FEED Winter 2020/21 Newsletter

PIPPA HARRIS: For us on 1917 , the focus was on the actual production process. I think that the issues with post are also enormous.They’re of a different magnitude, though.The vast majority of the problem is to do with production itself. Post is a relatively contained process, unless you’re doing an enormous special effects film. But all the post houses and all the distributors need to start looking at how they’re operating, and making sure that they’re working in the most sustainable way possible. FEED: Bafta’s Screen New Deal report seems to be mostly about production and facilities. What is your assessment about the other parts of the chain, like development and post-production?

FEED: A lot of us have been working from home this year. Is there anything that we’ve learned from that which we can incorporate into more sustainable practices?

PIPPA HARRIS: I think that the working-from-home ethos will stay – and the fact that you don’t need to fly to America to have a meeting about an option.You can do that meeting perfectly well via Zoom. Equally, there has been a massive amount of unnecessary transatlantic travel going on in the film industry. A huge amount. And not just in terms of setting up productions, but in the whole life cycle of a movie. When it comes to promotion, marketing and the award season that we have become used to over the past 20 years, expecting talent to fly around – not just around America in the UK, but to fly around the world promoting a particular film – I think that will change massively. I don’t think that will continue. I don’t think it will be assumed that if you’re opening a new Spiderman film, you’ve got to flyTom Holland around the entire world and have him on a red carpet in each territory in order to make the film a success.That will just go and, frankly, it should go. It would be better for everyone. So it’s looking at the whole life cycle of a film, from the planning stages, and right through to when it opens in a cinema, and minimising travel at every juncture.

“THERE HAS BEENA MASSIVE AMOUNT OF UNNECESSARY TRANSATLANTIC TRAVEL GOING ON INTHE FILM INDUSTRY”

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