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Tuesday 20 October 2015

Chatting to Andrew Hulme at Film Fest Gent, director of the brilliant Cannes nominated SNOW IN PARADISE, he said that you can't really tell new emerging filmmakers what its really like in the British film industry, as it will scare them and put them off for life.



This is something I have pondered now for 20 years, since I first starting sitting on panels, doing talks and writing film making articles.

Every single producer who makes a film is an entrepreneur. Every one. 

As an entrepreneur you learn that you provide a product or service and you sell that for more than it cost to make and thus you make a profit. So many new film producers have run another kind of business either unrelated to the production of images before the come into films or they have produced something profitable related to films - corporates, commercials or pop promos. They all of them, every single one of them convinced that they will make a profit. No matter what you tell them they all think this at first. They think the laws of business apply to the film industry. 

They are wrong. 

It does not work like in films.

My first film was 65% funded by the BBC for just certain UK rights, yet despite being nominated for a BAFTA, starring Michael Gough and Kenneth Branagh, winning many other awards, getting great reviews and selling to 30 odd territories it never fully recouped and so failed to make a profit.


( The American distributors lied in on the above sleeve. It did NOT win a BAFTA and it was NOT from the BBC..well not entirely )


This happened with my first three films. For a great many years I thought I was a shit filmmaker and an even worse businessman because even though I produced three films that did well critically and were seen by many millions of people I could not make a buck from them.

Its was only, many years later that I discovered that making a film that makes a profit in the true independent sector in the UK, is as rare as hens teeth. I found that I was far from being alone, I was in fact in the majority of UK film producers. 

Distributor, sales agent and lecturer Alan McQueen recently told his students the truth - the real unvarnished truth and it did scare them. Many of them will now bury this information somewhere in the back of their minds thinking they will be different. Not to worry young students most of us who have been around for a very long time also do this. Its like death - we all think it will never happen to us.


( Alan McQueen is the bloke on the right. Not sure who the geezer on the left is). 

I have no doubt these students asked the same question that everyone asks when confronted with the raw truth about the British film industry " why does anyone do it if its that bad" ?

Why ?

This is a question I have never been able to answer myself in the 35 years since I gave up a successful acting career so don't expect any words of wisdom from me. I have no fucking idea !!!

( Its 4.07 am and I am going to try to get back to sleep and hope I won't have another nightmare like the one I just had - I am in a dark room and this man slowly approaches me with something under his cloak......it's a screenplay. A brilliant screenplay. I grab it with both hands and then spend 3-4-5 years of my life making it. Then some critics destroyed it, others praised it, some distributors buy it but few in number and so I make far less money in that time than I would selling pork pies in Leeds Market......and then I have to start all over again......only this time it will be REALLY difficult.....)