THE producers of Sense and Sensibility, which won an Oscar for Emma Thompson, have said the movie could not have been made in Ireland because of the high cost of filming here.
Its co-producer, Mr Laurie Borg, told a conference of filmmakers in Dublin yesterday that Ireland had become an expensive location for filming and said producers were now seeking locations in countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic.
Mr Borg was production manager on Alan Parker's film of Roddy Doyle's book, The Commitments, which was filmed here, and more recently he was associate producer of A Further Gesture, filmed partly in Ireland.
He said that it had now become "very, very tough to film in Ireland". The real problem was with the trade unions. One of the major difficulties was the lack of structures here, which led to labour costs changing every week. In the US, where union labour was also used, everything was covered by agreements.
"Ireland has superb crews, but they are expensive. Until this is sorted out, film makers are going to ask. What have we got to gain filming in Ireland? If we had filmed Sense and Sensibility in Ireland it would have cost an extra $5 million."
The German producer, Mr Chris Sievernich, who produced the Cannes Palme d'Or winner, Paris Texas, agreed. Ireland was an expensive place to make films, he said. It was not just the rates paid to crews, but car rental, petrol, accommodation and all the other costs. People signed deals and then did not turn up because a bigger film was being made. If there were no agreements with the unions no one could accurately cost a film.
The writer and producer, Mr Gerry Stembridge, asked how producers could expect commitment when they came to Ireland only to leave again. Everyone was trying to get what money they could. People were not fools they knew they were working in an uncertain area. It was only when there was a critical mass, with films being made all the time, that the atmosphere would change. "When Mel Gibson stepped up to receive his Oscar for Braveheart he did not give a damn where it was filmed 10 months previously."
Mr Eugene Fanning, the entertainment lawyer who worked on Far and Away, Braveheart, and the film of Maeve Binchy's novel, A Circle of Friends, said that to expect full written agreements was like expecting a price list when shopping at the souk in Cairo, where the merchants wanted to bargain.
The unions, he said, had helped to keep the film industry alive for the past 10 years. While people's eyes tended to turn into dollar signs when a film company was seeking the use of a property, that was now beginning to change.