Last year's EIFF included an event on Piracy. Sponsored by Macrovision, it presented a somewhat skewed perspective on the subject, with the person speaking the most sense surprisingly being the film-maker who didn't care too much if his work was being distributed illegally, if this would help it reach a wider audience.
I half expected this event to thus be something akin to Pirates 2 and to present a similar case of "he who pays the piper calling the tune". It was a pleasant surprise, then, to hear from someone in the industry who "gets it".
Peter Buckingham, Head of Distribution and Exhibition at the UK Film Council, made two main points.
First, that the typical film distribution model we think – theatrical release, followed by DVD, followed by television – is one that works well for big budget mainstream releases concerned with profit maximisation, but does not really allow a place for more minority tastes and interests.
Second, that the broader phenomenon of the long tail – i.e. the large numbers of works that don't sell many copies individually but collectively sell a lot – can increasingly be applied to cinema in the digital age, giving the minority interest films a chance.
The broader issue, of course, is whether the disruptive technology of the net will fully be allowed to, well, disrupt things.
It is salutary to remember, for instance, that in the early days of video in the UK, the reluctance of the major studios to distribute their product created a niche for independent players and that two of the consequences of the Video Recordings Act were the majors wresting control back and the disappearance of literally thousands of titles from the shelves for the simple reason that it was too costly to have them classified – the classification fee being broadly the same regardless of the likely market for the work and thereby inherently again working for the majors and against the independents; in case this sounds like an ancient history lesson, remember that despite the undoubtedly more liberal climate of the recent years, the range of films an Amazon or Lovefilm can offer for rental is still constrained by the need for that little BBFC certificate and that the fee structure has hardly changed over the intervening 20 years.
Perhaps equally problematic, though more difficult to interpret, is the position of bodies such as the UK Film Council themselves, with Buckingham repeatedly emphasising that he was giving his personal understanding of things rather than representing that organisation. Maybe it was just a case of including a standard disclaimer, but if it was something more it brings us close to where we started…
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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