The Thatcher and Major governments’ policies

3.5.1 The Thatcher and Major governments’ policies

During the Thatcher years a group of key figures from the film industry, including David Puttnam and Richard Attenborough, met at Downing Street to discuss the future of the industry and possible government intervention. The seminar, held in June 1990 and chaired by Margaret Thatcher herself, was called to deal with the crisis in British production; according to John Hill, the number of British films in production in 1989 fell to 30. John Hill’s article 7 gives a complete account of the outcomes, but in the medium term these were restricted to greater involvement in the EU’s media programme and support for marketing films abroad. John Hill describes film policy during the

Thatcher years as ‘aggressive non-intervention’ 7 .

The Major government introduced five measures to assist the industry, moving slowly towards more government intervention, but without a clear statement of policy:

1 The British Film Commission was established to market British films

abroad and attract inward investment. This was followed by the London Film Commission, mainly concerned with promoting London as a base for production, and, more recently, Herts Film Link, promoting the Hertfordshire studios (Elstree, Leavesden etc.). Regional film offices have been established throughout the UK, often working with or as part of the Regional Arts bodies.

2 A European co-production fund was set up.

3 The subscription to Eurimages was paid (withdrawn in 1995, due to be

repaid by the Blair government in 1998). Eurimages is the Council of Europe’s production and distribution support fund.

4 Tax relief was introduced by Norman Lamont in 1992.

5 Lottery funding was made available through the Arts Council for feature

films and shorts. To date, 160 film starts have been funded, although there

Managing in the Media

has been widespread criticism of the number of these films which failed at the box-office or were never released.

In contrast to the Thatcher government’s non-intervention, during John Major’s premiership we saw a gradual move to support the film industry. Whilst there would seem to be little evidence of a coherent cultural policy on film; there was clearly the development of an economic film policy. The establishment of the British Film Commission and a number of regional equivalents in its wake demonstrated the determination to expand the UK as a film production base. This was seen to benefit not just the existing infrastructure and workforce of the film industry, but also a variety of businesses and industries within the geographical region of production of an individual film. From this perspective, the cultural element of film production would always be secondary to the economic advantages – it would be just as valuable to attract a Hollywood film as a ‘runaway’ production, as it would

be to produce indigenous films.

3.5.2 ‘New Labour’ film policy

Labour has yet to make any radical changes to film policy in terms of legislation. However, it has commissioned a study by the Film Policy Review Group to look at supporting and expanding the industry. They published their report, A Bigger Picture, in March 1998. This concentrated on production, distribution, marketing and training, and a number of initiatives will be developed from it. For example, there could be an investment in film literacy for schoolchildren in an attempt to build a British film culture (the Film Education Working Party considered this in January 1999, running seminars throughout the UK).

The Film Policy Review Group set out their principal aim in A Bigger Picture – not just to expand British film production, but to set up British distribution and exhibition networks. (It is worth remembering that the renaissance in British cinema attendance is largely attributed to multiplexes, which are mainly American-owned, e.g. Warner Brothers and UCI.) Because of budgetary restrictions and the need for New Labour to operate within Conservative spending limits during their first term, there is no public funding at present to assist in this process. The intention is to create an industry with an infrastructure similar to Hollywood, although clearly on a smaller scale.

Amongst a whole range of suggestions concerning marketing and training for the industry 8 , there is also a proposal for various changes to the qualifying criteria for tax relief on films produced in the UK. Briefly, the

British film policy

suggestion is that the definition of a film that will attract tax relief should be changed to any film where at least 75 per cent of its budget is spent in the UK. If the film has a specifically British content but needs overseas shooting, this would be reduced to 60 per cent subject to certain requirements – for example, post-production work must take place in the UK.

A cultural definition of a British film is also proposed for purposes of marketing, PR and monitoring industry performance. This is based upon the nationality of the leading production personnel (scriptwriter, producer, director and director of photography), the subject matter of the script, the labour cost and production spend (a minimum of 75 per cent for each). Points are allotted for each category, and if a certain total is reached the film

will be judged to be British 9 . Whilst the system is easy to criticise, it does allow for a more flexible definition than others that are more generally applied – source of funding, where production takes place, or the subject matter. The definition also implies a balance between economic factors and cultural ones, although it is debatable whether a director of photography or an editor’s input, for example, is determined by nationality. As with public service broadcasting (see Chapter 2), the concept of a national identity, the British subject matter of the script amongst many other elements, of a film is problematic in a diverse society. If we take Notting Hill (1999) as an example, the most successful British film ever in box-office terms, but partly funded from the US (Polygram Filmed Entertainment), there has been considerable debate about the representation it offers of the Notting Hill district of London. It would, however, qualify as a British film according to the proposed cultural definition – if we accept its subject matter as British – because of the nationality of cast and crew.