CELLULOID SPONGERS

Trawling round the film websites – as you do – I notice the Irish Film Board has shortlisted 10 projects for their low-budget scheme, Catalyst, three of which will get made on budgets of 250,000 Euros apiece. And I’m thinking, not another bloody low-budget feature film scheme. While Film UK is hurtling to hell in a handcart for want of getting some movies made and with co-production mangled on the buffers, lately the low-budget film scheme is being wheeled out again as the saviour – not of the film business, but of the hundreds of public sector jobs in screen agencies up and down the country.

I was musing on this while watching a DVD of London to Brighton the other night. As low budget films go, it’s okay – some decent acting, if a bit miscast, the photography’s fine and the script’s not the worst I’ve come across. More than that, I got the feeling that everybody involved was 100% committed to its making. According to the official website, the film was privately funded, apart from some completion money chipped in by the Film Council, who, if they had had any sense, ought to have funded it from the off. But they didn’t. And probably just as well, because more than likely they would have fucked it up at the script stage and the filmmakers would have lost the will to live, meaning the movie would have suffered the death of a thousand cuts. So good luck to them for raising the money themselves and getting LTB made they way they wanted to make it.

As I write this piece, there are precisely no films getting made in Scotland, well, none that I’m aware of, apart from some piece of schlocky horror that’s threatening to shoot soon. It’s a dire situation. Yet for years now, the low-budget film scheme’s been a kind of Holy Grail. So how come all these various schemes – Film London’s Microwave, Warp X, Slingshot being a few examples – fallen flat on their arse? Here, north of the border, we tried with the 300K New Found Films, an exercise that for reasons unknown, the backers - SMG and Scottish Screen - never bothered to repeat.

In Microwave’s case, with budgets of 75 grand, it must be a bit galling for the filmmakers, knowing that the boss of Film London earns about the same amount. Meanwhile the scheme’s funders, the BBC, must be having a laugh, knowing that they’re getting ultra-cheap content on the back of minimum wage/unpaid labour, because no way can you make a movie for 75K and follow all the rules and regs that public money places on you. And what’s the point of having all these heavy-duty industry mentors on board anyway? I bet they’re not giving it away for free. I doubt very much if Gurinder Chadha, Stephen Frears and Jeremy Thomas would have the first clue about making a film for 75K, so why bother asking them?

Just because a London to Brighton or a Once gets made against the odds from time to time doesn’t mean a public agency can learn any lessons from them. The very things that get these films made are the very things that the public money hates – filmmakers making their films by any means necessary, not sitting on their arses waiting on somebody else’s say-so. Low-no budget films only get made by getting rid of half the crew. They use unknown, hungry actors. They use locations. They don’t write endless drafts of the script. They shoot on camcorders, or do great deals to shoot film. They don’t have expensive soundtracks. They edit on home computers. They don’t have eight ‘executive producers’. But more than anything, these filmmakers make their own decisions, not wait a week for somebody in an office to return the phone call and decide for them.

Warp X, which I’ve written about elsewhere on this blog, is probably the best example of how not to make low-budget films. Launched over two years ago in a blaze of publicity, Warp’s Mark Herbert promised six films, bought with £3 million investment from the Film Council. Here’s his pitch –

“We need movies that can be made faster, leaner, lighter - with no excess baggage. That way the films will become profitable much quicker”.

Aye, so you keep telling us, Mark. But how many of these faster, leaner, lighter Warp X films have been made so far? Well, we still haven’t seen hide nor hair of Donkey Punch, have we? According to their site, the film’s currently in post-production after a four-week shoot in South Africa, which no doubt involved some excess baggage. Or did Robin Gutch stay at home counting what’s left of the 3 million quid after two years of paying himself a hefty wage?

Which leaves Slingshot. An odd bunch this lot, because as far as I can make out from their site, their business plan has a fatal flaw. Only idiots make cheap movies and distribute them themselves. At least they raised their money in the private sector, but what of the films? Well, they put out Sugarhouse, an off-the-peg gangster movie that underwhelmed the hacks (eg. Philip French: considerable promise here, but little actual achievement) and so escaped the notice of cinema-going punters. Like Warp X, they’ve managed to con Skillset out of money for ‘innovative training’, along with professional spongers, Performing Arts Lab and the Met School in London – more finishing than film school. Just chuck in that magic word ‘digital’ somewhere on the form and you too can write your own cheque.

What I’d like to know is who they’re training because you can’t submit a project to them unless you’ve already had a movie broadcast or distributed in the UK. Besides, what’s to train for? How to apply for jobseeker’s allowance after your film goes down the pan? While Slingshot are playing at being movie moguls, the majority of filmmakers are too busy working in bars, shops, crappy teaching jobs, call centres and care homes to think much about how to get their next short made, never mind a feature film.

I guess on paper these schemes might look attractive to public bodies desperate to look as if they’re busy. The sad truth of it is that writers will still have to work for free, directors have to shoot movies on suicidal schedules and producers still have rely on their partners to pay the bills. What’s also sad is that for years we’ve heard about how anybody with a camcorder can go out and make a movie – if it’s that easy, then how come it’s not happening? Maybe because in the end it takes more than money to make a film, no matter how crap the budget.

HASTE YE BACKERS

Scotland, as we all know, is rich in landscape: mountain ranges, dark, lovely lochs, unspoilt coastline and vibrant cities with a grand architectural heritage. Who wouldn’t want to come here? Even better if you can get your host to foot the bill.

Well, not Hollywood, according to an item in the Scotsman, reporting on a recce by the great and good of Tinseltown to these shores. Scottish Screen, touting for business, recently ‘organised’ a trip by a bunch of LA producers, starting at Prestonfields Hotel, Edinburgh, a place so swanky it doesn’t bother to publish the room rate on its website. A helicopter ride later, the producers gave it the thumbs up but stopped short of committing to filming due to the weather and the dire lack of studio facilities. Of course, anybody from the States with a likely-looking business card could pull that stunt. I’m just surprised more of them don’t.

I could complain about Hollywood being treated like royalty while our own filmmakers are scratching a living, but that would be too obvious. No, what I take issue with here is how ignorant and lazy journalism asserts that these visitors, quote -

‘…felt the UK and Scottish film industries were making efforts to make production more financially rewarding with tax incentives, and the production talents north of the border were exemplary’.

Plainly this is rubbish. To talk about a UK or Scottish film industry is fantasy when what you’re really talking about is government subsidy to a set of agencies whose job is to oversee what happens to drop on their desks, be it a spec script, a submission for some gladiatorial ‘initiative’ they’ve cooked up or, more likely, to subsidise the BBC or Channel 4.

As for making production more lucrative through tax breaks – well, the industry’s hardly in a position to do that, not with the current exchange rate and especially since Mr Brown decided to clamp down on dodgy funds pretending to be movie moguls. Why do you think so many American producers are so fond of Ireland? Besides, your average UK production company can’t pay itself a regular wage let alone provide incentives for US studios.

And so what if production talent north of the border is ‘exemplary’? They’re hardly likely to get too high up the food chain if Hollywood rolls into town. The best freelancers here can hope for is a location manager gig maybe, so they can kill themselves on 18 hour days or a sub-minimum wage runner/driver job, ferrying the above-the-line from their five star hotel to some freezing castle somewhere and be expected to be thankful for the privilege.

The main getout here – as ever – is the lack of studio facilities in Scotland. For years now there’s been countless attempts to get one built, usually on the back of a land grab for a golf course with hotel and retail complex, such as Sean Connery’s doomed scheme. Every time it’s died for lack of investment and political will. If the Americans are so keen on coming to Scotland then why can’t Donald Trump stump up? A large shed wouldn’t make much of a dent in the billion dollars he’s planning to spend here on 18 holes. Well, it's one way to attract the A-listers...

thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1636432007

4CRYINGOUTLOUD

Channel 4 script executive offers his feedback...

4Talent has just announced a competition, The Pilot, aimed at budding (and no doubt, withered) writers to come up with ideas for a 23-minute drama capable of becoming a six-part series on a par with Skins, Shameless and, bizarrely, Cape Wrath. The twelve lucky winners will then be farmed out to one of three production companies – Synchronicity Films, Brocken Spectre and Move On Up – who then have to compete X-Factor style for a rubbish 90 grand budget, which for setting up a six-parter from scratch is sweetie money. Just don’t tell me Douglas Rae made Cape Wrath for 90 grand a pop.

Me, I just wish they would pay writers from the off, instead of demanding they clamber over obstacle courses by making them enter convoluted contests that involve working for free. On the PILOT scheme the entry requirements are hefty. Reading the terms and conditions alone is a day's work for a lawyer. Not only do you have to come up with an original idea for a 23-minute drama, a page of script for said drama but also a treatment for another five episodes. Yep, just like that. Of course, you don’t get paid for any of this toil unless you get chosen – and even then Channel 4 are a bit shy in the small print when it comes to hard cash. I wonder how much they’re not paying the would-be producers?

While many people, including Channel 4, see this as an amazing opportunity, I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling a bit jaded when it comes to these initiatives. What other business operates like this? Car mechanics? Neurosurgeons? Why is it okay to solicit unpaid work from writers, who can never be sure if their ‘rejected’ idea will turn up in C4’s schedules in 2010? Of course, you can’t make headway as a writer by being that paranoid, but to me this sounds like a re-run of the starving-the-slaves tactic because it not only punishes the writers by making unpaid work a condition of entry but the wannabe producers too by making them sit up and beg. And as we all know, you don’t get work out of starving slaves, but I guess it saves C4 a packet in overheads.

Rather than have any confidence in producers, Channel 4, like BBC Scotland on the Singles, is spreading its bets because, ironically, it doesn’t believe that by paying a producer to pay a writer they’ll come up with anything worth making. So in the guise of ‘opportunity’, they’ll get hundreds of submissions, most of which will be dross – but hey, it’s free dross, so who cares? In an overcrowded market where too many otherwise sane people fantasise about becoming screenwriters, C4 can sit back and let three companies harvest the good ‘uns without having to fork out as much as the cost of paper, let alone the time and talent.

Auntie Leanne’s advice? Reheat that old Singles pitch now. What’s to lose?

www.channel4.com/4talent/pilot/

A FIT OF PEAK

Who is this guy, you might wonder? Well I never, it's none other than Douglas Rae, Scotland's 'leading movie mogul', whose Ecosse Films is based in a nice office in Chelsea and who sits on the committee of BAFTA. Watch your back though, this guy wields a mean steakie...

The latest stushie over BAFTA’s decision not to submit the Gaelic movie, Seachd – The Inaccessible Pinnacle, for the Foreign Film Oscars grinds on with barely a peep out of the local media. One exception is Brian Pendreigh, writing in Scotland on Sunday on how miffed producer Christopher Young is so hacked off with BAFTA he’s torn up his membership.

scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/entertainment.cfm?id=1560962007

Apart from the usual batty Nats chucking in their tuppence worth, what’s interesting about the article is the it-wisnae-me half-arsed apology from Alison Forsyth, head of BAFTA Scotland, claiming it’s nothing to do with her because ‘she only runs a branch office’ of the organisation. So much for BAFTA Scotland’s claim to champion Scottish filmmaking. And with old duffer Douglas Rae so quick to put the boot in, so much for cameraderie among Scottish filmmakers. Mind you, Rae's about as Scottish as Gordon Ramsay.

If Ms Forsyth can’t come out in support of Seachd, who can? Well, how about one of the stakeholders, Scottish Screen? Didn’t they put £170,000 into the film? You’d think maybe that CEO, Ken Hay, might have something to say about BAFTA’s decision but like many a gagged filmmaker in receipt of large amounts of public cash, I guess he’d rather keep stumm than rock the establishment boat, especially when there’s a lucrative job coming up at Creative Scotland. And why is co-funder, Ishbel Maclennan of BBC Alba not kicking up a fuss about the film’s non-inclusion? You can bet all parties concerned would be quick enough to claim credit if Seachd wound up with an Oscar nomination.

Not having seen the movie myself, it’s hard to know whether or not it’s as unworthy as BAFTA would have us believe. Surely it’s hard enough for a film, especially one made on a paltry £700,000, to compete on the international stage, up against multi-million dollar rivals from all corners of the earth. It’s pretty bad when your own country puts up barricades and it’s not as if there’s anything to lose – unless, of course, BAFTA feels too embarrassed to put forward such a low budget film - be it good, bad or indifferent – because it might reflect badly on the state of Film UK by showing up the lie of our so-called thriving industry.

At a time when practically bugger-all is getting made inhouse in Scotland, it’s interesting to note that a couple of films are allegedly heading this way. I say allegedly because producers Jinx Films’ Eating Dust, (billed as a ‘Celtic comedy’ – and no doubt as hilarious as that other English movie, One Last Chance) is still touting for investors, according to their website. The other film is some cheapo horror whose title I forget, but it’s another English import. Good to know then that Film City isn’t turning out to be a total waste of public money. Just a shame we can’t seem to get any Scottish films made there.

Again my thanks go to Andy, perennial contributor of ideas for this blog, for pointing me towards this Guardian article, national coverage being a rare thing for any Scottish film –

film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2177934,00.html

Seachd seems to have its admirers, so how come BAFTA decided to bury it? It’s worth adding that they knocked back a Welsh film too, while across the water, our canny Northern Irish friends have submitted Kings as their Best Foreign Film contender - or so I saw advertised on screendaily.com last week. How does that work? By pulling a fast one with the Irish Film Board, probably and BAFTA be damned. Like the mad Nats on the Hootsmon say – independence now. Maybe Alex Salmond should apply to Scandinavia for membership...