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.