UK films urged to be more 'mainstream'

[Alan Fry]

This Government wants to make our film industry more like Hollywood, Well I think that we should stick our current plan of making small arthouse films that are good, rarther than Hollywwods plan of making films that are sucessful but hated by critics!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16495095

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

This Government wants to make our film industry more like Hollywood, Well I think that we should stick our current plan of making small arthouse films that are good, rarther than Hollywwods plan of making films that are sucessful but hated by critics!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16495095

But the critics are not the be all of what us the public like and films are successful because the public like these films and if they were not successful then the studio's would not make them.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by denphone

But the critics are not the be all of what us the public like and films are successful because the public like these films and if they were not successful then the studio's would not make them.

Thats were hollywood come in...

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

Thats were hollywood come in...

But many films are not made in Hollywood.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by denphone

But many films are not made in Hollywood.

But most of the really sucessful (in the box office) films come from America

[Angua]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

But most of the really sucessful (in the box office) films come from America

With all the financial backing and PR to make them so.

Better to make great films that are memorable, which become Box Office hits by word of mouth because they are good.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by Angua

With all the financial backing and PR to make them so.

Better to make great films that are memorable, which become Box Office hits by word of mouth because they are good.

I would agree with that!

[Taf]

Loads of great films are already made in the UK, "blockbusters" too... we just don't go in for all the glitter and hype (which saves a lot of money).

[Will21st]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

This Government wants to make our film industry more like Hollywood, Well I think that we should stick our current plan of making small arthouse films that are good, rarther than Hollywwods plan of making films that are sucessful but hated by critics!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16495095

Britain has some of the best film crews in world
Britain has some of the best directors in the world
Britain has some of the best actors in the world
A fair few executives in Hollywood are British

from what I hear more than half of all Hollywood Blockbusters have significant post-production work done in London.

one could argue the British co-run Tinseltown with the yanks...

so why are they over there and not here?

I'd say it's a lack of ambition,lack of political will and the fact that commercially viable films almost never used to get funding from the UK Film Council.
the fact is that it's the film business,not the film charity..

Funny how people look down on successful films,whilst claiming they are not art,yet some pretentious 3.5h b&w film is hailed as a masterpiece cause it only grossed £5.50 at the Box Office.

Seriously though I agree with Cameron and think we should be more business-minded in our celluloid endeavours...

We used to have great,successful Studios such as Hammer,Ealing ,Rank,Amicus and others.I wish we could do that again,sometime.

[Alan Fry]

Read this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/...res.features11

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

But most of the really sucessful (in the box office) films come from America

You mean like James bond or the Batman films (upto and including the Dark Knight Rises)

Oh.. hang on a minute, they're filmed mainly in the UK with the main sound sets being in Bedfordshire (cardington hangers) for Batman and Buckinghamshire (Pinewood) for the James bond sound set (recently remade after the fire).

Why do you think that most extras in a lot of the major blockbusters are English Just look for example the whole Star wars series

The UK has had a lot more major films partly or fully filmed in the UK than most countries outside of the UK/US put together.

I'm just sad that people can't recognise that the UK has a unique role in the making of UK and US films and that's why the film industry in this country is considered to be first class.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

You mean like James bond or the Batman films (upto and including the Dark Knight Rises)

Oh.. hang on a minute, they're filmed mainly in the UK with the main sound sets being in Bedfordshire (cardington hangers) for Batman and Buckinghamshire (Pinewood) for the James bond sound set (recently remade after the fire).

Why do you think that most extras in a lot of the major blockbusters are English Just look for example the whole Star wars series

The UK has had a lot more major films partly or fully filmed in the UK than most countries outside of the UK/US put together.

I'm just sad that people can't recognise that the UK has a unique role in the making of UK and US films and that's why the film industry in this country is considered to be first class.

But most of those Blockbusters were financed by Hollywood, so what we should do is create major studios than can fianance the bigger UK films!

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

This Government wants to make our film industry more like Hollywood, Well I think that we should stick our current plan of making small arthouse films that are good, rarther than Hollywwods plan of making films that are sucessful but hated by critics!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16495095

To understand the reasoning, you have to understand how Hollywood works. This is something the UK Film Industry seems not to understand at all.

Think of it this way. A blockbuster film may cost $200 million, but it can bring in anywhere up to $1 billion. In the case of something like Avatar or some of the Harry Potter films, over $1billion

That pays for a lot of smaller films to be made. Some of these may be quite profitable. Profit which can be put to other smaller films.

We have some of the most actors and crew on the planet, yet we seem to make only a few films.

I think the problem is that the UK film industry needs to pull it's finger out and look at Hollywood for how it needs to be managing the business side of things. We also need to look at how our local authorities help the film companies, after all, a single large production can bring tens of millions of pounds into a local economy. Something which, even when the economy is a better state, no local authority can afford to turn down.

The UK film industry produces some brilliant films, but there seems to be a snobbery about producing big budget crowd pleasing films. It seems to prefer funding many arthouse films instead of one large budget mainstream film. Having said that, Film Four and BBC Films are doing a sterling job of producing good (and profitable) mainstream films.

Hollywood's way of doing things works. They do produce a lot of high budget "blockbuster" films, but that enables them to produce many more art house films than we can afford to.

One final question. Name me a major film series that is entirely funded by (and therefore showing a profit for) the UK film industry? I'll give you a clue. Harry Potter and James Bond don't count as they are funded by Hollywood.

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

But most of those Blockbusters were financed by Hollywood, so what we should do is create major studios than can fianance the bigger UK films!

And where's that money going to come from?

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

And where's that money going to come from?

Same place the funds come from for Alan's other projects: The inexhaustable "rich".