Working hypotheses...

I watched Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy on TG4 last night. It's one of the most Irish of films in front of the camera, and perhaps only slightly less so (at HOD level) behind the camera.

From time to time I paused the credits as they rolled, noting the Irish crew members established by then in their careers. Then there were the once familiar names that have become less familiar, and those others that have in the intervening years risen to the top of their particular craft. I have to say there were few enough of the latter.

It occurred to me then that there's a very basic but useful piece of research to be done by going through the credits for features and major TV drama produced in Ireland from 1993 to, say, 2003, and doing a 'where are they now?' exercise.

How many are still working in the business in Ireland? How many are still working in the business but not in, or only occasionally in Ireland? How many are no longer working in the business, and why?

It would give us a reasonable overview of the reality of career development in the 'industry', and the levels of attrition due to the freelance/temporary nature of the employment.

I think the methodology would be no less credible than that used in other employment research in the sector. There have been few longitudinal studies, that I am aware of, and survey focus has usually been quite diffuse.

It might confirm what one hears anecdotally, that for all the funding that has been poured into sector since 1993 - somewhat over €1.3bn - it would seem that comparatively few permanent jobs or upper-grade crew careers have been established here in Ireland.

For example, it seems true that there are more Irish DOPs now than ever there used to be, but how many working days are there for DOPs in Ireland each year, and how many of the jobs are filled by non-Irish DOPs since non-Irish directors filming projects part-financed in Ireland often, if not always, use their regular DOP.

Irish DOPs very often work, or may be based outside Ireland - like Brendan Galvin (Immortals), Seamus McGarvey (We Need to Talk About Kevin) and Robbie Ryan (Wuthering Heights)*, or James Mather who's co-directing Lock Out for Luc Besson's Europa Corp.

So, the amount of work in Ireland in any given year, and the arc of individual careers do not necessarily correlate. And if one were to look at other heads of department the picture might not appear quite so positive.

To reiterate the questions I posed earlier - of the Irish crew members working in Ireland between 1993 and 2003, how many are still working in the business in Ireland? How many are still working in the business but not in, or only occasionally in Ireland? And how many are no longer working in the business, and why?

The answers might give us a more realistic basis for discussions about employment in the sector on programmes like this one (about 20 minutes in) back in February.

*Edit - I should have noted that Wuthering Heights was offered a €330,000 production loan by the IFB under the Fiction Creative Co-production heading on November 24, 2009. The film was shot in Yorkshire. The Irish co-producer is Fantastic Films.

Irish Film Distribution

My article how Irish films have been faring at the Irish box office is in today's Irish Times and can be read online here.

There wasn't sufficient space for the following tables of Irish box office grosses for Irish films 2007-2010.

Irish Films Released in 2010
Title ------------------ €Total
Perrier's Bounty 318,067
Leap Year 286,056
Ondine 220,420
Zonad 36,000*
Eamon 11,200*
Cherrybomb 8,107
Trafficked 2,900*
The Fading Light 1,771
Foxes 380*
Dorothy Mills 312
8.5 Hours n/a
The Daisy Chain n/a

*estimates
SOURCE: Ted Sheehy

Irish Films 2007-2009

2007
Title ------------------ €Total
Becoming Jane - 441,486
Garage - 305,952
Once - 272,559
Shrooms - 245,141
Strength and Honour - 234,184*
The Ugly Duckling and Me - 188,597*
How About You - 135,000
Kings - 86,000
Speed Dating - 44,264
Small Engine Repair - 14,323

*see also 2008


2008
Title ------------------ €Total
Hunger - 561,508
City of Ember - 290,543
Kisses Element - 180,000
A Film With Me In It - 112,431
32A Janey Pictures 55,000
The Escapist - 47,190
Niko and the Way to the Stars - N/A
Ugly Duckling and Me* - 25,834
Strength and Honour* - 24,284
Saviours - 16,974
Alarm - 16,000
Summer of the Flying Saucer - 4,633
Botched - 2,000
Anton - N/A

*initially released in 2007

2009
Title ------------------ €Total
Fifty Dead Men Walking - 267,470
Waveriders - 125,000
The Secret of Kells - 73,452
Happy Ever Afters - 41,599
The Yellow Bittern - 23,000
Wide Open Spaces - 19,500
Cracks - 16,000
Situations Vacant - 12,000
The Dead (Reissue) - 5,099
Helen - 4,248
WC – 1,293

SOURCE: InProduction Box Office Review

Taxing matters

A lot of interesting reaction - by email, text, phone, and in person - to the last post, and to the item on the Pat Kenny show. Keep it coming.

In preparation for the radio item I put in a request to the Department for information on films using the Section 481 tax break over the last twelve months, that is May 2009 to May 2010.

I was trying to establish how many (and which) films availed of the tax break, and those among them that were not actually filmed in Ireland. I also asked how much each film had benefited from the tax break or what the Irish spend was in each case.

With that data it ought to be possible to work out the financial benefit to Irish post-production companies in those instances where films were not filmed in Ireland.

I did not receive all the information I looked for so I'll have to go back to the well.

In the meantime, the information I have so far is that the following feature films received Section 481 certification, and the total Irish spend of all these films is given as €22,786,610.

That works out at an average Irish spend of €1,340,389 per film. However, we can be sure that some films have spent (or will spend) considerably more than that while others with much smaller budgets will spend considerably less. Even with its very short Irish shoot Knockout may have clocked up a good multiple of the average.

Going through the list, and given that several titles only have a post-production spend in Ireland, it is hard to make sense of the €22,786,610 global figure. Although EU cast and crew would qualify as Irish spend, if I recall the regulations correctly.

If the net S481 benefit to any film is roughly 28% of Irish spend, then the films have benefitted by €6,380,251 between them. However, the outlay in terms of tax revenue lost to the exchequer would be an amount greater than that. More digging required.


|Title | Type |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|1 A kiss for Justin | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|2 Sensation | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|3 Snap | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|4 The Runway | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|5 All Good Children | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|6 The Last Word | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|7 La Mula | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|8 As if I am not there | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|9 The Guard | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|10Lapland Odyssey | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|11Thor-The Edda | Animated Feature Film |
| Chronicles | |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|12Knockout | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|13Parked | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|14The Good Doctor | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|15The man on the train | Feature Film |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|16The other side of | Feature Film |
| sleep | |
|-----------------------+------------------------|
|17The Last furlong(2010)| Feature Film |
----------------------------------------------------

1 Is an Ignition Film Productions production shot or partially shot in New York, written by Barry Devlin, directed by Maurice Linnane and produced by Tim Palmer. The project was offered a €600,000 loan by the IFB in March 2009.

2 Written and directed by Tom Hall and produced by Bl!nder with a budget of about €1m and backed by the IFB (€750,000) and the Rotterdam Film Fund, and shot around Bray, Co. Wicklow.

3 Written and directed by Carmel Winters and produced by Samson Films. Filmed on location in Ireland with €520,500 (including regional support) from the IFB, and has been backed/supported by Screen Scene and Accomplice.

4 Written and directed by Ian Power and produced by Fastnet Films with IFB backing of €725,000 (including regional support).

5 See previous post

6 Directed by David MacKenzie and written by Kim Fupz Aakenson. Co-produced by Subotica with Sigma Films and Zentropa Films. The film was shot in Glasgow with backing of £400,000 from Scottish Screen, and has €350,000 from the IFB.

7 Written (adapted) and directed by Michael Radford and filmed in Spain, the film was developed by Gheko Films in Spain and backed by the UK Film Council (£1,196,00, incl. c. £100k development) and is also backed by the IFB (€550,000), and Eurimages (€650,000). There are also German and Spanish co-producers, along with Subotica in Ireland and Radford's own company in the UK. This film was halted with one week left to shoot in November last year, and neither the Irish nor the British public funding will be released to the production according to Irish sources until the Spanish side have made the appropriate contractual commitments.

8 Written (adapted) and directed by Juanita Wilson and produced by Wide Eye/Octagon with co-producers in Sweden and in Macedonia (where the film was shot). Backed by the IFB (€520,000) and supported by Eurimages (€220,000).
Of the eight feature films with an Irish angle supported by Eurimages over the last two and a half years this is the only one with an Irish director.

9 Written and directed by John McDonagh the film is (according to the UK Film Council) a Reprisal Films and Element Pictures production in association with Prescience, Aegis Film Fund, UK Film Council and Crescendo Productions and with the participation of Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board. The IFB has put in €725,000 (including regional support) and the film was shot in Co. Galway with a UK/Irish crew.

10 A Ripple World co-production with Finnish and Swedish partners, filmed in Finnish Lapland with backing from the IFB (€175,000), and budgeted at €2m according to Cineuropa. It is the fourth feature directed by Dome Karukoski.

11 Magma's co-produced animation, with Icelandic and German partner companies, is co-directed by Gunnar Karlsson (Iceland) and Toby Genkel (Germany). It has been backed by the IFB (€535,000), and Eurimages (€480,000) along with the Icelandic Film Centre, The Nordic Film & TV Fund, and the Filmfoderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, among others.

12 The Steven Soderbergh film is a Relativity Media production with Parallel Films backed by the IFB (€600,000) which filmed in Dublin for three weeks. Some visual effects work is being done at Windmill Lane and other Irish involvement includes regular collaborator David Holmes and actor Michael Fassbender.

13 A Ripple World production (with Helsinki Filmi) backed by the IFB (amount unspecified), directed by Darragh Byrne and written by Ciaran Creagh, and filmed in Dublin with a budget of €1.5m.

14 This is probably Lance Daly's US directing debut, produced by and starring Orlando Bloom. In Ireland for post? Information / corrections gratefully received.

15 Mary McGuckian's Irish/Canadian co-production (a remake of the Patrice Leconte film) shot in Ontario.

16 Fastnet Films' production backed by the IFB (€745,000 including regional support) and directed by Rebecca Daly. Written by Daly and Glenn Montgomery who made the short Joyriders a couple of years back.

17 This is a second co-production from the team that made Dorothy Mills, producers Fidelite in France and Octagon in Ireland, and director Agnès Merlet. The film is written by Merlet and Nicky Murphy, to be filmed in Ireland and backed by €420,000 from the IFB and €600,000 from Eurimages.

Flags of convenience - Updated 20 May 2010

UPDATE - 20 May 2010

I debated this issue with Simon Perry, CEO of the Irish Film Board on the Pat Kenny show on RTE Radio One this morning. It should be avaiable on the RTE Radio One website. The item ran for about twelve minutes from 10.32am (the programme starts after the news at 10am). Link available here (this may change after today).

Simon put a sterling case for All Good Children, saying that it was written and directed by a member of the Irish diaspora. He also stated that the Irish story elements were a creative choice, in departing from the original material, and that it had nothing to do with IFB money going into the film.

This was in response to my saying that people probably think that Irish public money goes into a film because it's Irish to begin with, not that the money goes into a film to make it Irish.

Simon said the film's budget was in the region of €2m. This includes the IFB's €600,000, and the Section 481 that went towards partial post production (mostly sound, I believe) in Ireland.

So, say the Irish contribution is 40% or €800,000 from the public purse. It's fair to ask how much return (spend) did we get for our Eurobucks? What was the gearing?

As far as I can establish, the French regional fund contributed €200,000 and the Belgian fund contributed €115,000. The Belgians estimate a return (spend) of €3 for each €1 they put in. The French regional fund estimates €1.50 spend for each €1 they put in.

Eurimages contributed €300,000 (and notes for the regulations, by the way, that the director is a UK national. The UK is not a party to the Eurimages co-production fund.)

The balance of finance probably comes from broadcasters (Canal+ and FilmFour); possibly investment finance via BackUp Films in France; and there may be some distributor advances from France, Belgium and Ireland.

Finally, the UK Film Council may have rolled over their development funding (they paid for development) as a production contribution since they're certainly claiming to have backed the film. Although when I last looked it's not in their database.

In its 2009 annual report the CNC (France's national agency) gives a budget of €2.3m for the film, broken down as Ireland 43%; Belgium 32%; and France 24% (and yes, that does add up to 99%). That would push the Irish contribution up to €989,000, with €736,000 from Belgium, and €552,000 from France where Canal+ have the first 'window'. These amounts would include the Eurimages contribution, possibly credited pari-passus with each country's percentage involvement.

It is fair to ask if ever an Irish film, developed in Ireland with an Irish story, and shot in Ireland with and by Irish talent, would ever receive as generous support from public funds in France or Belgium? Remember, they only stumped up €315,000 for a film made in their own back-yard.

Given Simon's admonition towards the end of the item (to be very careful when discussing these issues) it's just as well we didn't touch on the Irish budget contribution to some other films filmed outside Ireland, the ones with no Irish story elements and directors lacking Irish forbears.

Reciprocity (and generosity) in co-production is meant to be a win-win situation for all of the countries involved. The reality may well be that the net increase in production or post-production activity is negligible for most of them since what each country gains on one film (casting, employment, post-production etc.) they will have to concede on others.

Countries that insist on gearing their investment to local spend (however 'territorialised' or chauvinistic this may seem) are far more likely to gain from the co-production process.



Original post follows...

This is may be a bit contentious, and/or pedantic depending on your point of view.

A ship is said to be flying a flag of convenience if it is registered in a foreign country "for purposes of reducing operating costs or avoiding government regulations" (Wikipedia). The reasons for choosing a flag of convenience are varied and include protection from taxes, the avoidance of national regulations, labour wage scales or political boycotts.

Let's try to transpose this to the film business -
A film is said to be flying flags of convenience if it is registered in several foreign countries for the purposes of increasing financing or attracting government supports. The reasons for choosing a flag of convenience are varied and include the availability of tax breaks, national and transnational subsidies, cheaper labour and production costs, and the creation of political capital.

This is prompted by a statement by Minister Hanafin -
"Having an Irish feature film selected for yet another prestigious event, is evidence of the consistent high quality output of the Irish film industry. The industry makes an important contribution to the Irish economy with Irish cast and crew employed in the making of the film as well as the Irish production team."

She is responding to the news that All Good Children
has been selected for the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival. The festival is calling it an Irish/Belgian/French production but many in the UK are calling it a British film, including some trade press. They do so because the director, Alicia Duffy, is a British film maker and because the lead producer on project was Jonathan Cavendish, based in London at Caveman Films.

All Good Children is adapted by Duffy from the British novel 'The Republic of Trees' with some British story elements changed to allow for Irish casting. The film was shot entirely on location in France.

I was told last year, when trying to untangle the project's history, that it was originally developed by Little Bird under their 'super slate' deal with the UK Film Council. The UK arm of the company received approximately £1.6million from the UK Film Council under that development slate scheme. [edit: the figure of £1.6m may include monies other than those included in the super-slate scheme which ran for three years, 2005, 2006 and 2007.]

The Irish Film Board made its first (provisional) production loan commitment to the project when it was submitted by Little Bird in August, 2008. It subsequently offered €600,000 in production funding to the project, submitted by Element Pictures, on 18 December 2008.

Little Bird's winding up was announced in late December, 2008. Jonathan Cavendish of Caveman films was a former joint principal of Little Bird, based in the UK, who, according to himself, had had little or no involvement with Little Bird for a few years prior to its being wound up.

So Ireland has paid good money to put its stamp on All Good Children, and we may consider it 'one of our own' for that reason. But it wasn't developed here. It wasn't written here. It wasn't filmed here. And the source material has nothing to do with Ireland. It is hardly, as the Minister says, "an Irish feature film" or the output of "the Irish film industry". And yet we paid for it?

Go figure.

Irish film box office results

At the beginning of this year there were a considerable number of Irish/Irish-funded films that had yet to be released in the home market. Here is a list of titles that might now be considered a release backlog, some have been screened at Irish festivals.

Outcast
Some Other Stories
The Wake Wood
The Race
One Hundred Mornings
Occi Versus the World
Love and Savagery
Triage
The Investigator
Princess
Nothing Personal
A Shine of Rainbows
Vasha
The Hanged Man

There has been some catching up over the last few months which has removed a few titles from the backlog. Here is a list of Irish films released so far in 2010. I'm publishing this as a precursor to a commentary piece I'm working on about the broader picture which will quote the box office figures I have been able to get for these titles.

Leap Year
Ondine
Eamon
Dorothy Mills
Perrier's Bounty
Zonad
The Fading Light
Foxes
The Daisy Chain

Note - I'm not including Jim Sheridan's Brothers (which may have earned more than all of the above together) since there's no Irish angle to it.