Behind the Ardmore Screen

In their six years as the National Film Studios of Ireland, Ardmore Studios have proved to be a commercial disaster. Is Ardmore about the development of the Irish film industry or is it merely a "Government Showcase"? By Paddy Agnew

T- he National Film Studios at Arddmore have virtually ceased to function. With the exception of £150,000 worth of commercials, noothing has been produced at Ardmore for the last twelve months. This period of inactivity has cost the taxpayer over £600,000. In the six years since it has functioned as the National Film Studios, Ardmore has returned total losses of £2.5 million.

Bad enough to lose money in a year when the studios are largely idle, but worse were thelosses returnned by Ardmore in the financial year January to December 1980. In thai: year the 11.5 million dollar film, "Excalibur ", directed by National Film Board Chairman, John Boorman, spent twenty six weeks in Ardmore. During that period the "Excalibur" production company spent £3,376,317 in Ireland. Yet despite the fact that for most of the twenty six weeks almost the entire Ardmore facilities and staff were devoted to the film, Ardmore's takings from "Excalibur" were a paltry £635,000.

The "Excalibur" experience leads to one or other of two inevitable conclusions about Ardmore. Either John Boorman was able to secure a cut price rate for the use of the studios' staff and facilities or the studios simply cannot pay their way as a film production unit. There is no evidence to suggest that "Excalibur" did receive exceptional treatment from the Studio management, so there is no avoiding the fact that the Studios have, under present management, become a white elephant.

Ardmore's history has been chequered. Since 1958 there has been no regular or consistent pattern of work, and in that time at least one' studio proprietor has absconded with the funds, never to be seen again. In 1973, faced with a situation in which the studios were about to be bulldozed to become a building site, the governnment stepped in, largely through the efforts of Justin Keating and acquired Ardmore for £451,000. Keating was subsequently responsible for appointting both former RTE producer, Seaamus Smith, as managing director, and John Boorman as Chairman, of the NFSI.

The Government's reasoning for investing in Ardmore was to preserve and further develop the fledgling Irish film industry. But Ardmore's current financial problems stem from a basic lack of clarity on the part of the Government and the department conncerned as to what exactly is meant by the term "Irish film industry".

Encouraging an Irish film industry could mean creating the economic climate whereby international direcctors are tempted to come to Ireland to make million dollar plus feature films such as "Excalibur ". Alternaatively an Irish film industry could mean encouraging the making of specifically Irish films e.g. those with an Irish story or characters such as Bob Quinn's "Poteen".

The Department of Industry and Commerce's attitude has been to preetend that it is Ardmore's business to be involved in both types of film. Yet no legislation, not even the recent Irish Film Board Act (August 1981), has done anything much to help either form of film making. The net result is that Ardmore has been invollved in only three big films in six years and the small group of Irish producers and directors have yet to produce even one significant international success.

Ardmore Studios are currently run on the basis of functioning as a facility service. That means they can offer any film producer/director a full range of equipment, facilities and highhly skilled technicians. Space rental (the hire of the sound stages) brings back little profit since Ardmore charrges only £100 per day, on average. Lee Electric, fer instance, a similar sized London studio, charge £350 per day, with a maximum reduction of 25% if a deal is made for long term use of the sound studios.

Sheamus Smith claims the discreepancy in figures is explained by the fact that there is a far greater demand for London studios than for Ardmore. The point is that Ardmore will contiinue to lose money if it operates on a simple space rental base.

The major income earned by Arddmore comes from the mark up on labour and the equipment rental. Yet even when "Excalibur" had abbsorbed the entire 24 studio workshop staff, the company's mark-up did not prevent them making a loss. The probblem about the mark-up on labour on a large production like "Excalibur" is that, having absorbed all the availlable studio personnel, the production company is then free to hire its own extra free lance personnel. The NFSI will receive no cut in the wages of such free lance personnel because the prooduction company has hired them ittself, directly. Thus, of its £1,101,330 wage bill, "Excalibur" spent only £173,500 or less than 18%, in Arddmore.

The obvious conclusion from "Exxcali bur" is that the fact that a major feature film is being made in Ardmore for a large part of the year does not guarantee financial viability. The bulk of "Excalibur's" spending in Ireland was accounted for by transportation (£340,904), accommodation and living allowances (£477,952) and of course the wage bill. Ardmore made no money on any of these areas of exxpenditure. (I 8% of wages excepted).

For Ardmore to be financially viable on its present basis, it would have to be involved in a major production for 45 weeks of the year. The studio's record shows this to be an entirely unrealistic expectation. Ardmore has hardly been involved in 45 weeks of major production in its entire six year history as the National Film Studios, let alone 45 weeks in anyone of those years.

The reason why working Ardmore on a facility service basis does not pay is simple - the studios fixed costs are currently a prohibitive £800,000. This is accounted for by a wage bill of £350,000, bank interest charges of £250,000 and overheads (electricity, insurance, phones etc) of £200,000. Obviously the biggest millstone around the Ardmore neck is the wage bill.

The staff at the NFSI number 46, which is made up of 12 in administraation, 6 in security, 4 in maintenance and 24 in the studio workshops (cameras, sound, props, drapes, lightting etc). Ardmore is overmanned. It does not take 46 people to produce £150,000 of commercials in twelve months. Even Ardmore's own finanncial controller, Dan Ferari, admitted to Magill that in the hands of private enterprise, the studios would be staffed at a much lower level and could become a viable concern.

It is significant that the last year in which Ardmore returned a profit was in 1974, when it had a staff of 25 people. At that time Dermot O'Sulliivan of RTE ran the studios on a careetaker basis, while waiting for the National Film Studios Board to be appointed. Concentrating largely on attracting the television commercials work, O'Sullivan returned modest proofits of £25,000 and £40,000 respecctively. Most significantly, O'Sullivan. ignored the business of attracting feature films. He reasoned that if such films wanted to come to Ireland and/or Ardmore that they would do so for their own reasons and not beecause of any incentives which he could offer.

Ardmore's managing director, Sheamus Smith, claims that if the Government would provide incenntives and inducements, enough feature films could be enticed to Ardmore, both to justify the large staff role and to keep the studios financially viable. Smith would like to see the Governnment make concessions in the areas of export tax relief (for the overseas innvestor in a film) and domestic tax relief (for Irish investors).

Furthermore Smith wants the Government to buy up the company's share capital (at the moment the Government owns £100,000 share capital), payoff the bank interest on borrowings and leave the studios with funds to actually invest in films themselves. Smith calculates that it would require £2Y2 million to do this. With money to invest in the films being produced in Ardmore, the studio would be in a position to actually make a significant return on a film, should the film prove profitable.

But there's the rub. Nine out of ten films are complete commercial flops. The NFSI's only previous venture into investment in a film being produuced in the studios proved to be disasstrous since well over £100,000 was lost on "Taxi Mauve" in 1977. To innvest in films with any security, it would be necessary to have sufficient funding to be able to invest in at least half a dozen films simultaneously. Such funding is unlikely to be made available to the NFSI Board and therefore Smith's plans for future viability seem unrealistic.

The cost of making a film in Ireeland is higher than anywhere else in Europe, in terms of materials, hotels, living allowances and transportation expenses. Theie is little to attract a film maker to come to either Ireland or Ardmore.

Even the necessity of having an Irish location does not guarantee that film makers will come to Ireland, since any American studio can indicate locations where an Irish Landscape can be simulated. Nor does the newly formed Irish Film Board, with funds of £4.1 million over four years, look likely to be able to attract any major films.

It seems the board of the NFSI and it's management would do better to ignore the whole concept of an innternational film industry and conncentrate on the less ambitious areas of television film making and television commercial making.

When Ardmore returned its last annual profit in 1974, it was resporissible for 95% of the commercials being made in Ireland. Over the last three years the studio's turnover on commerrcials has remained static at £150,000 per annum. Yet in this same period, the energetic management of MRA at Windmill Lane, Dublin have increased a turnover on post production (editing) of commercials from £300,000 to £700,000 per annum. The turnover of the four biggest commercial makers in Ireland alone would aggregate £1.7 million. There is work in this field in Ireland, yet the NFSI seems to have missed out on it badly.

In November 1977, the Department of Industry asked Arthur D. Little, business consultants to investigate the NFSI and determine what schemes for financing films would be appropriate to ensure the survival of the studios. The subsequent report was never pubblished, but many of its findings are relevant today. Not only did the Little report recommend that Arddmore concentrate attention on the domestic television commercial scene but also it suggested that more teleevision film work should be sought. (In six years Ardmore has done twelve television films.)

The Little report was particularly critical of the attitude whereby "the Studios are seen as a Government showcase and rather more is spent on design and decor than necessary in a commercial organisation."

If Ardmore is to survive at all, it will have to be as a much scaled down operation whose sights are set on Kerrygold ads and not "Excaliburs". At the end of six years, and after an expenditure of over £3 million, Ireeland still has no genuine film industry. Film making in Ireland remains a stop start business, with many of the inndustry's 1000 technicians working 6 months in 12, at the most - £600,000 per year is a lot for a 'Government showcase' which provides less than full employment for 1000 people. •