British Cinema

As a British film maker, I am very interested and very inspired by the British Film Industry. An industry which is struggling to pose a threat on Hollywood, yet an industry capable of making films at a very high quality. Also an industry that has been able to grow with the switch to digital technology, as it is now cheaper to send film to the high-profit making, American film-goers. 

British Cinema relates to films that have been created by a British film industry, it does not necessarily mean the film has to be filmed in the UK. A very well known, and the most successful of all British film industry's is Working Title. The reason for Working Titles big success however is its routes to the LA scene, now more than 60% owned by Universal, it poses the question whether a film company can be successful unless it has links to the Hollywood scene.

This Is England: Although this film is not as successful as some of the Working Title films, the film produced by Warp X, and many other UK film industry is very creditable and culturally vital to Briton's sense of self-identity. The gritty low budget film shows how a British film industry can create an inspiring and influential social-realism film without the high-budgets and amazing editing techniques of Hollywood.

Synopsis: A coming-of-age tale set in 1983 on the streets of a small English coastal town...
After being bullied at school, 12-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) comes across a small band of Skinheads lead by Woody (Joseph Gilgun), a charismatic and benevolent teenager who befriends the boy immediately. Bringing him into the fold as one of their own, Woody quickly initiates Shaun as a Skinhead to the dismay of his widowed mother. Having lost his father in the Falklands War, Shaun gleefully embraces his new found friends (and look) until the group is split with the arrival of Combo (Stephen Graham), an older, nationalist skinhead just released from prison. Once friends, now bitter rivals, Combo and Woody divide the group along political lines. Blaming England's economic woes, growing unemployment and post-war grievances on the influx of foreign minorities, Combo persuades Shaun and other members of the pack to make a stand, preserving England for the English. After attending a meeting of right-wing nationalists, Combo takes his new found gang of hooligans to threaten the local Pakistani community. In his contempt for others, Combo begins to reveal his own emotional battles with loss, loneliness and isolation. When his romantic advances are later rebuffed by Woody's girlfriend and former fling, Lol (Vicky McClure), Combo turns his hate, envy and prejudicial rage against one member of the group to disastrous effect... changing Shaun's viewpoint in an instant.

Another British film industry that has made a name for itself is Warp X. Just as working title, the key personnel behind Warp X started off in the music industry before working with film. The company was initially set up as Warp Films followed by the introduction of Warp X in 2006. This was introduced when UK Film Council gave Warp X £3 million (plus £1.5 million from EM Media & Screen Yorkshire) to produce 6 films in 3 years in order to foster the development of low-budget film making in the UK. Optimum Releasing handles distribution (TV rights to Channel 4/ Film 4) - hardly on the same scale as WT with their tie-ins with Universal and Studio-Canal providing distribution deals for the USA and Europe. Meadows two examples of this
amazingly enough, given the tiny budgets they work on, Warp X has even found time to launch its own offshoots, or subsidiaries: as well as a competition for female comedy film-makers, it has sought to set up a production arm in Australia, taking advantage of government funding there.

The main factor effecting the British Cinema is the dominance of the 'Big 6' conglomerates in particular. With higher budgets, such as Dark Night's overwhelming $185 million budget) how could a British film industry compete with these budgets. Although Working Title is coming close to these high budgets, with their latest high budget release, The Interpreter with a budget of $90 million, it is only because of their links with NBC Universal that they can achieve such high budgets.

The British film industry relies on its success in creating social realist films in order to generate a higher UK population away from the Hollywood releases, and into a environment more suited and recognisable to them, a technique which can only really work on an older audience as a younger audience is always looks for fast paced, high action movies. Films such as Harry Potter uses sci-fi to try and attract a funding, another option chosen by the British film industry. This also attract funding from Europe, which helps the British Cinema to grow even further.

The British social realist tradition, growing out of the 1920s-40s British Documentary Movement, was a key influence on the French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realism movements of the 50s and 60s - both themselves a reflection of pragmatism in the face of limited availability for funding.
there are occasional exceptions to the rule that US audiences have no interest in social realist films, social realist films' whose underdog protagonists triumphing against the odds neatly reflects the 'American Dream' ideology that any and all US citizens can be winners in their extremely uneven society. 

Hammer briefly lead the world in the horror genre, establishing the likes of Christopher Lee as global icons in the process. However he found the theatrical and gothic productions were left looking out moded alongside low budget Indie productions from the US. Craven took a leaf out of the social realist handbook by creating films with a low budget with a documentary feel (shaky camera work) that gave a better sense of realism.

The British Cinema industry is simply not as vastly grown as Hollywood, mainly because there is a massive difference in amount of screens and population in Britain. However to sell a film with starring role actors such as Hugh Grant and Bard Pitt is a lot easier than selling a social realism, British set drama. the $150m budget (Paramount, big 6!) Star Trek film took $75m from just under 4000 screens in its opening weekend stateside; almost £6m from 499 screens on its UK opening weekend. The US has 5 times the UK population and is wealthier to boot; UK film-makers who don't attempt to build in cross-over appeal to the US market are limiting their potential profit.

The UK Film Council was set up to fund UK film industry's to create social realism films within Britain. The main aim of the UK Film Council is to keep UK film industry's funded to create more films, because funds are hard to come by because of the 'Power 6'. However the UK government wants UK Film Industry's to keep creating social realist films to help promote reality into the way Britain is seen.