World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

ALIENS STIFLE This is an anonymous article. The author is a British Film man, working in a British Studio. Such are the existing conditions, that his reasoned plea on behalf of the British Technician must be published unsigned. According to an editorial in the July number of W.F.N., two policies exist in British film production to-day : to make films for the world (including the American) market, or to make films for the British market. It is true that, financing apart, a product of the first policy is easier to make than a product of the second policy. If a producer has a footing in the American market, he can spend more money on his production. He can afford to import ready-made stars and expert technicians, whose recent work he has seen and applauded. When he has tired of them he can ship them back home and import some more. He gets prestige and tremendous publicity from his ability to employ famous and successful people. And he can honestly explain to his backers that they cannot expect to make money at first; the industry is new; until he came along its scope was negligible; he is one of the few who are introducing British product to the screens of the world ; but soon they (the backers) will begin to reap the benefits of their far-sighted policy. In the end he and they talk themselves into the belief that it is always more economical to spend in excess of £50,000 than any smaller sum. But what sort of industry does this policy build up? Will it in ten years' time still be importing distinguished foreigners? Will it occasionally deign to lift from less ambitious British circles the local talent which these circles have laboriously selected and cultivated? Surely this policy is that of trying to run before you can walk? Is not this the policy which has directly caused the present slump? Let us examine the second policy : production for the local market. Here it is risky to spend more than £30,000 on a picture. The producer is at once on his mettle. An English visa, a swell flat, and oodles of charm will cut no ice in this market. The producer must know his job to the full. And he must have experience of local conditions and of local talent among players and technicians. He can afford only one lesser star and one featured player. In fact his brain must be as reliable as his bank balance. Under neither policy is it worth anyone's while to promote one single production, for no producer can guarantee a satisfactory financial return on one film. The only sane way to go about it is to raise a sum of money scaled to a continuous production policy on the understanding that losses may be sustained in the first year at least; that the next batch of product will break even ; and that the policy will only expand if the financial returns justify such expansion. It is then up to the producer and his technical associates. But if they choose to tackle the more modest policy of the local market, they will be starting with both feet on the ground. They will be the experts, not a bunch of importees who would not have left their own country if they could have got as good an offer there as here, and who tend to find fault with their new subordinates rather than adapt themselves to local conditions. They will have to select, train, and encourage new blood, backing their own judgment of promising talent instead of amateurishly hiring ready-made "aces." And, incidentally, they will be building for the future a solid and expanding national industry instead of starting in top gear a plant designed to work expensively, but unable to guarantee anything but a "hit or miss" standard of product, and which can only claim international qualities by the obvious absence of any national qualities. One of the worst aspects of the policy of trying to break into the world market before conquering your own is that the preponderance of aliens in key positions in the industry not only tends to produce a product lacking national character, but also develops an unhealthy inferiority complex in the rest of the technical staff, who are of local growth. The British technician is a product of a system which trains its youth to respect its elders. The youth of this country develops more slowly and matures later than the youth of most other nations. The young British technician develops more rapidly under the guidance of men of his own country than under aliens, who, strangers in a strange land, often fail to adapt themselves to local conditions. It is harder for a technician to produce good results in a foreign country than in his own, particularly at first, (lor that matter a local technician who has become accustomed to working in one studio finds it irksome sud 20