ABSTRACT
Before re-examining the film value chain, the recurring focus of this book, it is instructive to reflect on some of the challenges facing the independent film business beyond Hollywood. In the opening sections of this book (Chapters 1 and 2), we analysed a connecting theme: that the independent film sector suffers from a range of strategic and economic shortcomings that fail to complete the vertical and horizontal challenges required to build a sustainable model. The film value chain is vertically ‘disintegrated’, taking its form in a protracted series of fragmented links – all carried out a considerable distance from the final market destination: the user. Some argue that dependency on public subsidy, fiscal bail-outs, quotas and broadcaster support, as opposed to an active, vertically integrated range of companies and strategic investment sources, has dissipated in particular the European approach to filmmaking and industrial exploitation. Others point to heavily supported models, such as that in France, as the way to go. As respected film veteran Jakes Eberts argues, ‘The French system, for all its warts, provides France with an industry. I think Europe should dupe the French system: it would create lots of jobs, enthusiasm and business.’
