Lumières La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon 1895 / Photo Credit: Brothers Lumiere - Irish Film Institute
IRISH CINEMA… (In the Entertainment
industry. History of Irish Cinema)
Bruce
Bisbey…please follow me at: https://dumbdogproductionsllc.blogspot.com or https://www.facebook.com/DumbDogProductionsLLC/ thank you.
Irish Cinema
The story of Irish cinema begins much as the story of
cinema elsewhere in Europe. As early as April 1896, four months after the Paris
debut of the Lumière Cinematographe, moving pictures were being shown in Dublin
city. Kevin Rockett records that over seven thousand people attended Lumière
screenings during one week in October 1896. The first images of Ireland on film
were made not long after by visiting Lumière cameramen.
Irish Film Institute
The first cinema in Ireland, the Volta, was opened at 45
Mary Street, Dublin, in 1909 by the novelist James Joyce. Already known for fueling
the country’s rich literary tradition, James Joyce, one of the country’s most
influential writers, set up Ireland’s first official venue for showing films,
Dublin’s Volta cinema, in 1909. While the Volta has since closed, today the
Irish have the highest per-capita cinema attendance in the world, according to
the most current international data, compiled by The Economist. Thirty-eight
percent of residents aged 15 to 35 reported going to the movies at least once a
month in 2010, and the year prior saw a total of 28.8 million visits to the
movies, impressive for a population of just 4.5 million.
Cinema appreciation in Ireland can be traced back to the
final years of the 19th Century, when eager Dubliners would gather in the city
centre to watch silent films incorporated into variety shows. Around that time,
the earliest known film footage shot in Ireland, of Dublin’s O’Connell Street
in 1897, was recorded by a cameraman for the French inventors the Lumière
brothers (who invented the device he was using just two years prior). He was
the first of many foreign filmmakers to fall in love with the country.
In 1910, silent filmmaker Sidney Olcott, a
Canadian-American of Irish descent, became the first Hollywood director to
shoot an on-location movie when he travelled to County Kerry to make A Lad from
Old Ireland. John Ford, the Irish-American filmmaker who holds the record for
the most Academy Awards for directing (four), also made several movies about
Ireland, starting with a 1935 adaptation of the Liam O’Flaherty novel The
Informer. His best known Irish movie to date, though, is The Quiet Man, a 1952
Oscar-winning film shot in County Mayo about a retired Irish-American boxer,
played by John Wayne, who returns to the Irish town he was born in.
Ardmore Studios was the first Irish studio, opening in
1958 in Bray, County Wicklow.
The Irish film industry has grown somewhat in recent year’s
thanks partly to the promotion of the sector by Bord Scannán na hÉireann (Irish
Film Board) and the introduction of heavy tax breaks. According to the Irish
Audiovisual Content Production Sector Review carried out by the Irish Film
Board and PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2008 this sector, has gone from 1,000
people employed six or seven years ago, to well over 6,000 people in that
sector now and is valued at over €557.3 million and represents 0.3% of GDP.
According to an article in Variety magazine spotlighting
Irish cinema, a decade ago Ireland had only two filmmakers anyone had heard of:
Neil Jordan and Jim Sheridan. As of 2010, Ireland can boast more than a dozen
directors and writers with significant and growing international reputations.
Ireland is now achieving critical mass of filmmaking talent to match the kind
of influence, disproportionate to its small size, which it has always enjoyed
in the fields of literature and theatre. Following in the footsteps of Sheridan
and Jordan comes a generation that includes such directors as Lenny Abrahamson,
Conor McPherson, John Crowley, Martin McDonagh, John Carney, Kirsten Sheridan,
Lance Daly, Paddy Breathnach and Damien O'Donnell and writers such as Mark O'Rowe,
Enda Walsh and Mark O'Halloran.
Former Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Martin Cullen
(2008–2010) said that “the film industry is the cornerstone of a smart and
creative digital economy”. But as well as the concrete economic benefits that
the Irish film industry brings in by way of cash investment from overseas and
the associated VAT, PAYE and PRSI receipts, it has been noted that there are
the soft benefits in terms of the development and projection of the Irish
culture and the promotion of tourism.
While big-budget international productions keep crews
working and are enormously valuable to the country, it is the indigenous
industry that is at the heart of creating opportunity and giving skills and
experience to Irish producers, directors, writers and crew, telling the stories
that emerge from Irish-based talent. Some of the most successful Irish films
include The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Intermission (2003), Man About
Dog (2004), Michael Collins (1996), Angela's Ashes (1999), The Commitments
(1991), Once (2007) and Notorious (2017). Mrs. Brown's Boys D'Movie (2014)
holds the record for the biggest gross on the opening day of an Irish film in
Ireland. . Notorious (2017) on the other hand holds the record for highest
grossing Irish documentary of all time.[citation needed]
In the past many films were censored or banned, owing
largely to the influence of the Catholic Church with films including The Great
Dictator (1940), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Life of Brian (1979) being
banned at various times, although virtually no cuts or bans have been issued in
recent years, one as of August 2006. The Irish Film Censor's Office policy is
that of personal choice for the viewer, considering his job to examine and
classify films rather than censor them.
Ireland has a high rate of cinema admissions (the highest
in Europe).
There are several cinema chains operating in Ireland.
Among them are ODEON Cinemas (formerly UCI/Storm Cinemas), Omniplex, IMC
Cinemas (Both Omniplex and IMC are owned by the Ward Anderson group),
Cineworld, Vue and Movies@Cinemas.
Ireland as a location
The first fictional film shot in Ireland was Kalem
Company's The Lad from Old Ireland (1910), which was also the first American
film shot on location outside the United States. It was directed by Sidney
Olcott, who returned the next year to shoot over a dozen films primarily in the
small village of Beaufort, County Kerry. Olcott intended to start a permanent
studio in Beaufort, but the outbreak of World War I prevented him from doing
so.
The Irish government was one of the first in Europe to see
the potential benefit to the exchequer of having a competitive tax incentive
for investment in film and television, making use of a revised and improved
version of its Section 481 tax incentive in 2015 which gives production
companies a tax credit rate of 32% when making certain films. Other countries
have recognized the success of Ireland’s incentive scheme and matched it or
introduced a more competitive tax incentive. After a long lobbying process,
significant improvements were introduced to the Section 481 relief for
investment in film projects in 2009 to boost employment in the industry and
help re-establish Ireland as an attractive global location for film and
television production.
Kevin Moriarty, managing director of Ardmore Studios
believes Ireland is an attractive film location as there is now recognition for
the quality of the output of the Irish film industry and a perception that
Ireland is a viable film destination.
Prominent films that have been filmed in Ireland include
The Quiet Man (1952), The Lion in Winter (1968), The First Great Train Robbery
(1979), Excalibur (1981), Braveheart (1995), Reign of Fire (2002), King Arthur
(2004), The Guard (2011) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).
Ireland has been home to several noteworthy producers of
animated films in recent years. Sullivan Bluth Studios was opened in 1979 as
Don Bluth Productions, with its primary location in Dublin, to produce animated
films by director Don Bluth and producer Morris Sullivan. Some films produced
at Sullivan Bluth's Irish studio include 1988's The Land Before Time, 1989's
All Dogs Go to Heaven (co-produced with UK-based Goldcrest Films) and 1991's
Rock-a-Doodle. Many of these films competed favorably with productions by Walt
Disney Pictures at the time. However, following a number of box-office flops in
the early to mid-1990s, including 1994's Thumbelina and A Troll in Central Park
and 1995's The Pebble and the Penguin, the studio soon declared bankruptcy and
was closed in 1995.
Today, Ireland has a number of animation studios that
produce television and commercial animation, as well as feature films and
co-productions. Cartoon Saloon, founded in 1999 by Paul Young and Tomm Moore,
is among the most prolific. It has produced the award-winning TV series Skunk
Fu! as well as a feature film, 2009's The Secret of Kells, animated primarily
with Traditional paper and pencil hand drawn animation and detailing a fictitious
account of the creation of the Book of Kells. The film was nominated at the
82nd Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature. Cartoon Saloon has more feature
films in production, including Song of the Sea, released in 2014.
Recommended Books on Irish Cinema
Barton, Ruth, Irish National Cinema (Routledge, 2004)…
McIlroy, Brian, Shooting to Kill: Filmmaking and the
Troubles in Northern Ireland
(Flicks, 1998)…
McLoone, Martin, Irish Film: The Emergence of a
Contemporary Cinema (BFI, 2000)…
O’Brien, Harvey, the Real Ireland: The Evolution of
Ireland in Documentary Film
(Manchester, 2004)…
Pettitt, Lance, Screening Ireland: Film and Television
Representation (Manchester, 2000)…
Rockett, Kevin, Irish Film Censorship (Four Courts, 2004)…
Dr. Harvey O’Brien is the author of The Real Ireland: The
Evolution of Ireland in Documentary Film (Manchester, 2004) and co-editor (with
Ruth Barton) of Keeping it Real: Irish Film and Television (Wallflower, 2004).
His articles have appeared in Cineaste, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and
Television, Irish Studies Review, Éire Ireland and Film and Film Culture, of
which he is co-editor. He teaches film studies at the O’Kane Centre for Film
Studies at University College Dublin, has lectured at the Harvard Film Archive,
Boston College, and Universite de Bourgoine, and taught courses for New York
University, the Irish Film Institute, Film Base, and the National College of Art
and Design.
Sources,
References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, Pinterest, IMDB, Linked
In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, Film Daily, New York Film Academy, The
Balance, The Numbers, Film Maker, TV Guide Magazine, Media Match, Quora, Creative
Skill Set, Investopedia, Variety, No Film School, Daily Variety, The Film
Agency, Best Sample Resume, How Stuff Works, Career Trend, Producer's Code of
Credits, Producers Guild of America, Film Connection, Entertainment Careers, Adhere
Creative, In Deed, Glass Door, Pay Scale, Merriam-Webster, Job Monkey, Studio
Binder, The Collective, Production Hub, The Producer's Business Handbook by
John J. Lee Jr., The Culture Trip, Film Museum, CNN, Flynn, Arthur (2005). The
Story of Irish Film, "Entertainment value". Irish Times, Rockett,
Kevin; Luke Gibbons; John Hill (1987). Cinema and Ireland, "About the
Irish Film Board". Irish Film Board, BBC, http://www.ifi.ie/downloads/history.pdf,
Tony Deane, http://homepage.tinet.ie/~cinemax/irish_cinema.htm,
Volta
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