In 2008 over 20,000 feature films were made worldwide but only 516 had a theatrical release in the UK of one week or more. (source: UK Film Council). As an independent filmmaker the chances of your film getting a theatrical release in the UK is pretty much zero. DVD sales have been dropping annually since 2002 and the number of UK distributors for indie films has dropped during the recession as firms go to the wall or merge. With the Film Council announcing a £25m cut in funding it all looks pretty bleak for the UK indie filmmaking community, doesn’t it? Well the results of a recent employment tribunal are only going to make matters worse. The tribunal in Reading ruled that expenses only engagements are illegal and National Minimum Wage should be paid to all workers engaged on an expenses only basis. HMRC can impose a fine of up to £5000 to those companies who fail to pay their workers at least NMW. So where does that leave UK indie films like Colin, the zombie movie which was shot for £45? Will this decision lead to the end of low budget filmmaking in the UK? On the face of it, any film that has utilised actors or crew on an expenses only basis has been breaking the law. Even offering a token payment of £50 is below the current National Minimum Wage and could land the film producer with a nasty fine from the tax man. The HMRC (HM Revenues & Customs) penalty was introduced 6 April 2009 and can be applied retrospectively so any films made before April ‘09 could still be fined for not paying NMW. The current NMW is £5.80 per hour for anyone over the age of 22 but you also need to add on holiday pay at 12.07% so the actual figure is £6.50 per hour.
Let’s look at a micro budget film with a cast of five and a minimal crew (I’ll use the crew breakdown from The Guerilla Film Makers Movie Blueprint) with a 10 day shoot. The chances are for a feature length film you’ll be working your butt off for those 10 days but let’s make the numbers easier by calling it a 10 hour day (yeah, I know, I know but stick with me…). So we have 5 x actors, a writer/director, producer, PA/Assistant, DP, Assistant Camera, Gaffer, Set Designer, Make Up/Costume, Sound, Runner/Driver, Stills Photographer and someone to do the catering. That’s 17 cast and crew who are working for 10 days. The wage bill for the two week shoot would be £13,260. We’ve also got to consider not just the shoot date but the pre and post production times too. Using the example from the Movie Blueprint book, the total number of days to make this micro budget film would amount to 1085 over a 52 week period. Assuming 10 hour days that equates to a wage bill of £84,630. £85k and we haven’t even started to look at money for camera hire, lights, costumes, make up, locations, transport, expenses and catering costs. Suddenly our micro budget film isn’t looking so micro any more… As a further example, filming on Colin wouldn’t have made it as far as lunch on Day 1 if it was just Marc Price (the director) and Alastair Kirton (the star) both getting paid National Minimum Wage. So what does all this mean to the low budget filmmaker, student films, the fringe theatre producer and even the local amateur dramatics group? As an actor myself I should be embracing the rules and regulations. I’ve done plenty of expenses only gigs in the past so it’s nice to know that I can get paid at least a few quid an hour for working on a student film but I also sit on the other side of the camera and can see that strict enforcement of NMW regulations will kill low budget productions in the UK. I’ve debated this over at Casting Call Pro in the past and was shot down in flames by many of my fellow actors. Their argument was that the production company should find the money to pay all of the cast and crew before committing to the project. As my example above shows, £85k is a lot of money to pay out in wages on a project that statistically is unlikely to get picked up for distribution. Getting funding to make a film has always been pretty tough and with the cut to the UK Film Council budget it’s only going to get tougher. In most cases the low budget filmmaker will be either self-financing or looking at some kind of equity deal and that’s only if he can find anyone with spare cash willing to invest during a recession in a business that is on it’s arse thanks to a drop off in sales and an increase in online piracy. The fact is that, in the vast majority of cases, filmmakers will simply not have access to the kind of figures we’re talking about here and if NMW regulations are rigorously enforced they won’t be able to make their film which means everyone is left sitting around scratching their arse because there are no more film projects to work on.
