CAMERON McCRACKEN
Managing Director, Pathé UK

We develop and produce films, and we sell them to distributors throughout the world. Productions for which we are best known include The Queen, Chicken Run and Girl with a Pearl Earring. Films currently in development include Thatcher and Upstairs Downstairs.

The development process can take years: you need to find an idea, or a book, and a writer, work through endless drafts of the script, attach a director, work through more script drafts, secure the cast you want and then present the package to financiers.

The process is quicker if you have an individual who is a writer/director with a record of critical and/or commercial success, who is attractive to financiers. Once the funding is in place it takes about 12 months to produce a film: a preparation period of two months (“preproduction”), then the shoot of around two months (“principal photography”), then eight months of editing, special effects and music (“post production”).

The industry uses the Nielsen EDI calendar in which distributors date their releases. You go through the calendar to see what films other distributors plan to release at the same date to avoid a blockbuster or a film with a similar target audience. The big US “tentpole” releases can be scheduled more than a year in advance. You look at comparable films and how they performed, you examine the box-office record of the director and cast. From that you forecast the film’s likely box-office takings (and how much you need to spend on prints and advertising to achieve that box office), the number of DVDs you’ ll sell, and how much you’ll be able to license the rights for. You apply the same process to calculating the value of the film internationally.

You feed this information into a model to forecast what your revenues would be if the film was a disaster, a so-so performer, or a hit. You use the more pessimistic figures in working out how much you can risk.

There are few breakout hits: most films are solid, or don’t work at all. During shooting, financiers and producers watch rushes [scenes shot] each day, partly to ensure technical quality and that the script is being shot, partly to monitor performances and the creativity of the film. The rushes always look fantastic. But often when you see the first rough of the entire film, you are disappointed. Then begins the rollercoaster of emotions as you fall in and out of love with the film through its many cuts.

Some films are immune from criticism – blockbusters, mainstream comedies – but the audience for our films, an older upscale audience, will be influenced by reviews. If the critics don’t praise your film, you’ll be dead at the box office. The biggest challenge today is the digital world. The TV and video businesses are being strangled by the net. How do we make money when people are used to free audiovisual content? If we can’t make money we can’t pay the film-makers to make films.

TESSA ROSS
Controller of Film and Drama, Channel 4

My job is to support and back everyone in the process: producers, director, cast and, more and more, to identify opportunities for a film where you might have not thought [that they] existed – Touching the Void was a huge film for us and a documentary. At an early stage, if I feel a film needs a change of direction, we’ll change it. A lot of the job is trying to imagine a way through problems.

It’s a creative and financial job and the most important part is keeping the big idea of the film at the front of one’s mind and making sure problems are dealt with by the right people. It’s important to have belief and passion: I will fight like hell to get money for a project I believe in.

TIM BEVAN CBE
Co-founder Working Title Films, and producer/executive producer on Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, Notting Hilland Atonement. His next project is Green Zone, set in post-invasion Baghdad

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