The UK film industry is a wash with stories of foreign entrepreneurs that sit in the histrionics's of excel sheets and the middle of words lost in an abyss of a culturally ironic American weave. What I mean is that once you start to address the evolution of film in the UK you start to realise how crucial the Americans, Canadians, French & German and currently the Scandinavian producers have been to the UK Film history screen.
I have an in-law relative who was a good friend to Producer Jake Ebert, I had anticipated eventually meeting him after having met Hugh Hudson at a New filmmakers Skillset, UK Film Council sponsored do for novice indie producers. Hugh took an interest in a bio-pic I have been developing for many years. Hugh Hudson directed CHARIOTS of FIRE you see. The period it was set in was similar to my Black character's life story. This was a reserve in the back of my mind, things loop, come around and thus make for a small world of happenstance and surprises-one never knows what's around the bend sort of speak.
Last night I was taken aback by the passing of Jake Ebert at the age of 71. He produced and created Goldcrest in the UK. A Canadian who spoke French, makes sense as my in-law is French. Goldcrest under his most revered helm and trusted handler of spread sheets and the footsies and NASDAQ was a UK Film Industry boost back in the mid '80s. Having green lit such films as The KILLING FIELDS, CHARIOTS OF FIRE and GANDHI after accidentally making a killing 5,000 times over with WATER SHIP DOWN an animation. Alongside the likes of Lord David Putnam who I bumped into in Cerkenwell in mid-East London near the Guardian newspaper while waiting for a bus and Richard Attenborough or Hugh Hudson came a string of newcomers I have had the pleasure of meeting and rubbing elbows with in the cottage-village of the UK film "Industry." Amongst these villagers I came across after hitting the indexes of several research books on the growth of this particular quaint village full of deep secrets but the most oblique is it's relation to that same Hollywood culture and American taint it resists. Hypocritically it has always shown it's disdain for the star system and it's unique SWOT the one attached in the vehicle known as P&A and sponsorship. Ironically the 2012 OLYMPICS with it's proud entourage of unpaid volunteerism and team spirit uniforms in Saintsbury colours -mauves-and not to knock the Gold Medallists and the spectacle of spectacles; overpriced, over secured, over the top and over spent didn't ever mention that it's thematic traditionalist hyped film CHARIOTS OF FIRE was actually an investment that DOTI-AL-FAYED solely financed. That's where the irony lies again.
CHARIOTS OF FIRE was financed by Dodi Fayed, son of Muhammad al-Fayed, boss of Harrods in 1987. An unbelievable Oscar wins for a 'period' British film about class, anti-Semitism and running.
Source: Icons in the Fire by Alexander Walker ISBN:0-75286-484-x
The follow-up and the elbow-rubs years later for me are people like Stephen Wooley, Nik Powell, Richard Branson (met in the stock room to thank him for the lovely party featuring pop-rock artists Sean Lennon and Lisa Loeb best mate of my X' at the opening of Virgin in Union Square, NYC) Neil Jordan who I have yet to meet but I use his monocle that "in the UK if you do more than one thing well you're considered arrogant," Bruce Robinson a friend of a friend whose creation actor & folk hero Paul McGann of Withnail & I met in a private social. Arriving in the UK 2 days before 911 from my then Home, NYC. I had no clue and knew no one and couldn't even address the issue with my partner who was a Brit X-pat.
The film industry is all about relationships first followed by scripts and star tags and accomplished directors waiting to spend a money roll of risks and dreams. Producers are in the market of selling dreams. Many fail but those that do keep our appetite alive through the grim and tales that make up life's amazing turns. A good story has no frontier. But for me the truth of how these and by whom these stories manifest our attention on the wide screen and help us divulge from the drudgery of a monotonous existence is what excites me the most. It helps me calm down and carry-on. A movie is the tip of an iceberg or in this case the fulcrum of a pyramid. Kudos to Dodi Fayed, credit where credit is due. An iconic mystery as Harrod's in British post-colonial traditionalism.
The Palace became a village of players that 'til this day in the UK film Industry have made their mark. But still Working Title rides the shadow of Universal as well as 650 options by Miramax many UK scripts in development. To be continued
Bums on the seats post the 2012 OLYMPICS. Are there any cinemas in the Olympic Village?
