Save The British Film Industry.Com

As Pinewood Shepperton PLC share price has now fallen 13.04% in the last month and is heading to the price of Walsall Football Club (plus training ground and a few free meat pies), we salute Adrian Goldberg and The Stirrer for fighting to save British based film making jobs.

http://www.thestirrer.co.uk/big-screen-big-dream-0810091.html

BIG SCREEN, BIG DREAM

08-10-2009

We are 14 days from a once in a generation opportunity for the West Midlands to dramatically transform its image both nationally and internationally. Jonathan Stuart-Brown updates us on his plan to make this region the movie capital of Britain.

The Stirrer in conjunction with Save The British Film Industry urges the West Midlands business, media and political leadership to grab this opportunity with both hands to create over 100 000 jobs locally and stop us becoming Sangette 2.

On Wednesday October 21 South Bucks District Council will pronounce on planning permission on Pinewood Studios expansion on 100 acres of greenbelt land in Iver Heath.

The plan and vision is bold, brilliant and will give Britain a crucial infrastructure lead in the one global growing industry in the recession when cinemas have seen record sales. It aims to build 20 of the most used film and TV cities in the world here in the UK to cut cost and time of productions thus securing an extra billion pound annual inward investment.

However, there are a few crucial problems for Pinewood and the word is that the permission will be refused.

The South Bucks locals do not want it as it will destroy untouchable greenbelt land. The South in general do not want it as it will set a precedent for bulldozing even The New Forest to extend London’s urban sprawl. They are organised and even have a fast growing online petition to Number Ten.

All three of the committees on The Stop Project Pinewood nimby groups just do not want Venice, Paris, Amsterdam, Lake Como near them. They expressly do not want ever more Hollywood stars and even rich tourists and theme park visitors on their doorstep. They are happy for it all to come up to our urban sprawl in Birmingham and Black Country.

Venice, Paris, Amsterdam, New Orleans, Chicago, New York…the regional tourist industry will be boosted, The NEC and ICC fully booked, the hotels, shops and restaurants leaping with joy and Birmingham Airport opening the champagne.

Moreover, the South Bucks locals really want to keep their wildlife and 100 acres of greenbelt (which is about the size of Walsall Arboretum but very tiny compared to Longbridge and other ex-industrial sites in The West Midlands).

The Stop Project Pinewood group also fear that once Pinewood Shepperton get to build 1400 houses as part of the expansion, the £500 million profit injection will give them a taste for the big fast profits which they can not ever get as a pure film factory facility.

The locals fear Pinewood Shepperton PLC will be taken over by asset strippers who might decide to quit the movies and just build another 10 000 houses on the existing 200 acre sites for Pinewood Studios, Shepperton Studios and Teddington Studios. This could instantly generate a cool £2500 million as land for houses, supermarket distribution centre or car park/ring and ride facility for West London.

The local nimbys (who are neighbours of Pinewood insiders) fear that whatever the outcome of the planning application, and even if the new Board continue trading in film facility rental, all the British film studios will end up in Malaysia and China.

They will only be employing much cheaper non-British based labour on very cheap land. Thus 98% of the existing British based film crews and actors will be out of work as they will not get work permits for these countries.

This plan to quit Britain idea has grown in credibility given these type of reports from the existing Board. See The Telegraph.and Indianexpress

Pinewood Shepperton PLC has been trading at below £1.30 a share this week. It was £2.90 when it started on this planning application bid.

Its share price has now  fallen 13.04 % in the last month and 18% in the last five weeks when the market was generally going up, up, up.

Pinewood Shepperton PLC has spent more than double its annual profits and more than 10% of its share value chasing this expansion. If it fails, then it is a serious crisis.

Pinewood Shepperton PLC share price market capitalisation at £1.30 a share is £59.7 million. So it is the price of a decent house for an Arab or Russian billionaire. Less than the sale price of Birmingham City FC which is a much smaller bit of land. Anyone can buy it. Any new buyer may be ideal or a disaster for UK film-making.

Simon Cowell, David Beckham, Jordon, Robbie Williams, Amy Winehouse, Mike Ashley, one of Colonel Gaddafi’s sons could easily buy Pinewood Studios. Saudi Arabian businessman Ali al-Faraj could buy Pinewood Studios on a whim, even Sulaiman al-Fahim could get involved with his Portsmouth FC payout. The problem is that someone might just turn it into a private house near London or relocate Pinewood Studios and its 75 year British film heritage to another continent.

If the planning application fails in a fortnight, then this share price and company sale price may fall dramatically; even far below annual turnover of around £50 million. It could go to prices where Lily Allen, Wayne Roonie or Cherie Blair could afford to buy Pinewood Studios. It could even be a highly unsuitable person.

British based film making is partying, blissfully ignorant that it is heading for the iceberg which can close it down completely in 24 minutes, let alone 24 hours.

On April 14 1912 The Titanic hit the iceberg. October 21 2009 may be Titanic 2 for The London film industry. Let us hope with Titanic 2: The Sequel we get a happy ending for The West Midlands.

The solution is to relocate the expansion ( if absolutely need be as a last resort to keep them in Britain then and only then  all the existing studios) to ex-industrial sites in The West Midlands.  Longbridge, Jaguar, Landrover, and a dozen other suitable sites spring to mind.

Over 90% of film factory jobs are normal factory jobs with posh names: drivers, lifters, shifters, electricians, painters, plasterers, decoraters, caterers, IT, administration, sales, marketing, hairdressers, make up, cleaners. Yes, there are creatives and actors but the car industry had designers as well. These are jobs high skilled, unemployed West Midland factory workers can rapidly retrain and excel in.

We just need the government and Pinewood Board to consider a less dramatic relocation of the proposed expansion to the West Midlands.

Out of lottery money, the government can easily and legitimately build 200 not 20 sets between Coventry and Stoke. They can create a British global lead in infrastructure (with canals, railways and motorways). They can expand out from The West Midlands to build sets from Scotland to Cornwall, West Wales to East Anglia.

They can in a decade corner over 50% of investment in all film and TV production in any language based on much lower cost and much higher quality. This can be over £7 billion inward investment and over 250 000 jobs based in Britain. It can also get the Neets off the dole and off drugs. The alternative is crippling welfare payments and pointless job training for no jobs in Britain.

The solution all starts in The West Midlands.

Let us keep Pinewood Studios, Shepperton Studios and Teddington Studios British based providing jobs for British based workers. Let us do so in the Heart of The Nation. Bring James Bond to Birmingham, Jason Bourne to The Black Country and Batman to Bilston.

Eventually the entire nation and entire world will benefit from the excellence we produce.

Hollywood Studios were built in a desert no-one wanted because the land was cheap and this has blessed the world for three generations. We in The West Midlands can do the same – indeed even better.

Vic Armstrong on receiving his BAFTA said: “Dream big because dreams do come true”.

Vic is regarded by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Arnold Scwarzenegger, Martin Scorsese as the best film technician in the world. He only did this little movie showreel or a few little movies such as these.

Vic Armstrong said that Birmingham, in the right hands, could be at least as big a film city as Chicago: Blues Brothers, Home Alone, Bad Boys, The Breakfast Club, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, North by North West, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, Planes Trains and Automobiles, While You Were Sleeping, When Harry Met Sally, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, High Fidelity, I Robot, Midnight Run, The Negotiator, Red Heat, Risky Business, The Sting, What Women Want, My Best Friends Wedding, Miracle on 34th Street, Backdraft, Meet The Parents, Wayne’s World.

Birmingham Airport, NEC, ICC, West Midland Chambers of Commerce, local councils, and the rest please take careful note.