The British Film Industry: Institutional Context

3) What is the 'cultural test' to see if a film counts as British?
The British Film Institute's Cultural Test is placed so that a film can go through an identification if it classifies as a British film. The test is divided into four sections and the film should score 16 out of 31 points to be classified as a British film.
The four sections are:

1. Cultural Context. (Setting, British lead characters, British subject matter, English dialogue.)
2. Cultural Contribution. (Film represents British culture, heritage or creativity)
3. Cultural Hubs. (British studio, location, VFX, SFX, British music production, Post sound and picture production)
4. Cultural Practitioners. ( British: Director, Screenwriter, Producer, Composer, Actors, Staff and Crew)

4)  Cultural Tests:

The Sweeney 

• Financing: Budget: £3 million 
• Cultural Test: Set in London = 4
• Lead characters are British = 4  
• Based on British subject matter = 4 
• English dialogue = 6 
• British creativity/ diversity = 4 
• Cultural Hubs = 2 
• Cultural practitioners = 7
• TOTAL: 31/31

Attack the Block

• Financing: Budget:  £8 million.  Box office: $5.8 million 
• Cultural Test: Set in London = 4 
• Lead characters are British = 4 
• English dialogue = 6 points 
• British creativity/ diversity = 4 
• Cultural Hubs = 2 
• Cultural practitioners = 7
• TOTAL: 27/31 

The King's Speech 

• Financing: Budget: $15 million. Box office:  $414.2 million 
• Cultural Test: Set in London = 4
• Based on British subject matter = 4 
• English dialogue = 6 
• British creativity/ diversity = 4 
• Cultural Hubs = 2 
• Cultural practitioners = 7
• TOTAL: 27/31 

We Need to Talk About Kevin

• Financing: Budget $7 million. Box office $9.2 million 
• Cultural Test: English dialogue = 6 
• Cultural Hubs = 2 
• Cultural practitioners = 2
• TOTAL: 10/31 

Skyfall 

• Financing: Budget $150 - 200 million. Box office $1.109 billion 
• Cultural Test: Set in London = 4  
• Lead characters are British = 4  
• Film based on British subject matter = 4 
• English dialogue = 6  
• British heritage = 4 
• Cultural practitioners = 5 
• TOTAL: 27/31

5) What is the main problem for the British film industry?
The main problem is about funding high value productions as most of the time the funding is not enough to reach all the necessary audiences therefore British companies have to rely on selling the film rights to bigger international production companies and therefore once they do that and for example: advertisements and DVD's are produced to reach an audience, the British production does not own the rights any more and therefore all the generated revenue is goes to the distributor. When the makers of 'Slumdog Millionaire' wanted to reach other potential audiences they sold their rights for $5m and once marketed the distributor made around £90m from the film. I don't believe that this is a problem of the industry but rather the production studios themselves which don't have a suitable agreement or solution with the 3rd party companies. The way to still generate income is to make a deal with these companies which means that revenue can be shared via percentage, say a 40/60 split.

6) What are three of the strengths of the British film industry?

1. British films take 5% of world box-office takings which is excellent for a small nation in contrast to the whole world.
2. Directors like Richard Curtis who's film, 'Love Actually' is a worldwide phenomenon and British writers such as J.K Rowling who have created an incredible cinematic world such as Harry Potter which no other writers can achieve. 
3. British studios such as Pinewood and young upcoming film makers.

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

• Either create lower budget art-house films with the hopes of success and/or put more budget into marketing them with an ambition to reach audiences.
• Alternatively, continue to be funded by external sources and partner with big Hollywood studios to produce large scale films but lose money from box office and distribution.

8) In your opinion, which of these two options would best safeguard the future of the British film industry?

• From my own opinion I think that the British film industry should carry on to rely on American and foreign funding as that's the films I personally enjoy and often British film screenplays are terrible and the films go too far with British stereotypes, an example of this being the James Bond films.