Scottish cinema will remain sick man of Europe without aid

Published on Tuesday 29 September 2009 22:23

SINCE modern Scottish cinema emerged 30 years ago, heralded by the films of Bill Douglas and Bill Forsyth, recent films such as Red Road, Hallam Foe and The Flying Scotsman have made a strong showing at festivals and award shows, joining box-office hits Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and The Magdalene Sisters in the pantheon of Scottish cinematic success.

However, despite having internationally renowned filmmakers, such as Gillies MacKinnon, Lynne Ramsay and David Mackenzie, Scotland remains near the bottom of the European league table in film production and the audience for home-grown films.

Contrary to what some commentators have suggested, this is not because we are any worse at making good or popular films. My research into the performance of Scottish films since 1993 confirms what American cultural economists have identified: the striking regularity in patterns of film success and failure around the world.

In the past 15 years, the overall success rate for Scottish films, as for Irish and UK movies, equals Hollywood – if success means generating an audience large enough to recover production costs and make some return to investors. Using budget to box office ratio as an indicator, the probability of a Scottish, British or Hollywood film making some profit is about the same.

This surprising fact is masked by the skewed distribution of revenues and profit among successful films: in Hollywood about 75 per cent of movies lose money, while just 8 per cent generate 80 per cent of the profit.

Recent research for the UK Film Council has shown that, out of 333 films released in Britain between 2003 and 2006, just 11 per cent were on course to break even or make a profit.

My research shows similar results for Scottish films. In any given year, the top Scottish film will generate at least half and typically 75 per cent of the total box office for all such films released that year. However, as the Scottish industry is so small, it is disproportionately sensitive to the presence or absence of a single hit. The brute fact is that, given most films fail – even in Hollywood, you can only have more hits if you make more films.

In Scotland, we have been hovering around production of about six locally originated films a year. Compared with similar-sized western European countries, this puts us at the bottom of the league table, with Ireland ahead on 11, Finland and Norway with about 20 each. Denmark leads with an average 42 films a year (42 happens to be the average age of a first-time feature film director in Scotland, an indication of how difficult it is to get that first break).

In the same vein, we invest far less as a percentage of GDP in our film industry than any of those countries, only a fifth of what Ireland and a tenth of what Denmark invest. As a result, Irish films attract 5 per cent of their home audience and Denmark's 27 per cent, compared with Scotland's 1 per cent.

In Europe, public investment, production levels and success are so intertwined that cinema really is an arena where making sure our films reach more of the audience cannot be achieved without making more films.

As the available National Lottery funding for film drops due to the Olympic squeeze, without significantly increased funds from the government via Creative Scotland and a commitment from BBC Scotland to play the same role in Scottish cinema as national broadcasters do elsewhere, there is no prospect of Scottish audiences getting the cinema they deserve.

&#149 Robin MacPherson is professor of screen media at Edinburgh Napier University.