British Film Industry

Factsheet #132: British Film

Read the whole of Factsheet and answer the following questions:

1) Write a one-sentence definition of what makes a film British.

A British film would need to contain on of the three things 'be produced to one of the UK's official bilateral co-production treaties' meaning they can only be filmed with the nine countries that the UK has a side deal with. They have to be 'produced as part of the European Convention on Cinematographic Co-production'. The company has to have three European countries that fund the film. Third thing that is needed to make a film British is it has to 'pass the Cultural Test'.

2) What is the difference between a Hollywood production context and production context of a British film?

The British films tend to be varied but the Hollywood films in the production context usually most of their film 'have high budgets, a heavy reliance on celebrities both in the cast and crew and a spectacle driven stories.' 

3) When did the James Bond franchise start?

The James Bond franchise started in 1962 by Eon production.

4) In terms of film censorship and graphic content, what began to change in British film in the 1970s and 1980s?

In 1970s there was 'a rise' of sexual contents and violence in the British film industry. So then a 'more extreme content was being created and finding its way to Britain'. So then there was a continual evolution of film censorship and classification in Britain.

5) What groups are often represented in British film? Give examples of films these groups feature in.

There is many different groups that the British film represents such as the youth. One of the film that they have been represented in is 'Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange'.
Another group that the British film has represented is the female characters they have been treated very vulnerable and they are very delicate in most of the films that the British film has shown them in.

6) What does the Factsheet suggest might be the audience appeal of British film?

The factsheet suggest that the audience appeal of British film is to embrace the British culture and put more of that in their films.

Factsheet #100: British film industry

1) What is the 'cultural test' to see if a film counts as British?

The 'cultural test' is the test that has to be done for the film to be defined as British.

2) Complete the task on the Factsheet, researching the films listed and finding out what they score on the cultural test: Sweeney, Attack The Block, The King's Speech, We Need To Talk About Kevin and Skyfall.

Sweeney: 18/35

Attack The Block: 16/35

The King's Speech: 30/35

We Need To Talk About Kevin: 15/35

Skyfall: 32/35

3) What is the main problem for the British film industry?

The main problem for the British film industry is that the UK films are made but they lose the right of the distribution for the film to be shown to the audience. Most of the distribution companies are american so the profit goes to them mostly. This makes the British film industry get very low profit

4) What are three of the strengths of the British film industry?

One of the three strengths that British film industry have is that they have 'outstanding facilities' that they can use such as the camera, British studios and many other excellent facilities.
Another strength of the British film industry is they have 'outstanding creative skills of practitioners'.
Last but not least one other strength the business has is that we have a lot of 'several important film' studios.

5) What are the two options for the future of the British film industry?

One of the options that the future British film industry can do is that they can carry on 'choosing to rely upon co-productions with American studios to keep the industry afloat'. What this would also mean is that they would make a lot of loss such as 'regional accents and dialects or cultural and political references' which would be a drawback for the British industry'.

A second option that  they have is that they can 'attempt to make low budget films targeted at niche, British audience'. What this would mean is that they production cost will be lower which means that they have lower profit. So this would mean that they can still earn their money back from what they put in.

6) In your opinion, which of these two options would best safeguard the future of the British film industry?

I think the best option would be to do the second option because this would mean that they can get all the money back from what they put in the production. So they will not make a loss.