All articles by Michael Gubbins – Page 3
-
News
UK directorslaunch lobby group
Some of the most successful names in the British film industry are helping lead a 4,000 strong body representing the interests of UK directors.Directors UK brings together film, television and new media directors for the first timeto offer one voice on a wide range of issues.The immediate priorities are concentrated ...
-
News
Cannes market- Deals or no deals
It is difficult to judge the success of the business done at the Cannes marketplace outside the context of the weight of hope, even expectation, that preceded it.After relatively flat markets at Toronto, AFM and Berlin, there was some hope Cannes would provide a necessary kick for business.Such hope was ...
-
News
Screen Opinion: 1968 and all that..
If you were putting together a fantasy protest group, you couldn't do much better than Godard, Truffaut, Malle and Polanski as your back four. All were involved in the demonstration that brought Cannes to a halt 40 years ago.The episode has become part of the hugely mythologised moment of French ...
-
News
Film in an'anytime, any place anywhere' Martini culture
They call it the Martini culture. Harking back to an iconic advertisement of the 1970s, the idea is that today's consumer wants to be entertained 'any time, any place, anywhere'.It is the sexier big sister of the more prosaic term ICE (information, communication and entertainment), coined in India during the ...
-
News
Screen opinion: The buff stops here
There's a woman who sits defiantly at the end of the same row in an arthouse cinema in London until the very last frame of the film's credits. She clearly believes that walking out before you have paid due respect to the mechanic who changed the oil in the DoP's ...
-
News
ScreenOpinion- Weathering the economicstorm
Billionaire philanthropist George Soros notched up another score for the doom merchants this week, saying we are at the end of a 60-year super-boom. It's a tragedy that so many of us were blissfully unaware we were the beneficiaries of this benevolent macroeconomic phenomenon. But that's super-booms for you - ...
-
News
THE DISTRIBUTION REVOLUTION CHAPTER2: OVER-PRODUCTION
The clearest failing of European film is its ability to reach audiences, particularly where that means crossing national borders. The dream of a single European market with a common cultural identity is nowhere further from reality than in the movement of film between countries. Whether the motivation is business or ...
-
News
THE DISTRIBUTION REVOLUTION CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION Distribution has perhaps always been something of the poor relation in European cinema. This is the continent of auteur theory where the vision of a director is paramount. Great cinema is the work of the genius - production is art, distribution is mere business.For Hollywood, business is its business ...
-
News
UK Chancellor closes $2bntax loophole used by film investors
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling's 2008 Budget report has closed a tax loophole which some experts believe might have generated between $1.6bn (£800m) and $2bn (£1bn) for film.Click here for analysis ofUK film finance after tax changesA year ago, the government used the budget to clamp down on ...
-
Features
United Kingdom - Flying the flag for education
The marriage of education and industry is often a forced one, but not at the UK's Met Film. The group, based at the legendary Ealing Studios, combines a film school with an ambitious production company and high-quality digital production and studio facilities. And it has been quietly putting together a ...
-
News
Screen opinion: The heart of cinema
Training is the industry's lifeblood.' So said a senior UK film figure this week in support of a government plan to create an apprenticeship system funded by a new mandatory levy on producers.Unsurprisingly, a number of independent film producers in the territory can see the potential costs rather more than ...
-
News
Screen opinion: Cinema's public advantage
It's the small ironies that often give away the big picture.And this week we have the perfect example in the Northern English town of Huddersfield.The ban on smoking in public spaces, which has been spreading across much of the world, has forced players of the game of bingo out of ...
-
Features
Video-on-demand - Europe - Patchwork picture is a brake on growth
Europe's position in the VoD market is characterised by a distinctive set of issues that differentiate it from much of the rest of the world.One is the role of the telecoms companies, such as British Telecom, France Telecom, Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom. These were often the state monopolies that once ...
-
News
Europe's distribution revolution
The international film industry has now seen a year in which high expectations of a buoyant film market have fallen flat. Not enough to be a bona fide crisis, but enough to create the flap of butterfly wings that might yet cause a hurricane in the future.The 2008 European Film ...
-
News
Screen opinion - Rightsize Matters
When the inventors of business jargon find themselves in hell (or post-mortem heating and rehabilitation solutions), the devil will have put aside a particularly ghastly punishment for the deviser of the term 'rightsizing'.In tougher economic times, it was the euphemism of choice for laying off staff. You're not getting the ...
-
News
Screen opinion - Copyright and wrong
Everyone has a pet-hate phrase that makes them release the safety catch on their revolver. This is a personal choice: whenever the issue of copyright theft is raised, someone earnestly gets up to berate speakers for the use of the word 'piracy'. It conjures up images in the minds of ...
-
News
PACT restructuring is case of adapt or die, says CEO
The chief executive of UK producers body PACT John McVay says the stark choice facing the body has been to adapt or die.The organisation is currently planning a major reorganisation which will mean laying off more than half of its staff, including its specialist executive for film.The move has attracted ...
-
News
Screen Opinion- Time is of the essence for digital change
If the recent flurry of digital download plans does nothing more than force a rethink of the 'wait and see' policy towards digital change in international markets, it will have performed a considerable service. In Europe, in particular, it's time to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk.A ...
-
News
United Kingdom - The third word
Breaking into today's crowded industry calendar with a new event is a challenge. But when that event is aimed at screenwriters, it is a real achievement.The UK town of Cheltenham is preparing to host the third International Screenwriters' Festival (July 1-3), following two very strong opening years.To an extent, the ...
-
News
Screen Opinion - festival change is sign of success
Oh, for the certainties of yesteryear. There was a time when it was clear where you stood in the film festival world. Everyone knew their place and God was in his heaven, or at least in an arthouse cinema.The year was more or less happily divided between well-known events with ...