podcast

The business of film - bbc4

The film business can be seen as  unpredictable. The most critically successful films are not necessarily the most profitable ones. 

Audience want emotional engaging and intelligent stories. so for the producers , the challenge is to create films which strike a cord at the box office, but audience and financing is a risk as they are always unpredictable. 

Audiences are thirsty for emotionally engaging characters, something that they can enjoy with. 

sequels usually let people down, as they don't engage the audience as much as the first movie.

The american audience is always looking  for franchises,while the UK doesn't. They prefer making spokes films.

In the US 7/10 of the highest grossing movies were sequels. They are the movie business.

70% of he market is not in the |US, as adventure and action make the films more interesting, so it is important to film in different countries and places.

The entire film business changed in 2008, where the financial market collapsed. The type of films made were all really similar, so studios started to go to independent film makers. For this getting financial support is very difficult.

Uk indigent films are financed by bbc films and film-goer, plus a bit of preisales and bfs.

bfs - looks for filmmakers that they feel like they are helping. 82% of Uk filmmakers who make feature films don't make an other feature film in the next 10 years. 

for a film to succeed you need to keep in consideration

-timing

-response from the audience

-weather

-sporting events

budgets in producing a movie can vary from 1 mil to 30 mil dollars, with an average of around 5 mil.

The UK government wants to support British films so to do this they will give you 1/5 of the money you spend in cash. To know if your movie is British you need to go through a cultural test - you get points if your director is British, location is British, ecc

Sales agents: sells distribution rights. All independent distribution models have a sales agent who estimates the cost of a movie. 

The rating funding is complicated . Promo is picked up by a sales agent, then you speak to production founds, look at short fall and use gap finance to go to production. Nobody knows how a film will appeal the audience. The market place is now more uncertain than ever. 

In the 90s most movies were targeted to men, but now it has opened up also to women as they have become more independent and started to make their own money, which they have their own control over. Having said this, the industry is still mainly male dominated. WEomen are not seen as directors and it is very difficult for them to get their movies financed. 

in addition, more and more content is made for an older audience as they have money, but little content is made for them. They want to see Hollywood films, so 90% of the investments go there.