DIRECTORS UK/THE FIGHT BACK BEGINS

Everyone knows that the director is the key to a great film. Everyone except some of the people controlling the purse strings, it seems. They believe they know better and now Britain’s finest have joined forces to set the record straight.

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Directors UK is the name of the new posse and there is a sense that it heralds the beginning of a new phase in British fimmaking. Or at least a start at preserving the quality that already exists.

Paul (Bourne Ultimatum) Greengrass kicked off the launch of Directors UK, at The Century Club in Soho, by noting that "there is a crisis that threatens to destroy what is otherwise a golden time for British directors, who are currently being feted to an unprecedented degree globally".

"Above all there is a tendency, particularly in television, to 'director-less' productions. In these sub par enterprises, many of the creative decision are made before the director is brought board, then he is often marginalised from discussions of budgets and other critical matters, and finally he is dismissed long before the work is actually finished."

David (Harry Potter) Yates echoed these sentiments and rued the impact such tactics would have on future generations of British directors as he, Greengrass and many of the other excellent directors at the launch all credited the opportunities they had had to hone their skills in TV as the key to their current success.

Greengrass added that the problems had started some 25 years and had escalated because directors, so adept at problem solving on sets, seldom talk to each other and did not have much time to address the larger, industry issues.

In any case, the speed at which the erosion of the director’s powers has accelerated in the last few years and reached the point where even these solitary titans had to break off from the fun of creating to spend a few hours together on administrative warfare.

Apparently the heads of television and the film world have declared they welcome the new group and one can only hope that it continues that way. For together these British directors, some 4,000 of them, are a formidable force.

Also they are the key to the artistic success of the British film world in the years to come, no matter what their pencil pushing, penny pinching masters may want to believe.

Directors UK has been two years in the making and is planning a multitude of announcements to mark its launch. Details can be found during the coming weeks on www.directors.uk.com.

Posted June 12, 2008.