This is a four and a half minute radio feature on the Cardiff Bay Sports Village development.
Images courtesy of:
image-division at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cf247/2905243969/ capt' Gorgeous at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ben_salter/311259881/ & obrdaniel at http://www.flickr.com/photos/21575484@N04/2090660943/
I went to speak to four different people in Cardiff to investigate...
CINEMA IN WALES FOR 2009 AND BEYOND
What's the first thing you think of when we talk about the film industry?
Packed out multiplexes? A sun glistening Cannes film festival? The famous stars of Hollywood Boulevard?
Well the truth is that the business of film-making isn't as glamorous and alluring as many people think. The film industry can be an unpredictable and very often a gruelling business to work in. This can be true even when considering the successful, money making Hollywood productions let alone the small, often considered non-existent Welsh film industry.
Karl Francis is a leading Welsh writer and director known for his independence and brazen partisan film-making. Over the past thirty years he has tackled many political and social issues from the traumas of Welsh pit closures to his latest film, Hope Eternal, a multi-lingual story of a Madagascan nurse working in a TB and Aids hospice in the Congo.
Karl told me he is content continuing making the films he is making, but thinks there is a real dilemma in British film-making and even more specifically in Welsh film-making claiming we are currently in the "dark ages of film". Karl still believes that very good films can be made for half a million pounds or even less, but there is fundamental problems such as the best Welsh talent ending up in television and the massive distribution problems every Welsh film-maker encounters.
Iwan Benneyworth works for Cardiff based company Boom Films and is also a young director and writer. He discussed the importance of marketing and distribution,
"Distribution is one of the biggest problems in Welsh film-making with so much emphasis today on the marketing machine and muscle needed to get a film widely seen"
Part one of an interview with Welsh film director and film production worker Iwan Benneyworth discussing cinema in 2009:
While Karl explained how so much of the great talent in Wales ends up working in television as opposed to the film industry, Iwan believes that while the general Hollywood film industry is in decline, this has actually caused the resurgence of quality American television. Iwan believes there is a big call for European directors to find that 'X' ingredient that is so often lacking from Hollywood productions and feels there needs to be a balance between the intelligence of film-making so inherent with Britain and the commercial component from Hollywood.
Second part of my interview with Iwan discussing 2009's future projects & more:
One of these projects is Tornado Films. Antony Smith is the owner of Tornado Films, a film production company based in Port Talbot that has been producing short films funded by the British Film Council, The Arts Council of Wales and the BBC since 2002. Antony expressed the importance of making films that are commercially viable admitting that currently commercial film-making is not being made in Wales.
Antony expressed his views on the future of the Welsh film industry claiming:
"Wales very much needs to be part of the European culture of film-making although it does stand out as being isolated and potentially doesn't have an opportunity of moving forward"
He went on to say that Wales has to find a unique voice and a niche with huge importance in developing a brand for finding British films that can travel, but realises the quality is here in Wales:
"The quality is here, there is no question of that, but there is a lacking in ambition and that goes back decades".
Full interview with Antony Smith:
Carol Jones is Head of Marketing at Chapter in Cardiff, which is one Europe's largest and most dynamic art centres well known for it's contribution to local cinema.
Audiences have grown in general for Chapter for the centre based in the Canton area of Cardiff, and despite re-development, figures are currently the same as last year with half a million through the door in 2008.
Despite certain business predictions globally looking glum for certain sectors of the movie business, last year we actually saw a growth in the home entertainment market and The Dark Knightand Mamma Mia smashing all sorts of UK box office records. Many local views are equally positive for cinema during the recession. Carol at Chapter felt that in terms of people's cultural consumption decisions during these tough financial times, the fairly cheap option of going to cinema is looked upon positively:
"Generally cinema is helped by recession and in fact in the depression in the states cinema attendance went up dramatically so we will probably be helped by the credit crunch"
Chapter has a very loyal audience and it seems with this new £3.8 million pound makeover in action that it is not doom and gloom at all for this side of the film business. Carol explained in terms of their decisions on what films to show that at commenting that at Chapter,
"We are mainly about promoting independent and world film"
Full interview with Carol Jones:
Chapter also has a crossover programme where recent films such as Che or The Reader are a central part of both Chapter's and the bigger cinema complexes. Both Cineworld and VUE in Cardiff benefited from some of the cinema box office surprises last year, which they hope continue in 2009.
Antony from Tornado Films also thinks that the film industry differs from other industries as it doesn't naturally follow economic trends. Usually when there is a downturn in the real world there is usually an upturn in entertainment revenues going back to the Nickelodeon theory of the depression of the thirties in America.
So it is clear that not all sectors of the Welsh film industry are suffering but there does need to be fundamental changes in the structure, ambition and perception of Wales for it to properly fulfil it's potential as a true force in modern film-making and cinema.
In today’s modern world, how important is brand? I don’t mean that Essex longhaired controversial comedian, although his own brand is of some interest that I will discuss later. I mean the trade names given to products, companies, services and ever more importantly, public figures that we all grow to know and recognise.
The face of the recent credit crunch coverage on the BBC was Robert Peston, Business Editor, who through his blog, Peston Picks, and his constant TV reports delivered breaking updates of the financial crisis day after day. Rick Waghorn, an ex-local newspaper sports writer, in a recent lecture discussed with us the idea of the Robert Peston brand and how during the financial crisis the 'Peston brand' potentially became bigger than the BBC (particularly on that niche subject). Waghorn, who now has his own brand in My Football Writer (an online site dedicated to the latest insights and updates about football teams such as Norwich City) told us that this type of brand-orientated journalism is where we are headed.
This made me consider some of the other big brand names within the BBC, such as Jonathan Ross and Jeremy Clarkson, who arguably could be considered almost untouchable because of the success of the brand they have created.
Clarkson is undeniably both an assured journalist as displayed in his Sun and Sunday Times columns, and clearly an entertaining presenter, leading one of the BBC’s biggest shows, Top Gear. Yet it would be difficult to deny that he seems to be able to get away with just about anything. This joke on a recent show that offended many people with 339 complaints is just one of many outrageous remarks Clarkson makes on a weekly basis on the high-ratings show, Top Gear, which have included several run-ins with Ofcom and the public, even over allegations of racism and homophobia.
Jonathan Ross, a household name among Britain as a talk show host, film critic and radio presenter is another figure whose position at the BBC where he earns a reported £18 million annually, seems to be impenetrable. It may be too early to tell but he appears to have come away from the recent Ross/Brand/Sachs prank call saga relatively unscathed and is another figure that is no stranger to controversy, as Nigel Burton details in his article, often with very little backlash.
So are these names just too big of a commodity for the BBC to lose? On the other hand, could these brands survive even when parting with a huge corporation like the BBC and could these individuals have become the brands they are today without the BBC association?
Despite the BBC being a public service broadcaster, it definitely needs cutting edge programming and adopting an over sensitive approach to all of their output would likely lead to a drop in the quality of programming. Yet questions still have to be asked over whether some of these individuals command too much power and clout within the BBC considering their positions as presenters and primarily entertainers. It is clear that brand is very important in this modern world as it can help garner this amount of influence and fundamentally you have to question how dangerous of a position a brand like the BBC find themselves in when these internal brands potentially have this amount of power.
Photo courtesy of claire h: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flashback/2322626646/ and photovalve: http://www.flickr.com/photos/photovalve/1413090804/
