Access to tools isn’t enough

At the screenwriters group last week people were asking why the availability of digital tools hasn’t brought about a renaissance in film making. The usual reason given at the moment is access to distribution. There are many films made in the UK every year. Few get distributed.

Maybe there are two other problems to take care of. People don’t know how to write films that audiences are interested in, and people don’t know how to be producers who can recognise the right ideas and raise the money to make the films.

Undistributable films are made by bad producers who don’t recognise that they have made a film based on a script written by a writer who doesn’t understand audiences and re-written by a director who cannot write.

The alternative view might be that the writer and director do know how to write, but the director doesn’t have the skills to bring the story to life on screen. That means the producer is at fault.

Alternatively, you might have a great writer, a director who can rewrite and direct – but the film doesn’t find an audience. There are two possibilities at this point: either the distributor didn’t handle the release well, or the producer couldn’t get anyone to distribute the film.

…what these possibilities come down to is the fact that film making is a producers medium, despite the need for the industry to sell the idea of the ‘omnipotent director.’

So if writers and directors now have access to all the tools they need to make a film for much less money, the reason there isn’t a new wave of film making is a lack of good enough producers.

So, if you are in the UK, please join the New Producers Alliance. There is a industry crying out for you to get the producing skills the British film industry needs.