Budgets and Markets

Foreword by Sir David Puttnam, CBE

We make as many films in Europe as they do in America. But we invest significantly less money in our industry than they do in theirs. We invest less in development, less in production, less in post-production and far less in marketing. Not surprisingly, our films are a lot less successful than theirs.

There is one area on which Americans are especially keen but in which we invest almost nothing: research. Many film-makers in Europe still regard research with distaste and this is a source of great frustration. I believe in researching the markets for films and I have, with varying degrees of success, used every market-research method — including test screenings — for many years.

Research is a way of getting to ...