Save The British Film Industry.Com

007 James Bond is Richard Bernstein of Crystal Amber as he rides to Pinewood Studios rescue.

Omari McCarthy for Save The British Film Industry.

We really try to explain things for people who do not know understand the film industry but want to.

Pinewood Studios and Shepperton Studios have been around since the 1930s. They used to make films with their own money. Now they do not.  They just rent out space like a hotel rents out rooms. They do not employ many people. The film companies which rent the space to make a film such as ‘007′ or ‘Pirates of The Caribbean’ or ‘X Men: First Class’ or ‘Sherlock Holmes 2′  employ almost all the staff freelance. In 2002 after 65 years healthy competition, Pinewood Studios and Shepperton Studios were merged and in 2004 floated as a plc in which shares are freely traded. Of course at this stage anyone could buy it. As they are on extremely expensive land, is it any wonder the main buyers were property developers ? 

Before this month the biggest shareholder was the biggest property developer the UK has seen, John Whittaker of Peel Holdings. Not noted for making films in his long business career of property development.

Pinewood Studios has been chasing a housing development worth maybe a billion pounds on greenbelt land for around three years.

Now we wish Pinewood Studios well and want all the film jobs preserved there. It is very ironic that Richard Bernstein is the very best bet. An honest straightforward man. A man seeking to maximise the investment of Crystal Amber. A man open to any business scheme which achieves this result. He is now on 28% of share ownership and may attempt a full takeover before Christmas.

Under Chairman Michael Grade and former top shareholder John Whittaker, Pinewood Studios did not co-invest in movies, nor expand the sound stages and studio facilities around The UK. It did not take a risk on co-investing in the films which were made there which generate £5 billion from all sources each year. It did not build theme parks or go after merchandising. It did next to nothing for British film making except take the rent.

We repeat under the present management ,it just took the rent, a mere £40 million a year, and  itdreamed of building houses on greenbelt land. They also sold the brandname Pinewood Studios  to Canada, Malaysia, Germany and  next up is China. The UK Film Council was as ever useless, hopeless, helpless and fixated on its fat cat existence.

Is there news of share dealings at Pinewood Studios ?  Oh yes. Have Pinewood Shepperton’s profits dropped ?  Oh yes. Does it affect film jobs in Pinewood and Shepperton ? Not really. they are very full at the moment. The only change comes when anyone wants to sell the sound stages for car parks.

Save The British Film Industry want 400 to 500 sound stages all around  The UK. We want to protect the sound stages at Pinewood and Shepperton. We want to get state of the art film sets around The UK:  Paris, Venice, ancient Rome, Amsterdam, sci-fi sets, space ships, New York, Pyramids, Jerusalem, Mumbai, Moscow, Beijing, Lagos, Rio, Washington, Buckingham Palace, House of Commons, etc. We want them to double as tourist attractions. We want to use ex-industrial sites.  We want to create 250 000 film jobs.

Every other country is building sound stages except The UK. France, germany, Malaysia, Canada, everyone except the UK. 

Sound stages  are our crown jewels to attract Hollywood finance. They can also be magnificent places for British financed films to emerge from.

So at last everything we predicted about Pinewood Studios and their sound stages being in peril is coming out in the open. Ironically the upfront honest Richard Bernstein is the good guy. The 007 James Bond.

The Government is going to have to wake up to the fact that sound stages are King.

These are the glue of the film industry in Britain. Well the south-east of England film industry.

To have a UK film industry the sound stages  must be built around The UK.

Maybe you will want to support this.

Meanwhile enjoy a picture of Aruna Shields from London who got on her bike to become a major film star in Bollywood with next stop Hollywood.

Omari McCarthy (

http://omarimccarthy.blogspot.com/

http://omarimccarthy.blogspot.com/ 

www.savethebritishfilmindustry.com