Shocking state of the Irish Film Industry

mycroft

Is exposed for all to see in the shortlist for the IFTN awards

Lets break this down
http://www.iftn.ie/news/index3.htm?fuseaction=getbody&file=3787

Best Film
Mickybo & Me
The Mighty Celt
Pavee Lackeen
Tara Road
Trouble With Sex

All these films where produced in the last year and a half, in fact in the case of The Might Celt and Trouble with Sex both were shot in the summer and autumn of 2003. Tara road and Pavee Lackeen have to my knowledge not been released yet. Essentially the five nominees consist of (pretty much, more later) the entire field of films produced (but not yet released in 2003/2004/2005, to be in with a nod for this award you simply need to turn up.

Onto best director

Best Director
Anthony Byrne – Short Order
Fintan Connolly – Trouble With Sex
Terry George – Hotel Rwanda
Perry Ogden – Pavee Lackeen

Short order is a new entry, again a yet unreleased film, leaving aside the fact that Terry George is out the door with this one, the same names will start to turn up with alarming worry, we've two unreleased, one Belfast director working abroad and the medicore talents of Fintan Connolly.

The list goes on and on and on. And the same names and the same scant films turn up again and again. Leaving aside the fact that Breakfast on Pluto (see you thought I'd forgotten that) hasn't been released yet, and it's Jordans best work in a decade, why isn't it on the list? Is it the fact that the shoddy state of the Irish industry would be exposed if we had to hand out an award to Jordan two years after his lifetime achievement award, for an unreleased film, besides, if we give it to him this year, who the f*ck are we going to give it to next year!

Scrolling down the list Cinemagraphers, both Brendan Galvin - Flight Of The Phoenix,Seamus Mc Garvey - Sahara did excellent work, , Eoin McPolin's lighting is the best thing in Trouble with Sex, the award will go to Deasy for Celt. Best editing in TV, film, your choice goes, to Ben yeats for love is the drug, seeing as Emer Reynolds deservedly won last year, and Ray the year before her (and Ray also co cut love is the drug) the field is narrowed down to yeats and duffner)

Again the shorts provide some relief, six shooter is excellent, but why no prey alone, imaginative fun, visually exciting, and a nice twist?

Lets not touch best entertainment shall we? While sports will go to final words, (again) and Haughey will win documentaries, another feather in Ray Rowntree's hat, who aside from being involved in three seperate productions nominated this year, he also cut mint pictures Fine Gael which swept the board two years ago.

So what have we learnt? That the same names appear again with monotonous regularity? Many, Seamus Deasy, Emer Reynolds, Ray Rowntree, Dearabla Walsh Mint Pictures, and Prime time investigates do with their heads held high on good productions. We've got a fine quality selections of shorts and documentaries as per usual.

But the features expose themselves. Of the five that crop up, Pascal, Tara, Short Order, all have not been released, Trouble with sex recieved the kind of tepid polite reception from critics, mindful that'd been a while since an irish film and it won't do to knock the home team, audienced, while unlikely to rub shoulders with producers at the film board tent at the fleadh, pretty much just ignored it. Meanwhile boy eats girl, not a mention and a mighty celt a sort of catholic kes gets sidelined.

Why but a bare mention of boy eats girl, is it because the same names among crew will appear, or is it because the Irish Film Board are so ashamedly elitist that they won't acknowledge (a not bad, not awful, but a film with more wit and emotion in it's zombie's the woeful but intellectually underdone Trouble with sex) the same thing occured a number of years ago, dead bodies a populist film was overlooked, despite it's superior box of performance (one of the best of an irish film in recent years) I think this is a sign of the malise at the heart of the irish film board, the indifference to films with a popular appeal, while championing filmings with delusions of arthouse leanings. I'm not saying we need to make a film about four Irish sugar beat workers who use their redunancy to set up a strip club, but the fact remains, the best regard and the most popular of irish films (eat the peach, I went down, the general) are films with wit charm and intelligence, and don't really give a f*ck about prententions, and yet........ *sigh*

The fact remains, in very stark terms, we're not making films. Period, and the ones we are making are recieving automatic kudos that an autistic child recieves when he turns up at a siblings sports day (aw didn't he do well well sure have a medal for trying) Theres a fundamental flaw at the heart of film development, scriptwriting, and production, it's absurd that we barely turn the raw talent emerging from our documentary filmakers, and the level of creativity from our short directors into features gold.

Let me predict next years IFTNs. Unless things radically change, Gleeson and Murphy will battle it out for best actor for breakfast on pluto and studs repectively, A mighty furlong will win best tv drama, breakfast will win best feature and director, and the field surrounding it will be whatever dross the film board commisioned in the interuim to make up the numbers. The 2006 IFTN awards are already a one horse race.

BlitzKrieg

it does seem pathetic.

Unless things radically change,

Any ideas on how to radically change things? The french encourage their entertainment industries with actual laws (could be wrong, but i do know radio has to play french made music for a certain percantage of air time). Something similar in my opinion would not work in ireland because the size of industry and having irish films forced into our cinemas might tick alot of people off the wrong way.

I dont know much else to radically change it then encouraging young filmmakers on the way in. though that is not where the problem is.

mycroft

BlitzKrieg wrote:

it does seem pathetic.


Any ideas on how to radically change things? The french encourage their entertainment industries with actual laws (could be wrong, but i do know radio has to play french made music for a certain percantage of air time). Something similar in my opinion would not work in ireland because the size of industry and having irish films forced into our cinemas might tick alot of people off the wrong way.

The french have a tax on cinema admissions which directly funds the french
film industry. That'd be a start.

I dont know much else to radically change it then encouraging young filmmakers on the way in. though that is not where the problem is.

No and I'll address it in a while. However chatting to a mate earlier, apparently in order to be nominated for IFTA you, hilariously, have to pay to submit your film. Hi-f*cking-larious.

BlitzKrieg

dunno about taxing cinema tickets in ireland...personnally i'd gladly pay it, but you hear alot of moaning on films and after hours (and in the physical world) about the horribly expensive ticket prices at the moment.


Trying to think of other areas that can be taxed in favour of the film industry but rentals and sales will suffer the same as upping ticket prices.

Could try and cut governmental costs on filmmaking (subsidies, tax cuts) But i dont think the government would care for that.

Hell i dont think the government would care for helping the industry much.

I mean i understand french taxation, the country has been a central force in the histroy of film and film has become part of its heritage. Ireland meanwhile (if you saw the top 20 irish films countdown on RTE on over the summer) is very much a whitewashed story. I think we had this discussion on films before.


[joke]What Ireland needs is something like when *whatshername* won the gold in the swimming olympics (before the drugs story broke) and the whole country was up for building olympic size swimming pools all over the place and promoting swimming like mad etc. We need a populist. Someone bribe the academy to give Sheridan a large number of oscars. That will get the irish film industry some support. [/joke]

Hugh_C

At your eloquent best, mycroft!

I'm surprised you overlooked the fabulous Rawhead Rex, but there again you were a lad in shorts at the time. This was an hysterically bad film of the horror oeuvre. I was the poor eejit who transferred the location sound to 35 mag.

Kurtz: The horror. The horror.

mycroft

hughchal wrote:

At your eloquent best, mycroft!

Extracting the urine hugh, theres a rake of spelling mistakes my good friend lukiebaggs would pounce on, if he could recognise them. This post came from a nine am text from Ms Glesson about TWS (incidently the worst name for a film ever) nomination

I'm surprised you overlooked the fabulous Rawhead Rex, but there again you were a lad in shorts at the time. This was an hysterically bad film of the horror oeuvre. I was the poor eejit who transferred the location sound to 35 mag.

I got you beat, Quinn.

Fathers and Sons, "the prince william story"

I spent two weeks as a directors PA on this crime againist 16mm movie of the week. Highlight of the finished project is jib shot shot down the premier of "Spicy World" staring the "spicy girls" (copyright issue involving the real, spice girl, they used lookalikes, so out of shape they couldn't fit into the costumes, Sporty spice was dub'd lardy spice by the crew) anywho during the jib down to the "leicester square" cinema (actually the ambassdor cinema) you can clearly see a dublin bus. And hilarious they scheduled the day of Saudi V Ireland match during the 2002 world cup. At the bottom of O'Connell st. At 10:30pm till 4 am. With union jacks fluttering. And two Gardaí doing security.

The director judo chopped a drunk in the throat (he was a trained marine scout, the director, not the drunk).

Anywho.....

One of the reasons there was a dirth of movies in 2003 was the filmboard introduced the low budget intiative, and also the microbudget intiative (one film funded, Connor Mc Mahon's dead meat)

The low budget intiative was run in conduction with SIPTU, it funded very low budget films, a dirth of them. Loads, Goldfish memories, Dead Bodies, Adam and Paul, Timibuktu, Trouble with Sex, Headrush, and frankly a pile of films that were, underdone. Badly.

I've yet to see a polished low budget intiative film. I'm not looking for a slick film, frankly I'm looking for a good script. Razor sharp. Intelligent, every script even the decent ones (Adam and Paul) have a lead weighted middle and need a razor attached. Headrush? The script is so awful, I mean so awful that frankly the whole project should have been stuffed into a sack with some bricks and thrown in the liffey. But because the money involved was so, little it was greenlighted.

Incidently, and this is for those cats and kittens starting out or hoping to start out in this industry. Your jobs, the trainee's job is the first thing that goes in the budget. Or (and long term this is worse for you) you'll be chucked in the deep end and asked to fufill a role you don't properly comprehend or are capable of doing. Which will hurt you in the long term. The money being offered to crew is embarssingly low, and shooting schedule and demands on the crew means invariably corners are cut.

But yes films are made, and that will please all you budding directors and producers are salivating, however, the market is thin and you're competing againist the big experienced boys. You may get lucky. But I doubt it.

Because the current film board chairman is not the man who concieved this scheme, he retired 2004, and this one reason that scant films have been made in 2004/2005 under this intiative.

We're taking a scattergun approach to producing the Film Board hoped that if they loaded the gun with a bunch of cheap buckshot films they'd get a hit, and they've have moderate success, Adam and Paul, Goldfish memories to a degree, but theres a bunch of films financed under this project that are frankly too awful to merit release. Timbuktu a film with merits hasn't seen the light of day, and I've made my opinion of Trouble with sex and Headrush incredibly clear.

However what I think is fundamentally clear this is an initiative to get films out and damn their quality, the irish industry needs to be seen making movies. Rather than a coherant strategy to help good films, and solid crews to make them

BlitzKrieg

hmm that prince william movie you were on? Did that use St. Columba's college as the set for Prince William's school? Cause I was in school there while you were shooting...