It's not that grim up north, but is it commercially viable?

M50 2HQ - a simple combination of six letters and digits that sends shivers down the spines of hundreds of TV executives. It’s the postcode for MediaCity UK - the British TV industry’s new Northern home.

The very thought of moving north has be known to make the grown men and women of London cry. Imagine the thought; do they even have channel 5 up there? Well yes, we do. (Not that anyone watches it, but that’s beside the point).

For me, as a Northern lad, the idea of production moving North is fantastic. Not only does it mean there will be more jobs available to me in the media, but it will mean that programmes might be more representative of our country as a whole, rather than being London centric.

BBC have already stated that ‘making content relevant for the whole of the UK’ is one of their aims of BBC North, but what does this mean for the exportability of our programming? Will dramas set in Keighley be as attractive to overseas buyers, as those littered with London landmarks.?

BBC Worldwide - the commercial arm of the corporation, whose role it is to sell their programmes and formats to different countries - made a profit of £145 m last year, and their annual report states that ‘BBC America had its best-ever ratings, owing to the success of Torchwood and Doctor Who.’

London to new Who is as the quarry was to the classic series. In the first four series it became a staple of the episodes set on contemporary Earth, with Russell T Davies crashing a spaceship into Big Ben and blowing up 10 Downing Street in the first series alone. Similarly, BBC’s Sherlock, which wouldn’t be Sherlock Holmes without its London setting, is also currently the top downloaded TV Programme on iTunes in France.

Both of these are brilliant programmes in their own right - but would they be as popular with foreign audiences, and therefore as commercially viable, if they didn’t present the image of Great Britain people have come to expect?

Films like Notting Hill & Four Weddings & A Funeral are perfect examples of the importance of London to commercial success, in the same way that the Parisian setting of Amelie made it so successful in the UK and worldwide.

It’s a tough time for most commercial enterprises at the moment, and the cash-strapped UK TV industry is no exception, so it seems that the extra money that international exports bring in is as important as ever.

As much as the move North will prove an exciting change in the dynamic of British TV, and programming will hopefully start to be representative of the whole of the country, not just the capital, TV bosses will have to be careful not to alienate our international audiences.

BFI Future Film Festival: Fantastic or Forgettable

Anyone who loves film is sure to love the BFI. It’s one of the best places to go and while away an afternoon watching films and wishing you owned all the books in their incredibly well stocked shop. There’s something about the place that makes you feel as though you’re amongst kindred spirits.

So when the opportunity to report at their 4^th Future Film Festival came up, I jumped at the chance. The weekend’s programme boasted a diverse range of sessions, screenings and workshops. I arrived eager on Saturday morning and looked over the schedule again, before queuing for tickets to my favoured sessions. On Saturday delegates had the option to attend 4 out of a possible 12 sessions. It felt like I was in a my favourite restaurant trying to decide which of the amazing dishes to choose. Sometimes I chose well, sometimes I chose the chicken...

It started well when I attended my first awards ceremony (which you can read about here) – the Future Film Animation awards. It was exciting to see that this, a classic, yet oft overlooked medium in film (except the recent flow of brilliant pixar films), was thriving and producing some incredibly slick, clever and endearing films. The winner of the 19-25 category, Train of Thought, can be seen here.

However, for my next workshop on ‘screenwriting’ we’d been shoved down in the basement of the BFI which wasn’t ideal. The room looked as if it held about 15 people, 20 max. 30 odd showed up. Suddenly this intimate little session turned into an overcrowded lecture. The leader explained that he would usually get to know his students better, but there were simply too many of us.

If the numbers had been right it may well have been a better session, but with too many delegates there was no room for any real discussion or in depth analysis of writing techniques. The only message I came away with was ‘show, don’t tell’, which is pretty much the first line of any scriptwriting book anyway.

So on I went to ‘In your face: getting your film seen’ - a panel discussion about breaking into the festival circuit and finding a distributor for your shorts. In amongst the slightly stilted discussion, there was a lot good advice given by the panel (which can be found here), but at the time I slightly resented having one of the experts say ‘I guess I just got lucky’; this isn’t the kind of advice aspiring filmmakers need to hear.

I left on the Saturday evening with a bag of notes but a lot of mixed messages. I felt lightly despondent, not inspired like I expected; something about the first day just hadn’t lived up to my expectations.

Thankfully the fest really got into its stride on Sunday.

The screening of Gareth Edwards’ Monsters, followed by a Q&A with him was a true delight and there was a noticeable buzz as people left the cinema. Hearing Edwards talk about his film with so much passion and enthusiasm was the perfect way to start the day - this is the kind of inspiration I was looking for from the off. (Read more about Monsters here)

I then attended an advice session about being a critic - this was the first ‘expert panel’ to truly offer some good advice. Members included a writer for Sight & Sound, Online Editor for Little White Lies and film writer for Who’s Jack. Questions from the floor where informative and succinctly answered, and the panel chair asked questions of the delegates making it feel much more like a two way discussion

The day ended on a high with the screening and results of the Future Film Fiction awards. For me this was the highlight of the weekend - while the 19-25 category were good, the 15-18s stole the show with 3 very different, but very intelligent short films. (You can read about them here.)

By the end of Sunday I felt inspired again.

This is still a young festival, with much potential, but still with a bit to learn. Its main draw for me - that it is aimed specifically at 15-25 year olds - was one of its drawbacks. The difference in knowledge that 10 years makes is amazing - and in trying to cater for such a wide group of people, some of the practical sessions lost their focus and ended up being too basic.

And, though I may sound like I have a chip on my Northern shoulder, programme organisers need to remember that it’s the British Film Institute, not the London Film Institute. Very little discussion was given to other filmmaking cities, such as Manchester or Edinburgh and too often people assumed that all delegates lived and worked in London.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend. Both panel discussions I attended were informative - in particular the film critic session - and I was genuinely in awe of what Gareth Edwards had managed to achieve. But the Awards ceremonies were the highlight for me, in particular seeing the work created by youth groups to try and inspire young adults to find their voice through the medium of film.

As I said, this is still a young festival with much to learn, and with each year it will grow, and grow better. I would certainly recommend it for aspiring young filmmakers - to see the work that your peers are producing (and be embarrassed by and made jealous of the quality of projects submitted by people 5 years younger than you!) is a great way to get your mind working. It's also a fantastic place to network, meet like minded people and get access to industry professionals. I look forward to the day when I can go back and see the winners of this years categories presenting their debut feature films, noting how it was this festival that inspired them in the first place.

Pixar - Short but Sweet

I’m a bit of an insomniac; when I’ve got something on my mind I find it really hard to switch off and fall asleep. (It’s 3.20 am as I’m writing the first draft of this). Reading makes my eyes hurt, listening to music just makes me want to sing along, and if I start watching films I want to see them through to the end (which would take me to about 5.40am).

So tonight I opened up YouTube with the thought of watching some videos to try distract me from my thoughts. Something on the homepage brought Toy Story 3 into my mind and suddenly the characters from the film’s preceding short Day & Night strolled into my head.

When I first watched it at the cinema Day & Night was like nothing I had ever seen before (or probably will again for quite some time). It’s not easy to explain, and in doing so you take away some of its brilliance; it needs to be seen to be fully appreciated, so if you haven’t already, then take 6 minutes out of your day to be blown away.

This 6 minute short presents one of the most culturally relevant topics of our society - prejudice - but instead of feeling like I’ve had a moral message thrust down my throat by some poorly scripted overacting and rather than feel like I'm being preached to, I feel like I can actually engage with it.

This is what’s so brilliant about Pixar, in recent times they seem to have become fearless. They touch whatever topic they want, and present it how they want; which more often than not is in a new, interesting and unconventional manner:

Day and Night teaches us to not judge on first appearance, to look beyond what is on the exterior and find common ground, through a fantastically animated, silent film-esque short which combines classic disney, with 21st century Pixar.

Presto teaches us of the importance of mutual respect, that success requires teamwork and an appreciation of those that we work with, by having a rabbit humiliate his magician partner until he is given the carrot he deserves.

Wall-E warns of the state of our future if we continue to live life in the consumerist manner that we do today, but presents it’s story through the eyes of a robot who can’t even communicate with us. That is, can’t communicate verbally - Pixar build so much emotion and empathy into those E.T. eyes.

Up teaches us about tolerance, patience and the importance of friendship - whoever that friendship might be with - a talking dog, a brightly coloured prehistoric bird, or an old man who flies his house to Paradise Falls with helium balloons.

Pixar have never patronised us, but recently they have begun to realise that they can do more than just make computer animated features; they have developed a platform upon which they can go anywhere they want and in doing so have touched upon some topics that modern cinema often chooses to overlook. Hidden underneath their shiny computer graphics are some serious moral messages which other commercial filmmakers often choose to forget.

Possibly the most amazing part of this is that these films are for children; some of the most intelligent, insightful, moving films are for the youngest generation of filmgoers. They may be for children, but they are far from kid’s films, and if some of their messages can penetrate the minds of our youngsters, that can only be a good thing.

Pixar films are, without question, one of the most exciting things to happen to cinema in the 21st century. They have given us some of the most interesting and thought provoking cinematic experiences of modern times.

Marchlands

The weather outside is pretty grim, rain throwing down, wind battering the trees and the house, so I’m sat in my lounge under a blanket with the fire on. The atmosphere seems nicely set to watch the first installment of ITV’s new drama Marchlands.

This 5 part serial will tell the story of three families, over a number of decades, who live in the titular house haunted by the drowned daughter of one of the couples. The concept instantly grabbed my attention, as it was a nice deviation from the usual courtroom/crime/detective drama that ITV churns out on a regular basis, so I thought I'd give it a watch.

The episode opens with a clever and seemless montage, which introduces our protagonists and the parallel scenarios instantly set up the idea that all their lives will intertwine and be connected. The attention to detail in some of the match shots shows the care taken by the director (as presumably 1968 was filmed on the same redressed set as 2010, some weeks later ) and the art direction helps to easily differentiate between the three generations, whilst retaining the feel that the house is unchanged.

Sadly, the same care and attention doesn’t appear to have been given to the script, which is at times obvious, and at worse patronising.

Predictably enough, the youngest daughter of the middle couple starts to have visions of an imaginary friend names Alice. The staple creepy/psychic child (executed perfectly in The Innocents, then populised in The Sixth Sense) is an overused plot device of the genre, which has been done a lot better a lot of times before.

And some of the dialogue was pure, unnecessary exposition - for example Nisha (who has moved into the house in the present day) finds a photo of the young girl, and when stripping the wallpaper in her bedroom uncovers a mural with the words “Alice in the Woods”. She then feels inclined to voice her thoughts: “Alice in the woods, which must make you Alice”. Condescending explanatory dialogue like this shows a lack of confidence in a script, and the audiences ability to understand it.

The odd thing is there are some clever aspects to the script, like the ongoing motif of water signaling Alice’s presence within the house, and the claustrophobia induced by the viewer very rarely being able to escape the confines of Marchlands. Furthermore the hints that our present day protagonist knows more about the history of the house than he is letting on provides some added mystery - it’s just that some of the execution is poor.

And for me, Alex Kingston was a bit of a disappointment. Fresh from her role as Prof./Dr. River Song (depending on when we meet her - wibbly wobbly timey wimey) in Doctor Who she appears to be the star billing to draw attention to this programme. However, her character is only slightly more believable than her Yorkshire accent (having been born and bred in Leeds, I feel like I’m allowed to pass comment!). If this is what ‘production moving North and becoming less London centric’ means, it’s a little disheartening (rant over).

Basically, this opening episode didn’t grab me, nor did it make me want to set up series record on V+. It’s a shame, because visually and directorially it’s well executed. The story itself seems interesting enough, but the script lets it down; not enough bait was laid to instantly hook me and entice me back, and some of the writing was so jarring that any drama or tension trying to be built was lost.

It wasn’t poor, and I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t love it. Put it this way, if I’m in next Thursday at 9, I’ll probably watch part two. If I’m not, I won’t feel like I’ve missed out on much.