Written by Daniel Stephens

This essay investigates failures in the British film industry that have heavily influenced the problems faced by U.K. film producers today (READ FULL ESSAY)

According to the Film Council’s own statistics film ‘production in Britain fell by 30 per cent to £800 million as the number of indigenous films that started shooting in the country dropped from 45 the previous year, to 27.’ (Hopkins, 2005) Hopkins sees the problem as Labour’s move to stop tax breaks that encourage foreign investment in British films.

‘Britain’s film industry last night gave warning that it will suffer a severe fall in income this year because of confusion over lucrative tax breaks that persuaded Hollywood studios to spend almost £500 million in the UK last year.’ (ibid.)

‘Britain will become a no go area for filmmakers’ said executive producer Russ Smith (BBC Online, 2004) The issue is not the government’s initiatives to support indigenous films through Lottery Funds and the Film Council, indeed ‘contrary to popular opinion, ploughing money into the production side of British cinema is not and never has been the main problem’ (Wayne, 2002. pg 9) but largely the need for American investment, meaning such measures that discourage such investment are largely unhelpful to the industry. (READ FULL ESSAY)