The British Film Industry: Blog tasks

In Hollywood, most films are made by Hollywood studios, have higher budgets than most countries and a heavy reliance on celebrities both in the cast and crew and spectacular driven stories. While British films can have work with both high and low budgets and also can be high concept driven or character driven.

3) When did the James Bond franchise start?

1960

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

In the 1970s, the British film industry was dominated by the subject of censorship that continued into the video banning of the 1980s. There was also a reduction in budget for British films due to a great decline in money in America.

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

British films tend to centre on topics and issues that deeply concern British society, therefore they focus on issues such as class, politics, social changes and education. Examples such as A Clockwork Orange which focuses on violence, anti-establishment and a compulsion to act in an anarchic way.

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

The actors, British actors tend to clearly be British and will often be associated with a particular genre or concept of a British film. For location they tend to be a heavily used feature of the film, with London being the most popular. The characteristics that will most appeal to a British audience is the social theme that provides the through line for many British film narratives. 

Factsheet #100: British film industry

To complete our introduction to the British film industry, we need a little more background to the industries context.

Find Media Factsheet #100 on the British film industry. You can find it on the same link as above. Read the whole of the Factsheet and answer the following questions:

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

The Cultural Test is divided into four sections and a film must score at least 16 out of a possible 31 points to be classified as British. The four sections are; Cultural Context, Cultural Contribution, Cultural Hubs, and Cultural Practitioners.

2) Complete the task on the Factsheet - choose three of the films listed and research them to work out what they score on the cultural test: The Sweeney (2012), Attack The Block, The King's Speech, We Need To Talk About Kevin and Skyfall.

Attack The Block
Qualification	Points
The film is set in the UK	4
The lead characters are British residents	4
The film is based on British subject matter	0
The original dialogue is recorded mainly in English	4
The film represents or reflects a diverse British culture or heritage	4
British studio or location shooting, visual effects or special effects	2
British music recording, audio post-production or picture post-production	1
British director	1
British scriptwriter	1
British producer	1
British composer	1
British lead actors	1
Majority of cast are British	1
British key staff	1
Majority of crew are British	1

Skyfall
Qualification	Points
The film is set in the UK	4
The lead characters are British residents	4
The film is based on British subject matter	0
The original dialogue is mainly recorded in English	4
The film represents a diverse British culture or heritage	4
British studio or location shooting, visual effects or special effects	2
British music recording	1
British director	1
British scriptwriter	1
British producer	1
British composer	1
British lead actors	1
Majority of cast are British	0
British key staff	0
Majority of crew are British	0

The Sweeney (2012)
Qualification	Points
The film is set in the UK	4
The lead characters are British residents	4
The film is based on British subject matter	4
The original dialogue is recorded mainly in English	4
The film represents or reflects British culture, heritage	4
British studio or location shooting, visual effects or special effects	2
British music recording	1
British director	1
British scriptwriter	1
British producer	1
British composer	1
British lead actors	1
Majority of cast are British	1
British key staff	1
Majority of crew are British	1

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

That even though a film is UK mads, filmmakers have to give the distribution rights by selling the film to a distribution company, therefore they lose all profits that could be made.

4) What are three of the strengths of the British film industry?
British films take 5% of world box-office takings, great creative skills of practitioners and amazing facilities.

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

Firstly, British filmmakers could choose to rely upon co-productions with American producers in order to gain a high budget to create films and creating low budget films targeted at British people.