could fi nd a way to get the broadcasters, and the BBC in particular, to think more imaginatively when it comes to platforms and how you could structure something, we can use our expertise to sell movies internationally, but we would have the TV money and the TV brand. Damian Jones This conversation is so refreshing and refl ective of the nature of British producing because I don’t think about the overview every day. I’m at the coal face trying to get fi lms made. I don’t step back and see the bigger picture which is daunting for the next generation. I always think of myself as an entrepreneur rather than a member of the British fi lm industry.


Nira Park


Jeremy Thomas Business is a dirty word here. Even producing has still got a crude image of someone with no understanding, brutalising everyone around them. But it’s not true. We’re all cultivated. I like literature, photography, design, art and music very much. I like all the elements that go into a movie; I also like business, the cut and thrust. If you’re a producer who has to go to the coal face many times with a fi lm, you’ve got to enjoy it. Alison Owen Otherwise you’d have a nervous breakdown. Fortunately Ruby has been successful in converting a number of projects for TV.


Q Several of you have built sustainable businesses. How has that been


achieved? Alison Owen Sustainable, but only just. It’s important that we own more of our own works and share in the revenue. Robin Gutch If you take a company like Warp, which was set up by Mark Herbert in his garage with public money coming from Screen Yorkshire and NESTA to get Chris Morris’ short funded, it wasn’t even conventional fi lm funding. It’s very diffi cult to see where the sort of cultural and industrial investment which seeded our company is going to come from in the future. Jeremy Thomas Everyone is in the same position. I don’t think the industrialised industry is having an easy time either. They have to spend $200m to get it out on the same day everywhere to avoid the hateful crime of piracy which is killing our business. Our government needs to protect us from that crime. We should all join together and try and explain to another generation that this is harming the fi lm business.


Q There is hope money will come back into production when VoD takes off. In


the meantime, how are you making movies? Andrew Eaton We are probably all going


December 15, 2010 Screen International 25 ■ »


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