Case Study - London to Brighton - How to sell a low-budget British film

Click on the title to go to the Film London 'Microwave' site aimed at helping inexperienced film-makers get their films made and distributed.

This short video shows you how a micro-budget movie can gain critical and commercial success with a carefully thought through distribution and marketing strategy.

Global recorded music sales fall almost $1.5bn amid increased piracy

Think that illegal downloading is a victimless crime? Think again! UK loses mantle as third-largest music market after 'physical' sales of CDs collapse by almost a fifth


Global recorded music sales fell by almost $1.5bn (£930m) last year as digital piracy continued to take its toll on the industry, with the UK losing its mantle as the third-largest music market after "physical" sales of CDs collapsed by almost a fifth.
Global recorded music revenues fell 8.4% last year, about $1.45bn, to $15.9bn according to the annual Recording Industry in Numbers report by international music industry body the IFPI.

Overall physical sales, the term used in the industry for sales of products such as CDs, fell by 14.2% year on year to $10.4bn.

Digital revenues grew by 5.3% year on year to $4.6bn to account for 29% of all recorded music revenues. However, the rate of digital revenue growth has halved year on year as the industry continues to struggle with piracy and winning consumers over to legal download models.

The world's two largest markets, the US and Japan, took a hammering last year accounting for 57% of the total global decline in trade revenues. In 2009 the two countries accounted for 80% of the global decline.

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The 4G auction - a beginner's guide

Remember the sale of the century, or was it the sale of the millennium? Probably not as you'd have been about 8 years old...

Back in 2000 the 3G auction raised £22.5 billion for the Treasury and set the framework for mobile phone services in Britain for the next decade.


Today Ofcom has fired the starting gun for an even bigger sale of mobile spectrum which it believes could prove even more significant. But the mobile operators are hoping that it will turn out rather cheaper for them than the 3G sale.

The regulator is calling this the 4G auction, and despite the cries of purists who insist that is just a marketing term to cover an ill-defined collection of new mobile technologies, that is the name that will stick. So to find out the answer to a few questions about 4G, click on the title...

Hollywood wants Red Riding Hood and Snow White to weave a box office spell...

Studios and A-list actors are banking on updated versions of fairytale favourites to explore darker themes about sexuality that will appeal to today's teenage audiences.

Prepare for a fairytale invasion. Hollywood movie studios, in their constant quest for remakes and modern spins on old stories, are about to unleash a new wave of film versions of ancient European folktales.

The list includes an updated version of Little Red Riding Hood, two films based on the Snow White story, a movie of the old English fable Jack and the Beanstalk, a 3D Pinocchio, a version of Beauty and the Beast set in modern America called Beastly, and the unusually titled Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

The recent release of a new Disney cartoon version of the Rapunzel story called Tangled will be followed this weekend by the release of Beastly, whose monster is a high-school jock magically turned into an ugly freak due to his vanity and arrogance.

But the fairytale revolution will really get into top gear with the debut in the US of Little Red Riding Hood, starring the rising young actress Amanda Seyfried.

Like many of the coming rush of fairytale films, the movie takes the format of an ancient folktale, set in a village in a deep forest menaced by a predatory wolf, and gives it a contemporary feel.

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Who Killed the UK Film Council?

by Sebastian Doggart

The main reason I left England and moved to Los Angeles ten years ago was the dire state of the British film industry in which I was pursuing a career as a writer and director. Jobs were scarce and funding for new movies was fraught with bureaucratic obstacles. If you wanted training and didn’t get into the National Film and Television School, as happened to me, you’d have to teach yourself.

That was 2000, the year that the Labour government created the UK Film Council “to stimulate a competitive, successful and vibrant UK film industry and culture.” That body has since gone on to train hundreds of film-makers, and to help produce over 900 movies. Watching these pictures almost persuaded me to return to Blighty – fine dramas like This is England and The Last King of Scotland; witty comedies like Bend it Like Beckham and Happy-Go-Lucky; terrific documentaries like Man on Wire; and ground-breaking works of film art like The Arbor.

So it was with some amazement that I read on July 25th last year that the incoming Liberal-Conservative coalition government was abolishing the UK Film Council (UKFC) and had no plans to replace it.

Since then, a tragi-comedy has unfolded in the British film community that has inspired me to do detailed detective work both for this extended post, and for a screenplay that I am hoping will one day become my Four Weddings and a Funeral.

To read the full story...click on the title...

The malign influence of Rupert Murdoch on British life - Discuss?

News International acts as if it is above the law and has contributed to the coarsening of society's values according to Henry Porter in last Sunday's 'Observer.'

When Rupert Murdoch appeared on his own Fox News Channel last week and was, astonishingly, asked about the News of the World phone-hacking scandal – "the story that was really buzzing around the country and certainly here in New York", as the anchorman put it – Murdoch cut him off with the words: "I'm not talking about that issue at all today. I'm sorry."

Seen against the background of Sun Valley, Idaho, and in short sleeves and sunglasses, Murdoch appeared more like a gangster fighting extradition proceedings than the attendee of a media conference. For some reason, the vicious agility of the elderly Hyman Roth in The Godfather, Part II came to mind. Naturally, the Fox News anchor didn't challenge the man he called Mr Chairman and the matter of the mass hacking of phones belonging to MPs, public figures and celebrities was dropped as Murdoch moved to praise his own organisation for its robust criticism of the Obama administration, delivering one swift jab at a competitor, the Financial Times, in the process.

Click on the link to find out more....