If you were starting out now, do you think you would be able to build a successful independent film production company?
Mike Elliott: Success feels like a relative term here. Like all independent film companies, cash flow is always tough. We started the company in 2013. Then DVD monies dried up and MGs [minimum guarantees] got hit, so it’s always been difficult. The hardest part, though, is growing a company in this climate. Debut films are always going to get made — it’s sustaining and growing the company and financing larger-scale films that’s the hard part.
Emily Morgan: For a long time I worked in a hybrid way between my own company slate and doing some producer-for-hire work to earn a living. When I was starting out, I was also lucky with securing funding specifically for emerging talent on schemes such as iFeatures or the BFI Vision Award. Ultimately, it’s always been a very tough industry that requires a lot of passion, tenacity and grit.
Paul Webster: It’s a very, very difficult time. It’s a perfect storm for all of us but particularly for the newbies coming through. I can’t think of very much that could adjust it, except for more intervention from the state.
What impact could the introduction of a new indie tax relief have for UK producers?
Elliott: The tax credit was introduced to fund production companies and enable producers [to build their slate], not to fund films. It was then subsumed into financing films, with the producer borrowing against it to complete funding. If the tax credit was upped to 33% for qualifying films, to make up a third of the finance plan, it would transform how people look at independent film investment. It would take some of the strain off the soft funders and allow producers to be more entrepreneurial. We could target more outside equity with a greater chance of recouping and there would now be more people in work.
Kevin Loader: There must be some way of supplementing what the tax credit does for a certain category of lower budget, culturally British films.
Morgan: It would be enormously helpful. It has become harder and harder to crew up lower-budget independent films and financing is increasingly stretched, so any budget enhancements would be welcome. Festival and P&A support is also important for these films, helping to boost audiences so that there’s a demonstrable demand for the films we’re making.
Rebecca O’Brien: A 40% [indie tax relief] would make a true difference. Ultimately, if we get something I’m sure it’ll be less. The [existing] tax credit is very welcome, but it needs to disproportionally support the local sector so indigenous films get made, rather than it just feeding a very successful inward investment industry. We’re making everything at the cost of our own voices not getting heard, and not getting enough opportunity to flex new muscles. Lower-budget indigenous films should be able to have an increased tax credit. Given the independent indigenous sector is the research and development department, if that’s underfunded, then we can’t supply the bigger, grown-up industry with good talent.
David Parfitt: If it’s well-targeted, of course it would be fabulous. But we always get into the area of definitions: what is an independent film? In the very old days it would have been Miramax coming in as one of the financiers and you’d think, “Well, how independent are you in that case?” Not that I’m saying producers shouldn’t take money wherever it comes from, but it’s just about making sure the smaller mini-majors don’t disguise themselves to take advantage of an enhanced credit. It needs to be targeted properly, which is what Pact [Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television] are trying to do. There will be some to-ing and fro-ing but it seems crazy, in a way, that some huge Hollywood production coming in gets the tax credit on the same basis as someone who’s struggling to put together a project for under £1m ($1.2m) or whatever.
Is a levy on streamers, aimed at supporting more indigenous UK independent production, a good idea?
Elliot: There will be a tipping point for whether the UK remains an attractive place to base a production. The tax credit, the acting talent, stage facilities and crew all contribute to that, but as soon as things get too expensive those international productions will relocate. It’ll be interesting to see how the proposed 2% to 5% sliding-scale levy in the Danish media agreement works out.
Morgan: It’s complicated but instinctively I support the idea — particularly if that money can go back into the budgets of films that are struggling to be made because of the competition from streamers for cast, crew and other resources.
O’Brien: A streamer levy is an equivalent to the Eady levy. Given that the streamers are box office now, that makes so much sense to me. That would be proper funding. It would be huge if that were achievable. [But] there’s always a fear of pissing people off and losing stuff because you make it less attractive for the streamers. You have to look at what’s the value in streaming and is it always going to be like this? It’s not. Things change all the time. That’s interesting to look at — how long are we in this streaming world? It’s often erroneously assumed that we’re always going to be the way it currently is, and that’s not the case. Ten years ago we didn’t have this issue at all — there weren’t streamers, or they were fledgling.
Parfitt: I think that would be really hard. It’s not necessarily going brilliantly well for all of the streamers and we need to wait and see what settlement is reached with WGA and SAG-AFTRA [strikes]. If they’re going to have to start paying residuals as opposed to a premium, that might change the whole business model for them. Thinking out loud, I do wonder whether some quotas might be interesting. One of the streamers that I was pitching recently said, “No, we’re just not doing any independent films. We’ll acquire, we’ll have a look when they come to market, but we’re not interested in investing at the early stages.” That’s slightly worrying.
Webster: Yes, you’ve got to look at the streamers. Like all tech companies, they’ve ridden roughshod over workers’ rights and back-end contingent compensation and all that stuff. They’ve done the usual tech thing of tearing up the rulebook and just ploughing on. There has to be some restitution there, some kind of levy on them. It can’t carry on like this. There is possibility because this is not a poor industry.
What are your ideas to help the next generation?
Loader: There needs to be more support for producers in development, and everybody needs to be more rewarded if your film is successful. Because, quite often, you’re not at all. Some companies that dual-track with television and film are probably in a position to support young producers as part of their talent outreach — the Working Titles, Heyday Films, the See-Saws, who have either managed to crack making money out of films because they have studio relationships, or who are doing a lot of high-end TV and making a decent amount of money that way. When they develop features with newer filmmakers, they should treat producers as part of the talent package.
Webster: It’s worth considering that the wealthier production entities support their colleagues in some way, either by getting them on board to work with them or set up some kind of fund to help develop careers.
Interviews by Geoffrey Macnab, Matt Mueller, Mona Tabbara & Louise Tutt
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