1) Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan started out in the media business by making music videos in the early 1980s. They called the business Aldabra
2) Working Title grew out of Big Science Limited.
3) This is comparable to WarpX/Warp Films as they both started out as Indie companies.
4) The three critically-acclaimed film directors they got to work on their videos were; Nic Roeg, Derek Jarman and Stephen Frears.
5) Stephen Frears directed My beautiful laundrette and Sammy and Rosie get laid.
6) EMI and Goldcrest were the two big companies dominating the British film industry in the early 1980s however by the end of the 1980s they had disappeared.
7) Hanif Kureshi received his funding from Film Four.
8) What attracted Frears and WT to the script was that it was different. no one had ever done a film like this. 'Contemporary London seen through the eyes of a Pakistani and a gay one at that.'
9) Rising stars that have emerged from Wt include people such as; Dan (MBlaundrette), Emily Lloyd (Wish you were here), Hugh Grant (Four weddings and a funeral), Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth) and Jamie Bell(Billy Elliot).
10) MBL was originally only intended to be a television movie. This changed because of the reception that it received at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
11)LA/Hollywood is so central to the success of any film venture because this is where any major film decisions in film are made. Additionally most film finance comes from there, they have the main talent agencies and most worldwide film distrbution is based in Hollywood. 'Without a relationship with the LA talent agents you will not go far.'
12) WT's co-founders contrast with most British producers because they do not see America as their enemy whilst most others do.
13) The Working Title way is to work with new/unknown actors & actresses, writers and directors.
14) The pub on Wardour Street, The George, was the informal venue. This tells you that they were more relaxed back then and independent.
15) The Tall Guy indirectly led to the worldwide success of Four Weddings... by recieving a largish royalty cheque from the film's financier. Part of the cheque was then sent to Richard Curtis who was so suprised that he was seeing any of the money from the royalty cheque that he sent them the Four weddings... screenplay.
16) Richard Curtis hasto be involved with every stage of his films. As a writer, an executive producer (The Tall Guy, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill), a director (Love Actually), and a co-writer and executive producer on Bean and Bridget Jone's Diary. He also worked on the casting, crewing, editing and marketing of those films.
17) Polygram invested in Working Title and then acquired it. Sarah Radclyffe wanted to remain an independant producer and so left to form her own company whilst Eric Fellner joined as co-chairman.
18) Their internal infrastructure consisted of a development department run by Liza in LA and Debra in London, a business affairs department that would make and paper all deals from a rights agreement through to a major star's contract run by their COO Angela Morrison. As well as a physical production department liasing and monitering all stages of each film's production, run by Jane Frazer. Eric and Tim also decided that they would share all major decisions.
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