British Films

AND THE KINGS SPEECH

What makes a British film?

According to the House of Commons

Culture, Media and Sport committee -2003

a ‘British film’ is :

A film with reference to obvious cultural

elements such as: a setting in the UK or focus

on British people abroad; a predominantly

British cast; a storyline about some aspect of

British life, or based on a work by, a British

author.

• Recent examples of this are –Billy Elliott

and Bend it Like Beckham

Cultural definition• The British Council runs ‘britfilms.com’ which

contains its directory of British films. The council

regards a British film as on where the film had a

minimum of three of the following six criteria:

1 . A British producer

2. A British production team

3. A British Director

4. A predominantly British cast

5. A subject matter that informs the British experience

6. A British identity as defined by the bfi in the release

review in sight and sound

What makes a British film?

Statutory definition

- According to the House of commons Culture,

Media and Sport Committee – 2oo3

• There are two ways that a film may qualify as

‘British’ – either under Schedule 1 to the

Films Act 1985, examples include the Bond

and Harry Potter films, or by satisfying the

terms of an international co-production

agreement to which the UK is a party. Under

the films Act, for a film to be certified as

‘British’ a number of tests must be met.

• The MakerTest is where the film must

be made by a company that is

registered and centrally managed and

controlled in the UK, in another state of

the European Union/European

Economic Area or in a country with the

European Community has signed an

Association Agreement.

1. THE MAKER TEST

2. THE PRODUCTION

COST TEST

• 70% of the production costs

of the film must be spent on

film-making activity in the

UK

3. THE LABOUR COST TEST

1. 70% of the total cost must have been paid

to citizens or ordinary residents of the

Commonwealth, EU/EEA or a country with

which the European Community has signed

an agreement

2. 75% of the total labour cost – after deducting

the necessary – must have been paid to citizens

or ordinary residents of the Commonwealth,

EU/EEA or a country with with a signed

agreement

4. PREVIOUSLY FILMED

MATERIAL

• No more than 10% of the

playing time of the film should

comprise a sequence of visual

images from a previously

certified film or from a film by a

different maker.

The King’s Speech

• ‘The Kings Speech’ is the story of King George VI of Britain,

his impromptu ascension to the throne and the speech

therapist who helped the unsure monarch become worthy of

it.

• It has done really well with 12 nominations for this year’s

Oscars, and 14 nominations for the Baftas 2011 and 7

Golden Globe nominations with a win for best performance.

The King’s Speech

• Production year: 2010

• Runtime: 118 minutes

• Directors: Tom Hooper

• Writer: David Seidler

• Release Date: 7 January 2011

• Production Companies: Weinstein Company, UK Film Council,

Momentum Pictures, Aegis Film Fund, Molinare Investment, Film Nation

Entertainment , See-Saw Films, Bedlem Productions

• Stars: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter

UK Box Office

• Even distributor Momentum Pictures wildest expectations were exceeded with a

£3.52m opening weekend, including modest previews of £227,000.

• Grossing over £40,000 at London's Chelsea cinema, and breaking house records

at the capital's Curzon Renoir and Richmond!!

• The top six sites were all in London, led by Odeon Leicester Square (£106,000),

Vue Westfield (£51,000) and Vue Islington (£45,000). Top regional site was Odeon

Guildford, with £28,000.

The King’s Speech Reviews

• The film was a major achievement , with Colin Firth presenting us with a great profile in courage,

a portrait of the recurrent figure, the stammerer as a hero.

• This is a film of small, precise, perfectly judged moments: while the historical backdrop could

easily have made for epic overstatement and hand-wringing melodrama, Seidler and Hooper’s

decision to focus their attention on the characters and on their relationships and insecurities,

makes ‘The King’s Speech’ feel intimate and wholly convincing.

• For all its period trappings and occasionally heavy-handed Freudian psychodrama, ‘The King’s

Speech’ always comes back to the unlikely friendship between two superbly sketched,

immaculately played characters.

Criticisms on The King’s Speech

• It perpetrates a gross falsification of history.

• I found this movie to be formulaic in the worst way. There's no

deviating from your typical biopic machinations, and you can probably

figure out what's going to happen after the first 20 minutes

• It just felt like an over acted, staged, Oscar Hungry play, not a movie

Production

• The $15m project shot on a tight

schedule of 39 days in and around

London at the end of 2009. One tough

obstacle.

• Canning says, was the “mind-bending”

scheduling of the cast: Firth was doing

awards promotions for A Single Man,

while Helena Bonham Carter, playing his

wife Elizabeth, could only shoot on

weekends since she was making Harry

Potter And The Deathly Hallows.

Production

• Amy Merry, who worked on the

production design. "When we were

shooting exteriors we threw dirty water

over everything. We filmed in Harley

Street on a Sunday so we closed the

road in the early hours and a gritting

van came along at 5am and covered

the ground with dirt. Then we pumped

out so much smog that we set off the

fire alarms in John Lewis."

• The stands were filled with an inflatable crowd.

According to Amy Merry, these blow-up people

– actually only blow-up upper bodies – are

much more convincing than CGI

• Despite the royal settings, The King's Speech

is a remarkably brown film. The palaces are

intimidatingly, rather than comfortably,

luxurious. The production design plays into the

sense of Firth's character struggling to be a

king, which, for him, means struggling to be

himself.

Finance

• The Weinstein Co has received

most of the PR bonanza for

backing Oscar-touted The

King’s Speech. But it’s really a

British film financing

company aptly

named Prescience that first

recognized the film’s potential.

• The UK Film Council awarded The

King’s Speech £1,021,080 of Lottery

funding. The UK Film Council stands to

recoup 100% of its investment plus

significant net profits

• London’s Prescience Film Finance

stepped in to provide two-thirds of the

film’s £9 million ($14.5 million) budget

using its £25 million Aegis Film Fund.

Extra Facts

• Errors in geography: In the

Wembley Stadium scene we see

the famous twin towers on the far

side of the field. But they were

actually on the same side as the

royal box, and in the 1920s there

was just open terracing on that far

side.

• The script had to be posted

through Geoffrey Rush’s letter -

box

• The script had to be posted

through Geoffrey Rush’s letter -

box

• The script began as a stage

performance

Bibliography

• http://film-english.com/2011/02/19/the-kings-speech-lesson-plan/

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1504320/

• http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/01/

churchill_didnt_say_that.html

• http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-kings-speech

• http://www.screendaily.com/home/awards/the-kings-speech/5022661.article

• http://www.deadline.com/2011/01/the-uk-financier-behind-the-kings-speech/

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/02/the-kings-speech-period-sets

• http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/89059/the-kings-speech.html

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/09/kings-speech-philip-french-review