Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent in The Duke
(Picture: handout)It’s a boom time for British film and TV production - and our insatiable appetite for streaming is driving it.
Last month, the British Film Institute reported a record £5.64 billion production spend across film and high-end television in 2021. That’s a £1.27 billion increase from pre-pandemic 2019 figures. £4.09 billion of that total was spent on TV series; within that, £737 million went to films made for streaming platforms. A few days later, Amazon announced a multi-million pound, decade-long deal with Shepperton Studios, meaning the streamer will be filming projects next door to their competitor Netflix, which previously announced plans to double its Shepperton production base last November.
Swathes of this year’s most anticipated releases, from AppleTV+’s adaptations of Slow Horses and The Essex Serpent to Netflix’s version of Persuasion and Disney+’s slate of Star Wars series, were filmed in Britain; Amazon recently announced plans to produce its second Lord of the Rings series here, too. Ask anyone working in the UK industry and they’ll note that everyone from production accountants to camera operatives to big-name acting and writing talent have never been more in demand. “We’ve ended up as a relatively small country, becoming one of the global content hubs of the world,” says Adrian Wootton, the CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission.
That’s all good, right? Yes and no. Wootton describes this boom as “a once in a generation opportunity”, but there are catches to this seemingly benevolent takeover, which, if the industry doesn’t take careful action, could end up smothering British independent film - a unique art form which, much like French independent cinema, retains its own particular flavour.
First though, why are the streamers flocking to the UK to film their biggest projects? One major draw is our film and high-end television tax credit system, which allows producers to claim back up to 25 percent of their qualifying UK spend (capped at 80 percent of the overall spend, even if the project was entirely made here). The film scheme was introduced in 2007, and encouraged big productions like the Harry Potter franchise to remain in the UK; the high-end TV system, where “high-end” means a minimum spend of £1 million per broadcast hour, followed in 2013, again aiming to secure hit series like Game of Thrones (which filmed at Linen Mill Studios in Belfast for almost a decade).
“We’re not the only country with a tax incentive… there are some that are more competitive on paper than ours,” says Ben Roberts, CEO of the BFI. “But I think that we have a really reliable system and we’ve been operating large scale production for several decades… We’ve got a history of excellent, very skilled crews.” Thanks to the ongoing presence of these “large scale” projects in UK studios, our VFX and animation infrastructure is world class, too. Then there is “the country’s foundation in the dramatic arts,” which “puts acting talent at a very high level in terms of training and education,” says Manori Ravindran, International Editor at film industry magazine Variety. “Similarly there’s a very high calibre of writing that has the proven capacity to travel around the world.”
This “perfect storm” for production, as Wootton puts it, means that UK studio space is at a premium, often booked up years in advance for returning projects like franchises or series. In London alone, there is - or will soon be - new filming space in Dagenham, Enfield and Park Royal; just outside the capital, there are plans for a sister site for Hollywood’s Sunset Studios in Waltham Cross.
There are few industries that can be said to have bounced back so emphatically since the early days of the pandemic, which initially ground production to a halt until Covid-safe filming measures were established - and it’s especially heartening to hear these success stories in a sphere where most workers are freelance. Britain’s film industry, though, is a carefully calibrated ecosystem, and this push to create big-budget films and series for an ever-growing number of streamers is inevitably creating “pressure points,” as Roberts put it. “We’ve broadly been able to keep pace with the growth and appetite of overseas production coming to the UK,” he says, “although I do feel that we’ve now reached such an extraordinary level of growth that we do have to be very careful.”
Those “pressure points” are most keenly felt at the smaller end of the market, in independent film. “There were some really difficult times for people over the pandemic, so the fact that we’ve managed to bounce back and people are working and there is so much production activity is great,” says Nicky Bentham, founder and producer at Neon Films. “There’s a lot to celebrate there, but independent film and particularly home grown British projects and stories are finding it harder than ever to rise above that noise and find their own place.”
Bentham’s latest film The Duke tells the story of unlikely art thief Kempton Bunton, who stole Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in the mid-60s. Led by two much-loved stars in Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, directed by the late Roger Michell and based on a very British true story, The Duke is an all-ages crowd pleaser that feels, as Bentham puts it, “rarer than it used to be.” Over the past decade or so, she notes, “we’ve seen… gradually this sort of polarising of budgets, where we have the very low budget, first time micro independent film, and then the very high budget [blockbusters].” That means that “[the] space in the middle for really good quality independent fare that will attract name cast and be able to pull its weight at the box office is getting much, much harder to put together.”
Traditionally, she explains, independent films were financed “by selling the distribution rights to certain territories, perhaps by making three or four key international pre-sales.” Then there might be “some local tax credits… a bit of private equity or debt finance, or a bit of public funding, for example from the BFI or BBC Films.” In the streaming era, though, “the pre-sale model is becoming tougher and tougher as distributors around the world find it tougher to secure slots and audiences for their films” in cinemas; the market for TV sales and DVDs has also declined, all of which can make piecing together funding even more of a struggle.
“What everyone is experiencing is that the standard routes to securing money pre-sale, international values, TV values, how you put a film together, has changed,” says Roberts. “And I think that the streaming services have definitely disrupted that model.” They have “had an impact on the well understood distribution model for a film” - the traditional cinema release window - “which is upsetting the typically understood value chain of how a film reaches an audience and how you finance a film against that value chain.”
He notes that the streamers themselves are in fact “investing in what was ostensibly independent filmmaking,” citing Jane Campion’s recent Netflix film The Power of the Dog as an example. “Five years ago, the pulling together of the finance for that film would be completely different.” So, independent projects are still getting made, just in a different way. “There are some of these amazing films where you wonder, would they have got made otherwise [without streaming platforms], or would it have taken a much, much longer time?” says Wootton, also name-checking Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God, released on Netflix last year.
Working with a streamer does often mean a shorter or limited theatrical window, though: indeed, Benedict Cumberbatch, the star of The Power of the Dog, recently asked “why did Netflix give the film such a perfunctory run in theatres?” in an interview with Vanity Fair. And while snagging all your funding in one streaming deal is undoubtedly an attractive proposition, it can mean relinquishing your stake in a project. Michaela Coel has spoken about her decision to make I May Destroy You with the BBC rather than with Netflix after she learned that she would have to forfeit ownership of the show.
“With the streamers, it’s obviously great that they have very deep pockets to pay handsomely up front,” Bentham says. “But if [a project] was to be a big success and to be profitable, you wouldn’t necessarily see any of that success.” Ravindran agrees that “the rights issue… remains a sticking point, and I do think that until there is more flexibility on the part of the streamers, it will never be totally fair, even if they are targeting grassroots talent and amplifying those voices.”
In an uncertain financing landscape, attracting recognisable, bankable talent becomes crucial “to make those international sales and stand out from the crowd,” Bentham says. But that too is increasingly difficult - because many of them have signed lucrative, long-term deals with the streamers. “There’s fierce competition in the calendar space across the board - writers, directors and an A-list cast are all in huge demand for very well paid long-running projects from the streamers and the studios.”
This has only been exacerbated by the pandemic, not just because of the backlog of projects but because “it’s stopped people being able to multi-task,” says Tim Bevan, co-chairman and co-founder of production company Working Title, which has worked with streamers including Amazon and Netflix on film and TV projects. Pre-pandemic, he explains, “an actor would take on two or three things at the same time and weave it into their schedule,” but now “they can’t go between productions - they have to stay isolated in the one that they’re in.”
There is undoubtedly an element of “competition”, as Bevan puts it, for big stars, but the overall landscape for acting talent is a complex one. Bill Petrie, co-chair of the Personal Managers’ Association, says that “there is that dialogue in the industry where we say, ‘there’s so much work going on,’” but notes that there are ongoing issues around “the option language for an actor, and the restrictions on that.”
When a performer works for a SVOD (subscription video on demand) platform on a series, there will often be “a window that [the production company] can hold the actor before they say ‘yes, we’re going to do season two, or no, it’s not picked up,’” Petrie explains. “That period can go from six months to nine months to 12 months. And that means during that period of time, you can’t get the actor other work, because other production companies won’t audition the actor or employ the actor” - in case the series is picked up again. Many breakdowns for roles “will state ‘please do not suggest anyone who is under option’, and the reason for that is they don’t know their dates, and there could be a clash.”
This leaves the actor “in limbo, and unpaid limbo as well.” The option language is most restrictive when it comes to other TV or streaming projects “because it could be [for] a commercial rival,” but it also impacts upon the theatre world, as it’s difficult to commit to an extended theatre run when you are uncertain about whether you’ll be called back to set (in an interview last month, the National Theatre’s director Rufus Norris warned that “most actors who would sell a theatre are now attached to some kind of contract with Netflix or Amazon”).
Petrie notes that SVOD contracts don’t “restrict an actor going to shoot on a film,” though, as the shooting times “can be more condensed, so it’s less problematic.” Still, one of the reasons why the UK is such a popular filming destination for the streamers is the breadth of its acting talent. Many of these performers will have started their careers juggling stage and television gigs - and become better actors for it. If a generation of performers are stuck at home waiting out their option window, will they be able to develop in the same way? “When the actors are locked but cannot work, because dates have not been defined, we would say it’s harder to develop careers,” Petrie says. “We want actors to be brilliant, so that when they do work for any of the SVODs, they get a performance that creates a buzz and people want to watch.”
Arguably even more in demand than on-camera talent are behind-the-scenes crew. “The demand for crew is sky high, and my sources have indicated that this has seen a lot of movement around projects, with some demanding higher wages and moving elsewhere if those expectations aren’t met,” Ravindran says. “It’s certainly tough for smaller indies, for sure, as they’re not going to be in a competitive position where they can dish out to secure the more expensive crew.” Some below-the-line workers are “feeling the squeeze of endless projects and many are suffering from burnout,” she adds. Bentham agrees that the sheer volume of projects in the works has “pushed the prices up” in a case of supply and demand. “I’m not saying that’s a bad thing that they have the choice, or that they shouldn’t be earning well… but independent film is not going to be able to compete at that same level.”
With demand for talent far exceeding available crew - “we think we have got anything from 30,000 to 50,000 new jobs coming into our industry [over the next] five years,” Wootton says - training has become more important than ever. The BFI is running a review of skills along with DCMS, while Film London recently backed the Creative Academy Hub, which will offer training in film-related fields; Bevan and his Working Title co-chair Eric Fellner are among the founders of the London Screen Academy, which aims “to increase opportunity and diversity” in the industry. The streamers are getting involved too. Last year, Netflix launched its £1.2 million Grow Creative programme, which placed trainees on programmes like Top Boy and The Witcher. Earlier this week, Amazon pledged £10 million for training and development in the UK as part of their new Prime Video Pathway scheme, in partnership with the National Film and Television School.
Indies have always been an important training ground for British talent, though. As Bentham notes, they provide “probably one of the toughest boot camps you could ever attend” for filmmaking. It’s in the streamers and studios’ interest, then, to preserve this space and keep “feeding that pipeline”.
So, how to stop these smaller projects getting squeezed out, and to ensure that, as Roberts puts it, “we can take in overseas production whilst ensuring that indigenous independent production is also able to prosper at the same time”? Another BFI review is currently exploring “the economic challenges around independent film,” so that the industry can build “good strategies for the long term.”
Bentham, who is also co-chair of the Film Policy Group at Pact, the UK trade association for independent producers, suggests that “government intervention” in the form of a change to the tax credit system could be beneficial. “We’ve done a lot of research into this, and looked at all the figures, and feel that the best way to support the independent British industry would be to have an enhanced tax credit for those films - without affecting any of those big studio projects that come here to shoot. That could still carry on untouched, but if you are making an independent British film, you would have access to say 30 or 40 percent [of the film’s eligible UK spend].”
The success of a film like Boiling Point, a low-budget feature which has received four Bafta nominations and saw impressive increases week-on-week at the box office in January, shows that audiences are still keen to seek out independent fare. Set in a London restaurant kitchen on one of the busiest nights of the year and starring Stephen Graham, it’s brimming with an authentic sense of place that might not be achievable anywhere else.
The streamers are now “truly international companies”, as Bevan says, and often employ people who previously worked for British broadcasters. Apple TV+’s Jay Hunt previously worked at Channel 4, as did Netflix’s Fiona Lamptey. “In some ways, the streamers are certainly giving these stories more of a platform because they can swoop in and really elevate these projects and get them seen by a global audience,” Ravindran says. But does the focus on a worldwide audience risk losing some of that elusive ‘Britishness’, hard to define but easy to spot on screen? A much-cited example is Sex Education - a hit series, filmed and set in the UK, that manages to feel oddly American, its high school aesthetic more John Hughes than Grange Hill - but an unmistakably London show like Top Boy, which was cancelled by Channel 4 but revived by Netflix, provides a counter-argument.
“Is British culture being diluted? I would say no more than it ever has been,” Bevan says. “We’re probably producing quite a lot more British content, so that’s probably a good thing for Great Britain, in terms of its cultural representation around the world.” He believes that the streaming boom, with its proliferation of new platforms, provides “an incredible opportunity to tell bigger British stories, [which] we haven’t been able to before, because of these new, deep-pocketed finances.” Netflix also recently announced a £1.5 million initiative to discover “bold, distinctive” British storytellers and filmmakers, citing Remi Weekes’ film His House, which splices horror with social commentary to tell the story of two South Sudanese refugees in an Essex council flat, as an example.
Roberts agrees that “we should be glad that the streamers have globalised a contemporary Britishness”, but he notes that there are “probably things that [they] are not interested in making from a mass market perspective, that independent filmmakers do continue to make: whether that’s a film like Blue Story or After Love.” The latter, the debut feature by British-Pakistani filmmaker Aleem Khan, has also picked up four Bafta nominations, and presents “a very contemporary British story dealing with multiculturalism on both sides of the English channel.”
Independent film, Roberts adds, is where “you get this amazing range of culturally diverse British stories told… because it’s not driven by market, it’s driven by authorship.” It’s clear that British film needs this sector to thrive in order to keep the wider ecosystem functioning. “I do genuinely think that people are always going to be interested in seeing independent cinema,” Bentham says. “It’s about making sure that we have a system and structure in place where that’s protected.”
