Film On Four

The First Five Years

David Rose, coming from a successful period at the BBC, which had included the commissioning of Boys From The Blackstuff, was the person appointed by Isaacs to head the channel’s ‘fiction’ department. Isaacs proposed to Rose that as well as monetary support to independent film-makers if a distributor could be found they should offer the chance for their film to get a cinema release ‘where it might gain a reputation and an identity before its TV transmission’. This was an idea that had been tested on the continent but was new to British production. In Film on Fours first year (1982-3) twenty films were made, at a cost to Channel Four of £9.6million, the average budget of a single Hollywood picture. Eight of these got some form of theatrical release.

Film on Four had a shaky start. For the first two years it failed to make any significant impact at the box office with its films. In 1984 they changed their tactics slightly following these commercial failures. It financed fewer films entirely from its own finances and moved into co-production with other British companies such as Goldcrest and Palace, as well as starting Film on Four International to co-finance foreign cinema. In 1984/5 they scored a double success with a 22% investment in Paris Texas through Film on Four International and co-producing My Beautiful Laundrette with Working Title. This encouraged a flood of interest in low-budget British movies, especially from US independents, which in turn prompted new levels of investment in British cinema from American companies. Mark Shivas, the BBC’s head of drama, said ‘If you had the right small British film, you could reckon to get 50 to 60 percent of the budget from America at that time’. In 1984 10 out of 28 British features had Channel Four investment. The co-production ethic resulted in a greater diversity of films produced. In 1987 Rose received a special award at Cannes for ‘services to cinema’ and Film on Four was being heralded as the saviour of the British Film Industry.