Phil Parker
The decline in UK productions based on original screenplays has been caused by a misguided film-industry culture says development consultant Phil Parker
Where have all the screenwriters gone?
In the last decade, the proportion of original screenplays produced within the UK film industry has declined significantly compared with adaptations, sequels and remakes - a trend reflected in the US studio system. Is this inevitable? Are UK screenwriters incapable of creating successful original films?
The UK film industry over the last decadehas shunned original ideas, and new screenwriters, in favour of ‘safer’ bets
Major UK films of the 1990s such as Four Weddings And A Funeral, The Full Monty, Shallow Grave and Shakespeare In Love were all original works, and all but the last one were from first-time feature film screenwriters. So, why has there been such a decrease in backing for new screenwriters with original ideas?
The answer lies in the development culture that has grown within the UK film industry over the last decade - a culture in which original ideas, and new screenwriters, are shunned in favour of ‘safer’ bets: true stories, adaptations and new writer-directors.In the early-1990s the UK film industry was described as a cottage industry but in truth it was closer to a bunch of, often inexperienced, individuals desperate to make a film, any film. This all changed at the end of the 1990s with the government and the City backing UK talent into production.
The result has beena production explosion, with an average of more than 100 films a year since 2000 achieving theatrical distribution. Alongside this, more than $165m (£100m) was spent on development anda new generation of untrained, inexperienced development executives, readers and new producers suddenly found themselves making UK films.
However, the box-office share of UK independent productions in the same period did not increase substantially. When the majority of the larger UK-based film companies were asked why this was the case, their answer was, “Development does not work.”
This was based on the simple fact that the massive increase in development spending had not produced more successful films. The rapid growth of production had not been matched with a supply of good, if not great, screenplays.
This failure of development was put down to spending too much on new talent. However, no-one seemed to question whether the money had been spent on, or by, people who actually knew howto develop feature films, and it should be noted that the vast majority of new talents were not new writers, but new writer-directors.
Some may put this situation down to writers not being ableto match the demands of filmbut ultimately the answer lies elsewhere - with the new generation of producers and development personnel.Their inexperience and the wealth of opportunities, in contrast to what was availablein the 1990s, created a culturein which people realised theydid not need a good screenplayto make a film.
This generation has created a culture based on simplistic notions of screenwriting and development theory learnt on script-guru weekends and driven by producers, and directors who know that cast and/or budget, sometimes just a saleable idea, are the key to getting a film funded, not the quality of the screenplay. Writers were frozen out, writer-directors (more than 300) were ultimately treated as expendable talent, and too many poor films were, and are, made.
If this culture continues, the UK film industry will remain dependent on adaptations, true stories or remakes. The lack of originality could force up-and-coming screenwriters to work in TV or migrate to other countries instead of working in the UK.
The Screenwriters Festival is one place where this culture is being challenged. It is where a new generation of original screenwriters meet with producers and financiers who see the commercial potentialof backing new original screenwriting.This annual meeting will take place in October and could be where the next Four Weddings or Full Monty are born - and the 2010s see a rebirth of original UK screen hits.
The Screenwriters Festival runs in Cheltenham, UK, from October 26-29.
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Readers' comments (15)
S VAN DER BORGH | 25-Sep-2009 11:37 am
Well said, Phil -- see you in Chelteham.
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Jonathan Stuart-Brown | 26-Sep-2009 12:56 pm
See you in Cheltenham Phil. Superb article. Having said that NEVER despise people who PAY you to option screenplays and develop fillms. Indeed pray God blesses and multiples them ! A truly golden era, a purple patch of UK based film-making is on the way: genius stories and core ideas; magnificently manufactured by actors and crew.
Jonathan Stuart-Brown
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Anonymous | 28-Sep-2009 4:02 pm
Absolutely!
The way current execs and Producers use development as a way to hide behind their own creative shortcomings is a beauty to behold. I think Ricky Gervais did a sketch about it before he left for the US.
And while it is great to be paid by Producers to work on your ideas, empathy is more important than money. Writing, book or screen, is a vocation above all else.
I left the UK for North America, unable to deal with the constant parroting of cliche writing course nonsense at every meeting and being sneered at if you dared suggest an idea that smacked of 'Family Entertainment'. It is a welcome breath of fresh air to talk to Producers with open minds in comparison to the dogma of UK 'luvvie' condescension.
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Anonymous | 29-Sep-2009 12:39 pm
How about the culture of development development and development which pays writers well to write things which never get made.
How often do we hear the boast from the broadcaster - 'oh we have seventy scripts in development..' that's 65 well paid writers taken out of the marketplace.
I'd love to see the stockpile of screenplays and piles and piles of unmade original screenplays over at C4, BBC and UKFC.
There is a culture among agents and bureaucrats which favours death by development rather than life by production!
And after the UKFC's laughable "Vision Awards" last year in which they offered bail out carrots to faltering production companies close to the organisation - we are going to have another Script Mountain to climb.
The only way out of the derivative development world is to create a sustainable production base that can actually produce a decent volume of work - so that a good spread of original ideas can be made.
The fact is - fewer and fewer films are being made - because production companies have gone out of business through the mismanagement of government agencies and the agressive stance towards the industry by the HMRC.
How will the stats look when Harry Potter disappears?
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VioletDisregard | 29-Sep-2009 5:59 pm
It's a real shame because one of the best things about films like Four Weddings etc is their innate Britishness. I have noticed things seem to be leaning more towards the the Hollywood "churn-em-out-and milk-it" attitude, the so called safe bets. Just look at Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. At first glance I thought it would be a brilliantly British take on the small and confusing world of the teenage girl coming of age. What you get, however, is very much along the veins of candy floss Hollywood cinema where they kiss on stage after flouting the 'evil girl' and everyone applauds Angus and her newly perfect life. Thoroughly disappointing. I feel very resentful of being tricked into paying to watch fluff like that. I want more original British screenplays please!
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lloyd stanton | 30-Sep-2009 10:20 am
We're over here.. Hey! [waving] the screenwriters are over here.. in the ante room with the curling sandwiches and cheap wine.. still sending in scripts that 17 different 'development' people manage to reduce to a watery broth once each has thrown in their tuppence-worth even though none can green-light a project.. Hello! Over Here..
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Anonymous | 30-Sep-2009 12:01 pm
Hear, hear!
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Ron Aberdeen | 30-Sep-2009 2:31 pm
As a distinguished expert on the craft of scriptwriting who has published books on the subject, even acted as a development consultant, been involved in training, as well as being a director of a production company, perhaps you are in a better position to answer the question rather than ask it.
Richard Curtis and Simon Beaufoy were not exactly new boys on the block although I don’t think anyone can say their work was not original or refreshing.
Personally I think, like any good plot, you should follow the money to get to the bottom of the problem and with the advent of Lottery Funding, which in a way is most welcome, has I believe a huge downside, in that it has turned the British Film Industry into a charity case.
There does seem to be a tendency in the UK to reward the inane and ridicule the genius but that is probably because the first is so common and the latter so rare.
As a new scriptwriter on the block I have found more interest in my work in the US, Canada, Australia, Spain and even Malaysia than initially in the UK and even when my American representative managed to get one of my favourite screenplays to a top British director, the comment I received back was the screenplay was too British.
Strangely enough I now have a successful award winning Australian producer interested in a very British project.
In my opinion the missing band of screenwriters are still dotted around the British cities and countryside, they have just got fed up with being treated as a charity case and through the global portal of the Internet prefer to play away from home.
What is missing are the entrepreneurs, the adventurous producers and distributors with vision who can match the wealth of originality that does exist with a courage equal to the challenge.
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Ben Garman | 1-Oct-2009 11:15 am
Great article and absolutely true. What I really think is missing though is a willingness to take risks from producers and developers. The industry plays it too safe, they want their cake and eat it - start taking risks, start showing some originality and lets see some more British classics standing in the spotlight. Starting out and getting in to the industry for new screenwriters is such a tough job - I know because I'm trying it!
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Mal Woolford | 1-Oct-2009 12:21 pm
Which comes first, the creativity or the reward? It seems self-evident. Yet it's customary to put creativity in second place - or lower. Creative work IS messy and unpredictable and doesn't fit in an Excel workbook despite the protocols developed in Hollywood and beyond. It is difficult to put creativity first. But if it isn't in pole position, the results tend not to be worth the candle.
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Dheeraj Akolkar | 1-Oct-2009 2:41 pm
I agree largely with Phil, but I personally think there are more issues in the depths of the outer picture, which are shocking.
I am not sure how successful cinema and good cinema go very much hand in hand anywhere in the world, but considering that to be successful, films have to be good - what Phil says is very true. But perhaps if the focus was on creating good cinema, things could be slightly better.
I think its great that this article brings some uncomfortable ghosts out of the closet.
Well done indeed.
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Bridget Conor | 6-Oct-2009 1:33 pm
Thanks Phil for a thought provoking and timely piece which will hopefully kick-start a much needed debate on these issues. I’m currently researching screenwriting labour in the UK and the comments and feedback I’ve been getting from screenwriters and teachers of screenwriting reflects many of these points – concerns about a ubiquitous development orthodoxy stemming from those ‘script-guru weekends’ and screenwriting manuals; a preponderance of new ‘writer-directors’ who may be trying to retain control of their ideas and exploit new production and distribution technologies but who are also often caught up in this development culture that discourages originality and risk-taking; and the worrying sense that screenwriting as a creative vocation may be diminishing within this context. Let's hope the debate gains volume and momentum from here onwards...
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Tom Williams | 6-Oct-2009 2:54 pm
The specific argument of the article is about the lack of ORIGINAL screenplays that make it to the screen, which reveals a fundamental flaw in the mindset of the British film industry (and probably in Hollywood, too).
The idea that, because a story works well as a novel or on stage, it will work by default on the screen, as a film or as a TV adaptation, is myopic and naive. Unfortunately, it is an all-too-common form of arse-covering among the producers, development community and subsidy funds who are then able to point to the sales achieved by the book so that, when the film bombs, they will still have a job.
It breaks my heart to see great, original screenplay ideas, many of them modestly budgeted, consistently overlooked as producers throw their money into the fifth, tenth, twentieth drafts of 'big' novels which, in many cases, will never make a satisfying movie. I read countless drafts of Foucault's Pendulum, which was in development for years at Fine Line, when an eight year old could have told you it would never be a movie.
We should talk about this at Cheltenham and see what reception there is to a shift in mindset among producers: that organic, created-for-the-screen stories should be given a fair shot alongside high profile interlopers from other art forms.
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Anonymous | 9-Oct-2009 6:51 pm
I think the real problem is that the spec market doesn’t exist in Britain, which is much more driven by literary properties. Also, novels give producers the comfort of market pre-testing. And I don’t see things getting any better in the short-term. The boring thing about a recession is that everybody’s taste gets more conservative. The market gets smaller.
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Mick Travis | 8-Nov-2009 7:53 pm
The problems described by Mr. Parker and the other contributors on this page have been occurring for decades now. Ron Aberdeens comments about disillusioned scriptwriters now seeking to work away from the so-called industry and seeking alternatives via the internet are spot on. There has been a complete break down of trust and relationships in the ‘film industry’.
Jonathan Gems article 'Why We Dont Have our Own British Cinema' at puremovies.com succinctly spells out the actual truth.
Should writers now come up with some entirely new solutions and alternatives themselves? Different paradigms for working which avoid the writer/director trap? Are there no enlightened Producers?
The fact is that we no longer have a culture where writing - and a writers culture - is acknowledged, let alone respected - and this is a good deal to do with not only its concentration of a self-serving and largely negative London base but also the Americanisation of British culture.
There is a book by W.Stephen Gilbert called 'Fight and Kick and Bite: Life And Work of Dennis Potter' - the introduction of which should be essential reading for every scriptwriter which will inform you about the massive industry and culture which has been systematically destroyed.
At one time we had, on average, eight new plays per week broadcast on television. There were opportunities both in television and cinema to make a living from being a full-time scriptwriter - not just 'one-off' film productions. Todays culture is not enlightened - a metropolitan elite have really created a 'culture' which has killed off the British Film Industry - perhaps they have created a London film industry?? Though its not possible to really say that this is an 'industry' in the same way as Rank, Ealing, Hammer, etc and the once massive studio system in Britain.
Can we say that we have the same kind of writer and director relationships that were about at the time of Powell/Pressburger or Lindsay Anderson/David Sherwin which gave us such great and distinctively British films -like 'If....' and 'O Lucky Man' not just transatlantic products?
Its not just a case of production but whether films can be distributed, but yes, the problem at heart is that the London film 'culture' is 'dysfunctional' but be in mind that this is also a deliberate policy. Scriptwriters could create something more relevant by creating more of a link to a British heritage but it will also have to be also a departure from the current film establishment which serves cliques dominated by America and who, in turn, control the UK Film Council and prefer to suppress the film industry here. Screenwriters especially should challenge the misinformation put out by articles provided by Ruth Pitt on this site that says that the Gov. and its film agencies are not suppressing British film activity - when we clearly know that they are.
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