Those who follow me on Twitter will know I have no love for the current UK government. In fact, I can’t stand almost everyone involved with it, so bare with me while I spit the following sentence through gritted teeth: The new policy announced by David Cameron on Wednesday – to invest Lottery money in ‘commercial’ projects – is a positive step. It’s not the way I would have gone, but it is a definite improvement upon what went before.
I feel dirty.
Even as I write this, I can hear an angry mob forming, and calling me a philistine, so I’d probably best clarify my position, and my reasons for holding it.
For at least the last decade, if not considerably longer, the people charged with investing state funds in film have had two conflicting goals: to invest in a sustainable film industry and to support projects that otherwise would not have been made. And while this diktat from on high seemed reasonable to someone, somewhere, it doesn’t take a great deal of knowledge about economics, or about the film industry to realise that these two goals are mutually exclusive.
The result of this has been an investment policy that could charitably be described as ‘a mess’. It’s been confused, opaque and it consistently fails to achieve either of the goals outlined above. In the 11 years since the foundation of the UK Film Council, only a handful of the films it funded returned an investment. I don’t have access to figures for its predecessor bodies, but I suspect they would have fared equally as badly, if not worse.
It’s a little harder to gauge how successful the organisation was when it came to fulfilling the other part of its remit, but a quick glance over the list of films produced by the UKFC shows money often going to the same, small pool of production companies, directors and writers. In and of itself, there is nothing untoward about this – some film makers, as we have touched upon, rely on non-commercial support to make their movies. Even still, it seems odd to support so few people so ardently, when there are so many unheard voices, trying to break in to the industry.
Over the last few years, I’ve spoken to many people who applied for Lottery funding in the past, some successfully, others not. The overall impression I was given was that it’s a long, disheartening and all too frequently fruitless experience, where successful applicants often had an established relationship with the body, and successful projects often shared similar themes and ideas.
Let me be clear, if only for the sake of avoiding a libel action and/or sounding like some sort of crazy: I do not believe there was any corruption or conspiracy at the old UK Film Council, nor any funding body. I do believe however, that subjective decisions, made by a relatively small group of people are going to reflect their tastes and beliefs, and be biased in favour of people they are already familiar with.
The new proposals are far from perfect, and they still leave many people out in the cold – including just about everybody refused Lottery funding previously, but they should be much more objective. The basis of the policy is that funding will go to filmmakers with a proven track record. As long as there is a clear definition of what ‘proven track record’ actually means, the new system will be much more open, transparent and accountable.
There is also some logic in giving money to people who have had success previously. It may not be possible to predict with certainty how much money a given film will make, but as a general rule writers, directors and particularly producers who have made profitable films before tend to do so again. For the most part, these are the guys who tell stories well (even if they are stories about giant robots or ghostly pirates), keep costs low and extract every bit of production value from the pennies pumped into their films.
There are of course, flaws. The foremost raised by critics of the new proposals is that films that have either no commercial value, or are high risk will stand no chance of being made. Sadly this is true, at least in the immediate term, but that may not be the case over a longer duration. If these plans are successful, production companies will have more money to spend. Historically, when this has been the case, they tend to take more risks (for lots more information on that sort of thing, check out the excellent ‘Blockbuster’ by Tom Shone). That will probably be cold comfort to Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, but it should reassure, and indeed encourage most up and comers in the industry.
What is much more troubling is that production companies will no longer be expected to return the money to the investment pool when they begin to turn a profit. In the most simple terms, this means that the state is giving these companies money, rather than lending it to them. This will cause numerous issues, both economic and ethical.
This will, without question, turn the Lottery fund into the lender of first resort for those who ‘have a proven track record’. Why on earth would anyone apply for a loan on commercial terms when they can have a freebie? Consequently, it’s rather likely that the chaps administering this are going to be swamped. What makes this even more troubling, is that many of those who will be benefitting from this free money are personally very wealthy.
The argument in favour of this is that companies will reinvest that money, but unless clear conditions are laid down and adhered to, with a legal framework in place to regulate it, this will be abused. Personally, I would propose that the fund is treated as any other investor would be – the loan is paid back, in addition to a return on the investment. By doing this over a period of time, the pool of investment funding would (hopefully) increase beyond the £50 million currently available.
Which brings me neatly to the other major flaw – £50 million isn’t a lot of money. Admittedly, I’d be quite happy with it, but in production terms its peanuts. The entire pot would barely buy you an Iron Man or a Captain America. You’d need somewhere in the region of three times that for a Harry Potter, and that’s before marketing. Even a lowly, direct-to-DVD flick is likely to cost somewhere in the region of £500,000 to £1 million. In short, the fund isn’t going to generate the British version of Avatar any time soon. What it likely will do is allow companies like DNA, MARV and Matador to avoid seeking foreign investment partners, keeping their profits in the UK and allowing them to grow.
As I mentioned at the top of the article, the Tory plan isn’t the direction I would go in, and from the collective shock and hand wringing, it would seem it’s also not the direction most people in the industry would pick, but it is – finally – a direction. After years upon years of the state pottering about in the industry, being neither one thing, nor another, we now know that it’s going to support the big boys and help them get bigger.
If this new plan succeeds, we will all benefit with a film industry in sustainable growth. If it doesn’t – something that will become clear in about three to four years time as films funded by this initiative are released – then we know this wasn’t the way. We can abandon the idea of state support for large production companies, and come up with a new strategy. Either way, the industry wins.
