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UNREVISED PROOF COPY Ev 3 HOUSE of LORDS MINUTES OF UNREVISED PROOF COPY Ev 3 HOUSE OF LORDS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS UK FILM AND TELEVISION INDUSTRIES WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL 2009 MS CHRISTINE PAYNE, MR MALCOLM SINCLAIR, MR RORY KINNEAR and MS MAGGIE STEED Evidence heard in Public Questions 220 - 321 USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT 1. This is an uncorrected and unpublished transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. 2. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings. Any public use of, or reference to, the contents should make clear that neither Members nor witnesses have had the opportunity to correct the record. If in doubt as to the propriety of using the transcript, please contact the Clerk to the Committee. 3. Members who receive this for the purpose of correcting questions addressed by them to witnesses are asked to send corrections to the Clerk to the Committee. 4. Prospective witnesses may receive this in preparation for any written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee. 5. Transcribed by the Official Shorthand Writers to the Houses of Parliament: W B Gurney & Sons LLP, Hope House, 45 Great Peter Street, London, SW1P 3LT Telephone Number: 020 7233 1935 WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL 2009 ________________ Present Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury, B Eccles of Moulton, B Fowler, L (Chairman) Howe of Idlicote, B Inglewood, L King of Bridgwater, L Manchester, Bp Maxton, L Scott of Needham Market, B ________________ Witnesses: Ms Christine Payne, General Secretary, Mr Malcolm Sinclair, Vice President, Mr Rory Kinnear, Member, and Ms Maggie Steed, Member, Equity, examined. Q220 Chairman: Good morning, thank you very much for coming. As you know, we are doing an investigation into the film and television industry, and what we are really trying to see is the health of the industry, and to really see, in a sense, what contribution it makes to the national economy, but also what further could be done to help and aid in this process. Obviously, from Equity's point of view, it is rather crucial as far as the future is concerned, so I wonder if we could start with some bread and butter issues to begin with. You have 37,000 members at the moment, and they include mainly actors? Ms Payne: They include actors, variety artists, singers, dancers, theatre directors, theatre designers, choreographers, stunt performers, fight directors. 37,000, I suppose you would say, very diverse members. Q221 Chairman: Television presenters, I see. Ms Payne: Television presenters, absolutely. Q222 Chairman: That confirms one's view -- I will not say that. 2 Ms Payne: Now, now! Lord Maxton: Not MPs. Q223 Chairman: Not yet. Of the 37,000 members, a great number of actors. How many do you think are in work at any one time? Ms Payne: A very small proportion. Q224 Chairman: How small? Ms Payne: Very, very small. We think about a third of our members at any one time are actually working within our industries. I am glad to say that all three of our members here at the moment are, but -- Mr Kinnear: But not this morning, obviously. Lord King of Bridgwater: I am not sure about that! Q225 Chairman: Has the recession had a notable impact yet? Ms Payne: I think at the moment, it is difficult to judge the impact of the recession compared to the impact of the changes in television, our industries generally. It is quite hard to separate the two. If you look at what is happening in ITV, would that have happened if the recession had not have happened? We tend to think that it probably would, and that is systematic of the way our industries are changing, but undoubtedly the recession is going to have more impact and possibly in a way that you might not imagine. It might make it more difficult for our members to actually remain in the business, because a lot of them are out of work for long periods of time, and if that gets longer, then it gets more difficult for them to sustain those careers. 3 Q226 Chairman: What do you find about new entrants coming in? Does it have a deterrent effect, or do people simply think that this is a good career, and they are going to do it come what may? Ms Payne: I think to some extent it depends where those young performers are coming from. If, like Rory, they are coming out of drama schools and they have been on courses that have been particularly training them to enter the profession, then they probably come into the business with their eyes wide open and are aware of the difficulties. If they are entering the profession from other areas, then they may not be quite so familiar with the peaks and troughs of our industries. Q227 Chairman: Rory Kinnear, you are probably the most recent member on the panel coming into the profession. You were at drama school, how long did you spend there? Mr Kinnear: I did postgraduate study at LAMDA for two years, having done a degree previously, and I think the impulse that makes anyone want to become an actor does not change, and I do not think that is dependent on financial circumstances in the outside world. But I do think that the further you get down the line in one's career, the more you are aware of the dependencies of the financial system to support the artistic community. Certainly I would say about a third to a half of my year at drama school have now left the business. Some of them would have probably not succeeded even without the decreased output of drama that we are seeing, but certainly a number of them, you think had they been given time to be nurtured, they would have made a career out of it. Q228 Chairman: That is quite a high percentage, is it not? When did you leave drama school? Mr Kinnear: I left drama school in 2001. 4 Q229 Chairman: So that is in a relatively short space of time, up to a half. Mr Kinnear: Once you hit your 30s, the prospect and glamour of working in a bar when you have a degree yourself diminishes. Q230 Chairman: What do you feel about it, Mr Sinclair? Mr Sinclair: Things have changed a lot. Maggie and I both went to Bristol Old Vic, and I came out in the mid 1970s, and it is very interesting now, young actors say to me, what advice can you give, and I say I do not know, the business is completely different. The opportunities for work, with the collapse of the repertory system, and the shrinking of drama, the type of drama that is done on television and in film, has meant that we now have different careers. I did seven years in repertory theatre. That is simply impossible now. Now I think I am quite a good actor, but when I started I was a rather indifferent actor, I think, and I was able to slowly develop for seven years. That is impossible -- it does not actually affect the stars, stars are going to be stars whatever, they have a certain something, a certain magic or a certain something, but for the absolute backbone of the profession, like anything we do, you have to learn your trade, and the opportunities for learning the trade in the theatre are diminishing, and your purview is films and television; the opportunity to learn your profession in film and television is also diminishing, lack of rehearsal time, speed, all these sorts of things, and the fact that your creative input is now being overtaken by I would say the management, which is something we may or may not get on to, but it has been a huge, huge change. The other thing I would say is when I started in the theatre, it was still quite a verbal medium, now it is much more a visual one. So the fact that scripts are cut to the bone and scenes now are two minutes when they could have been ten minutes, all this makes a huge difference to what you do. Q231 Chairman: But you persisted, self-evidently, in spite of all these difficulties. 5 Mr Sinclair: I am touching wood. It is all right so far, that is all you can say. Q232 Chairman: Maggie Steed, what do you feel? Ms Steed: Very similar to Malcolm really, I think it is very difficult now for people coming into the profession to distinguish between what is really good work and what is not. Particularly with film and television, and particularly television, the constraints that are put upon you are absolutely to do with budgeting and speed up, so that, for instance, 20 years ago, we would be expected on television to turn over, say, three pages a day, on the studio floor. Now that will be at least seven pages. That means that everybody, directors, cameramen, lighting people, actors, have to be prepared to make quick decisions and compromise their work enormously and move on to the next scene, so it is very difficult for young people to learn what is really good work, or to be in the hands of people who encourage them to do good work, but also it means that that has a sort of drip-down effect on the nature of the work that the general public is seeing. So they think they might be seeing something good, but my goodness could it not be better, you know, could it not be more interesting, more full of life, more engaging and questioning, in all sorts of ways? We are all of us driven back to a sort of default position.
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