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UK Film Council calls on the industry to broaden the diversity of screenwriting talent.
A new report on how screenwriters of British films are recruited shows that there are opportunities for the UK film industry to encourage a wider range of screenwriting talent
, including women as screenwriters in particular.
The first study of its kind, Writing British Films – Who writes British films and how they are recruited, was commissioned by the UK Film Council and conducted by Royal Holloway, University of London. It identifies, for the first time, who writes British films, how they are hired, quashes myths and identifies the critical factors common in the experiences of the women and men who have been successfully commissioned to write British films.
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See you must understand, I can’t work a nine to five, so I’ll be gone ’til November. [Wycliff Jean: 1997]
To the casual observers my wanderings may suggest a terminal dissatisfaction with a place called ‘home’. At the age of twenty-eight, my ambition was to get as far away as possible from any idea of ever living or working in Britain again. I had shown I could not work for ineffective management the day the last boss told me:
“You’re black, articulate, and arrogant. Arrogance from someone black gets up people’s backs more than arrogance from someone white. What you need to do is get…”
At which point she proceeded to pat the air from inches above the ground before continuing: “Or your colleges are gonna see you as a threat.”
I was not sure, if June, like my primary school teacher before her, was making a self-fulfilling prophecy, or telling it as it was. I certainly did not feel I had a problem with the people at work. I was no more arrogant, I felt, than anyone else in the Property Development Department at the height of the “loads-a-money” house price boom. Proud, perhaps, but if my colleges had a problem with me I expected them to speak to me face-to-face. “Or was it a management problem?” I wondered. The company had an Equal Opportunity Policy that most members of staff could not agree on.
“If there was a problem, June, might it not be more to do with being young, black, well paid, well-groomed, well liked by clients and associates, and very good at my job by all accounts?”
June did not see it that way. And although she could deny no part of it, she continued to make life for me a working hell. This sudden “clash of personalities,” as it became known, quickly escalated into a torrent of allegations and counter-allegations. At our pub lunches, my colleges sat feeding me sympathies. During office hours, they smiled through tight lips, afraid for their jobs. There was no fun in mine anymore. I was pushed, so the Workers’ Union said, but I walked out smiling.
That year I received the BBC Radio Drama Young Playwrights’ Festival Award for Hair broadcasted on BBC Radio 4. The following February, I invited all of my ex-colleagues to a self-production of the critically acclaimed stage-play, Boy with Beer. June did not show up on opening night. She had buried another million-pound property mistake behind the office filing cabinets and had moved on to pastures greener. These days, I image her living in Hampstead splendour with one or two kids, a sizeable mortgage, a top job in the private sector, and oppressing the poor husband our talkative receptionist used to call “one weak-looking white man.”
As for me, good writing and early successes have not brought with them any reason to crack open the champagne. America may have Spike Lee, Toni Morrison, Angela Bassett and Danny Glover, to name a few, but the recent success of British films at the box-office has brought with it no significant or corresponding improvement in the profile or fortunes of our black writers, actors and movie makers. In fact, the most popular black presence in British films is still the American actor Paul Robeson.
In Britain, black projects are considered a bad gamble for investors and of “limited appeal” to a domestic TV audience, as well as to cinemagoers in the major movie markets worldwide. For black British filmmakers the current climate of increased funding and production opportunities, has had little, if any, effect. Since the success of Isaac Julien’s Young Soul Rebels first raised hopes at the start of the 1990s, just a handful of films have been made and released in Britain by black British film-makers. Julien has never made another feature film, and currently works in the United States.
Similarly, Oscar-nominated for her role in Secrets and Lies, Marianne Jean-Baptiste has not appeared in a British film since, nor has Adrian Lester been offered a leading British role after staring in the $60 million dollar American film Primary Colours along with John Travolta and Emma Thompson. Like author Caryl Phillips, both actors have decided to base their careers in America.
Talking to Isaac Julien over lunch one afternoon in New York, it was clear to us both that black creative artists in the UK often struggle to reap the benefits of a successful production (be it theatre, film, book, or music). One would expect that the strong international influence of Africa-American and Caribbean popular cultures would offer greater opportunity to market black British creativity to a wider audience. Not so, in an industry where an Irish project can be ‘mainstream’ or ‘universal’ while a similar black project is considered of ‘minority’ interest.
The Fuller Picture, a report co-produced by the Black British Film Bulletin and the British Film Institute, identified a ‘cultural gap’, and called for “The urgent appointment of senior black personnel in commissioning and other funding institutions. At the time of writing, none existed at the British Film Institute, British Screen, at any of the Lottery-funded franchises or at the BBC.” Since commissioning is a highly personal issue and comes down to whether one, likes or can relate to a project, who will champion the work of black talent? Can we really expect one film, play, or book every few years to do everything?
One day just before my thirtieth birthday, I decided to apply for The Carl Foreman Award organised by BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts). All entrants had to be British, under 30 years old, and submit a full-length screenplay with a completed application form. The winner of the competition received a bursary for six months of study at a leading U.S. Film School specialising in Screenwriting.
I was excited to be called in for an interview in front of some eleven men and the widow of the great American/British director in whose name the award was established. They fired various questions at me, many of which revolved around the subject “How do you feel about representing Britain abroad?”
“Well, I do consider myself British by birth, English by socialisation, and black by the hand of God,” came the reply at one point. They laughed at that. “I don’t foresee a problem. Like anyone of our black sportsmen, I too would be proud to fly the flag for Britain in the United States, or anywhere else for that matter.”
They smiled and nodded then. Two days later I received a call from one of the judges who lived in my neighbourhood:
“We thought we would let you know, Paul, that your script was the best we received, and that you were the best candidate at interview. We have, however, decided to offer the award to someone less capable than yourself. Since we felt that he would benefit more and you would succeed anyway. Please take my telephone number, and if there’s ever anything, I can do for you…”
I thought I must have been dreaming. Then my former Literary Agent at International Creative Management (ICM) rang to confirm the same message. “That’s the worst load of bullshit I’ve ever heard,” he said. I could not agree more.
Shortly after the 1980s property boom turned into the negative equity of 1995, I decided to spend some time living and writing abroad since I was now homeless at home. I dreamt of exploring the centre of the free world using my pen as sword and a notebook computer for a shield. I wrestled with the forces of evil trying to defeat the collective good and was rewarded for my efforts based on merit and ability, and not according to some arbitrary rule of ‘family and friends’ or ‘The Old Boys’ Network.’
For the quiet dreamer in me who sought the sweetness of The Cosby Show family; the support and guidance of a ready-made community; dynamic, intelligent friends and lovers; or access to a creative and economic powerhouse - the USA screamed out “Look no further!” There, on the World Wide Web of my subconscious mind, I could clearly see the message scrolling past in bright fluorescent letters;
“You long to belong in the place where everyone is a ‘foreigner’ and there are virtually no un-Americans.”
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