1. British Cinema

2. History
The Mystery that started it all…
• The first single lens motion picture
camera was patented in Leeds, by
French-born Louis Aime Augustin Le
Prince in 1888
• The first films were made on a
sensitised paper roll a little over 2
inches wide
• Prince started commercial
development of his motion picture
camera in early 1890 with an
updated version
• He arranged for a demonstration to
M. Mobisson, the Secretary of the
Paris Opera
Lous Aime Augustin Le
Prince

3. History
The Mystery that started it all…
• On September 16 1890, Prince
boarded a train at Dijon bound for
Paris with his motion picture camera
and films
• He never arrived in Paris. No trace of
Prince or his motion picture camera
were ever found. The mystery was
never solved…
• However, the first moving pictures
developed on celluloid film were
made in Hyde Park in 1889 by
William Friese Greene, a British
inventor, who patented the process William Friese Greene
in 1890

4. History
• In 1895, a pair of Greek showmen, George Georgiades and
his partner George Tragides, were at the centre of a row with
the already powerful American Edison company
• The pair originally purchased six Kinetoscopes from Edison,
forming the American Kinetoscope Company and opened
Kinetoscopes at several locations in London, amongst them
The Strand and Old Broad Street
• They wanted to expand but machinery was rare and
expensive
• The Greek pair decided to make their own version with the
help of R. W. Paul who owned an optical instrument works
• Edison did not have a patented for his Kinetoscope in the
UK…

5. History
• Once the pirate Kinetoscopes were made, Edison refused to
sell films for Paul‟s machines, so Paul approached Birt Acres
to help construct a camera to shoot their own films
• They obtained film from the American Celluloid Co. of
Newark, N.J. and started filming their own with American
born cinema pioneer Birt Acres as the cameraman
• Over the next few years, William Friese-Green, undertook
extensive research and advanced the creation of British
cameras
• Unfortunately his technology was not successfully
incorporated into any practical application
• Friese-Green's most bitter opponent was ex-hypnotist, mind
reader and showman George Albert Smith

6. History
• Smith is thought by many to be the
real driving force behind the early
cinema industry
• In 1892, Smith acquired the lease to
St Ann's Well Garden in Hove,
Brighton and turned it into a pleasure
garden
• The garden became his „film factory'
and is the scene of many early films
• In 1897 Smith turned the garden's
pump house into a space for
developing and printing and in the
grounds, probably in 1899, he built a
'glasshouse' film studio.
George Albert Smith

7. History
• By 1909, Pathe and Gaumont began flooding
the British market with films and the UK fell
rapidly behind
• World War I brought the UK film industry
almost to a halt
• Immediately after the war, though efforts
were made to resume production and pick up
the industry, films remained very live theatre
oriented, filming a play exactly as it had
been performed on stage and with the same
actors and sets
• At the same, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and
Buster Keaton were creating fantastic and
innovative slapstick comedy shorts
• The British public wanted to see American Buster Keaton
films, and by 1918, there was no money left
for home production

8. History
• Between the early 1900s and the Cinematographer‟s Trade Act of 1924,
many of the films coming to Britain were foreign and towards the end of
this era, American
• Large American companies (those that would go on become MGM,
Paramount, Fox and Warner Bros) had cornered the distribution market
• Obviously, they looked after their own interests and distributed American
products
• British films were poorly funded (by the Government and banks) and
poorly distributed
• A downward spiral commenced whereby the British film industry was
slowly drowning under foreign monopolisation, lack of self confidence,
poor distribution and an unquenchable thirst by the public for American
films

9. History
• British production finally stopped in
1924
• In 1927, parliment passed the
Cinematographers Trade Bill,
designed to ensure there was a
guaranteed home market for British
made films
• It limited the number of movies
coming from other countries to give
home studios a chance
• The result was more British movies,
but poor quality was a major issue
• By this time in America, DW Griffith
D.W. Griffith had already created huge spectacles
such as Birth of a Nation and
Intolerance

10. History
J. Arthur Rank
• In 1933, J. Arthur Rank, who had started
by making religious films in order to
spread the word of the gospel, founded
British National
• In 1935, he went into partnership with
C.M.Woolf to take over Pinewood Studios,
20 miles west of London and found the
Rank Organisation
• When some early films that he was
involved with didn't get a very good
circulation he realised that control of the
movie theatres was the key to success
• He went into partnership with a gent
called Oscar Deutsch who was building a
J. Arthur Rank chain of cinemas
• The two established the ODEON (Oscar
Deutsch Entertains Our Nation) cinema
chain

11. History
• As well as Rank‟s British National studios, other
studios began to emerge
• These included:
• London Films - reputedly, the finest studios in
the world at Denham
• British International Studios - which trained many
of this period's notable directors, writers and
cameramen

12. History
• In 1936 the British film industry had over produced, making
220 pictures
• The result were poorly made, rushed films that were not
worth watching and that nobody wanted to watch
• But by 1937, the boom turned into a slump
• This opened the door to the American industry, and
American companies soon started buying bankrupt British
Production companies so they would qualify under the home
market quota
• During WWII, production slowed from 200 films a year to
around 60 as much the workforce were called up to the
forces and half the studio space was requisitioned for
military purposes

13. History
• During the war, documentary films became popular, as much
war time news was shown in cinemas
• After WWII, the Rank Organization became the dominant
force in the industry
• The shift was to make British films more acceptable to the
audiences outside of the UK
• In addition, television caused such a tremendous decline in
attendance that British film theatres were closing in record
numbers
• Even though there were a few bright spots over the next few
decades like the Hammer Horror Films, British production
faced some bleak times

14. A British Success Story?
• In 1913 Enrique Carreras bought his first cinema in
Hammersmith, London, gradually expanding his company
into a chain.
• By 1934 he was seeking ways to gain develop his
involvement in the cinema industry and went into
partnership with William Hinds, the owner of a jewellery
shop group (who had also appeared in amateur variety
shows under the stage name of Will Hammer).
• Hinds formed Hammer Productions in November 1934, but
together with Carreras they also formed a separate film
distribution company, Exclusive Films Ltd., in 1935 although
the two companies were considerably intertwined in the
industry.

15. A British Success Story?
• Before the second world war Hammer Productions made
several films, of which the most ambitious was The Mystery
of the Marie Celeste, filmed in the summer of 1935
• Then production ground to a halt and by 1939 it was no
longer considered to be an active British film production
company
• With a growing demand for British-produced supporting
movies after the second world war, Hammer was re-formed
in 1947 as a production subsidiary of Exclusive
• It was business as usual for Hammer as the 1950s opened,
with Exclusive/Hammer producing a steady supply of
support drama and documentaries, largely inspired by the
needs of the group's chain of cinemas

16. A British Success Story?
• When Hammer began to co-produce its films with the US
producer Robert Lippert in 1951, though, it enabled the
company to develop its North American market, and cast US
stars
• 20th Century-Fox bought Lippert in 1955, the same year
seeing release of the immensely successful The Quatermass
Xperiment, re-titled 'The Creeping Unknown' for the US.
• This in part led to a decision to move into horror films,
bringing new twists to Dracula and Frankestein, characters
brought to cinemagoers just before the war by Universal.

17. A British Success Story?
• With the global success of 'Hammer Horror', the major
Hollywood studios began to court Hammer, seeking
distribution and production deals
• As the decade commenced, the company's ongoing deals
with Universal and Columbia were keeping Bray Studios
busy
• The move towards American distributors eventually led to
the winding-down of Exclusive, which was finally liquidated
in 1968
• in 1971, but the British film industry was already beginning
to suffer financially as the arrival of colour television
contributed to a sharp decline in box office revenues

18. A British Success Story?
• Hammer was far from booming in 1971, despite what its
prolific output might suggest
• After more than a decade reaping the rewards of the world's
appetite for gothic horror, the company's formula was
becoming tired
• The company began to seek novel ways to spice up its
output such as Sit-Coms and TV programmes like the
thirteen-episode compilation series The World of Hammer
• In 2000, Chairman Roy Skeggs, who had been with the
company since the 1960s, resigned and handed the business
over to a private investment consortium which included
advertising guru Charles Saatchi

19. A British Success Story?
• Over the next few years the company set about a new slate
of proposed co-productions, and the first steps towards
realising the potential of the Hammer brand in licensed
merchandising
• In ealry 2007 the company changed hands again, this time
to a European consortium, headed by Dutch based Cyrte
Investments BV.
• Backed by a $50million investment Hammer soon
announced its return with Beyond The Rave, a co-production
with MySpace, unleashed via the internet in April 2008.

20. A British Success Story?
• This was swiftly followed up with the announcement of
Hammer's first films for over 30 years - The Resident (co-
starring veteran Hammer actor Christopher Lee) and a
remake of Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In
• Then, in 2012 they released this beauty:

21. Issues that affected the British
film industry
• Influx of film from Pathe and Gaumont
• Poor distribution of British films
• Lack of investment from British banks
• Low self-esteem on behalf of British producers /
directors
• WWI
• Competition for America
• British people only wanted to watch America
productions
• WWII – only 60 films made…
• The introduction of television– cinemas closing at a
record rate

22. What is a British Film
Needs to have three of the following:
• British Director
• British Producer
• A Predominantly British Cast
• A British Production Company
• A Subject Matter That Informs on the British
Experience
• British Identity Defined by the BFI in „Sight and
Sound‟
• The BFI Cultural Test
• TASK: Find an example of a British Film and
explain why it is British

23. British Production Companies
• London Films
• Rank
• Momentum
• Film four
• Pathe
• Working Title
• Hammer

24. Funding
• Film Four
• UK Film Council
• Lottery
• Arts Council England
• Tate Media
• BBC
• The Film Fund (BFI)

25. Tax Relief
• For films with a total core expenditure of £20 million or less, the
film production company can claim payable cash rebate of up to
25% of UK qualifying film production expenditure
• For films with a core expenditure of more than £20 million, the
film production company can claim a payable cash rebate of up
to 20% of UK qualifying film production expenditure
• Tax relief is available for British qualifying films. Films must
either pass the Cultural Test or qualify as an official co-
production
• Films must be intended for theatrical release