No guarantee of ‘Guernsey’ filming taking place in island
Saturday 9th February 2013, 4:00PM GMT.
LACK of tax incentives could disrupt plans to film part of the ‘Guernsey’ film in the island, the film’s producer, Paula Mazur, has warned.
It is planned that filming for the adaptation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society will take place in the late spring and early summer.
Due to the busy time of year, it is planned that just one week of the two-month shoot would take place in the island.
But Ms Mazur, pictured, warned that while the Commerce and Employment Department had been very helpful, filming in the island was not assured.
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Whilst it would probably be a good PR exercise for Guernsey for this film to be made and even better even partially filmed here surely we have missed the greatest opportunity of all? Les Miserables has been a world wide success and hugely profitable , Guernsey should have been shouting from the rooftops our connection. Anyone who has read both books will know there is of course no competition for the winner. Potato Peel is a very average story , written in a very average way but Les Mis a literary gem. We should have backed the winner not the runner up.
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I agree about the quality of the source material but I doubt the Guernsey connection with VMH would have cut much ice in the promotion of Les Mis. I’ll bet that the inferior book will make a very popular film worldwide.
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If the film makers think they can make millions of dollars in making this film then they should pay the going rate for goods and services while filming. Why should the islands go cap-in-hand to give them cheap filming.
So what if they film off island? If the film`s story is set in Guernsey then we`ll get the same publicity when it`s released, after all they have said that it will only be some cliff shots that will count and a cliff is a cliff whether in Guernsey, Cornwall of Aberdeen. It`s the story line that counts.
There`s enough scroungers locally that are trying to get out of paying taxes.
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That may be true Ted but as Oilcan Annie says we could have been on to a nice little earner with Les Mis if we’d been a tad more proactive.
Jersey still reaps the benefit of Bergerac tourists years after the series ended, Imagine the coach loads of excitable American cruise ship passengers falling over themselves to visit the scene of the “Potatah pie” film
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No sour grapes on my part, but I honestly wonder if this filming and so on will actually take place on Guernsey, a few shots, maybe; there has been much hype, children being interviewed, much speculation re star casting – all good publicity for them and their film.
Anyone remember the weekly serial years ago, Family at War, then there was so much hype about extras, etc, what we actually saw was a short clip from Perelle leading down to the coast.
Mr Pye, in some small part was televised from Sark, much hype about extras, yes we saw some, for a brief period.
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Any publicity for Guernsey is good publicity, but I certainly would not like my taxes spent on a film that maybe a success, who cares if it is filmed in Cornwall , Timbuktoo or outer Mongolia if the film is called Guernsey and portrayed as Guernsey we can certainly reap the benefits without paying out cash on a maybe successful film.Although it would be awful if it was filmed in Jersey, and called Guernsey.
I do remember Family at War being filmed at Bordeaux many years ago and also the story of Adele H filmed around the library, but to be fair they were only very brief glimpses and could have been anywhere in the world.
I would prefer another series of Island hospital, I wonder why they are not filming again. That was great free publicity.
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It would be great to have filming here but I don’t see why we should crawl to appease them. We’re going to get free publicity from the movie whether it’s filmed here or not.
Perhap we should do what the late great Alec Guinness did with Star Wars? Agree to tax concessions but in return negotiate a % share of any gross profits made by the movie franchise.
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Why on earth should they have made Les Mis here when the story was all set in France? On that basis the Wombles should have been made in Alderney, and Bergerac in England. Crazy logic. As for the film makers avoiding Guernsey, didn’t they already get a financial inducement to film here agreed some time ago? If they want a totally unauthentic setting, that’s their funeral but it doesn’t say much for the plausibility of anything else in the film does it?
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Beanjar, you may well ask “why on earth etc”. This producer lost her Director, her leading lady and the studio who were going to produce the film. She hardly seems to be at the cutting edge of cinematographic work in the 21st century and her c.v. is not exactly inspiring. Her thrust, supported strongly by the former C. & E. Minister and board, seemed more directed to gaining financial support from Guernsey for the idea to proceed. Oh yes, as if that is going to happen now! There may well be some philanthropic residents with more money than sense but I hope our current States of Guernsey has the opposite attribute, more sense than money. That’s right isn’t it ? Somebody please reassure me!
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Everyone should pay taxes on profits,yes,everyone. If they did, then perhaps we would not be in this Back hole.
On another point I thought the Island Hospital film was well made and good publicity for the Island. Should the makers decide to make a sequel, and since it is about our Island, perhaps they could include more ‘Guernsey People’to make it even more authentic.
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Trouble is that modern Guernsey is mostly unlike wartime Guernsey, and the effort involved in remodelling Town etc to look like it did in 1940 would be a) vastly expensive and b) extremely disruptive.
As long as there are some establishing shots, and beach/exterior/cliff shots done here to add authenticity, ( which the’d pretty much have to do whatever happens) the only people who are going to spot that it’s not filmed on the island are Guernsey people, who aren’t going to be a big segment of the potential viewers.
This has always been a pretty long shot. At any one time there are several thousand books in “pre-pre production” as the producer describes it. Only a tiny percentage actually get made as films. Added to this is the fact that the biggest audience was going to come from people ( mainly american, mainly middle aged, mainly female) who have read the book, loved it and wanted to see it on the screen. But it’s now 5 years since the book was first published, and it’s by now way off most people’s radar. Add to this the fact that the average Iowa housewife, how ever much she loved the book when she read it at her local book club, and however much she loved the film, is very unlikely to make the pilgrimage over here as a result.
Film financing is very hard to obtain, and frankly a book that was big half a decade ago, which has lost it’s major studio backing, it’s director and it’s female lead is not going to be the most mouth-watering prospect for potential investors.
Paula Mazur is dangling ( again!) the prospect of filming on the island in the desperate hope that someone, or the States will come up with some very serious money, since, obviously, not many people are keen any more.
So, nice to have if it happens, but it’s unlikely to happen now, and the only way Guernsey could influence whether it’s made or not would be by coming up with many millions of pounds. There are better things to spend taxes on than speculating in one of the riskiest forms of investment there is.
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who said anything about the States investing in the project?
the article only suggests that they are asking for tax incentives, not actual cash.
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A warning to Guernsey that unless we offer tax breaks the 20 seconds of screen time will not be filmed in Guernsey?? So what! It’s an American book written by Americans about people who might as well be Americans. To be honest they might as well film it in Jinsey, although even that island is more authentic than the fantasy world of potato pie.
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LACK of tax incentives could disrupt plans to film part of the ‘Guernsey’ film in the island, Well that shows the way the others see us Probably best its not filmed here plus they could only film the cliffs as the rest of the island has been covered in modern concrete structures to accommodate the finance industry and make others a quick buck. Not much else left to film really there’s probably far better places that look more like Guernsey used to look like.
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“Well that shows the way the others see us”
Not really. It is a very common practice for countries to offer tax incentives to encourage film makers to site their locations there. The presence of a film crew spending money and using locals tradesmen and services etc. is a benefit, whereas the jurisdiction gives up tax revenues which it would not get anyway if the filming went elsewhere.
Similar to how countries grant tax concessions to sportsmen and women coming to their country to compete – as otherwise they would not come.
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There is also the not so small matter of trying to hide the sound and sight of 60,000 vehicles whilst filming!
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There are a few bits of the Island which vaguely resemble how they looked in the 1940s (and I’m sure a faux-cottage or two on Pleinmont or by Bordeaux should be easy to rig up). But couldn’t Herm, Sark and Alderney, all fairly under-urbanised compared to the mainland, be used instead?
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Can’t use Bordeaux because of the habit of emptying cesspits into the roadway
No sign of a follow up on that particular ‘story’
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