In the first years after 1989, films were partly financed from the state's budget as well as by public television. Still, except for a few special cases, most films are made this way.
There is never enough money for TV.
In the U.K., there's absolutely no money for television. So you can do pretty much whatever you want. They're not losing money on any of the shows, so they'll give you a lot of creative freedom. In the United States, there are millions and millions of dollars at stake, so they need a sure formula.
The problem with the cable networks is the lack of money, not from personal income but as far as show budget.
There's no money in television, but TV provides the wherewithal to get the dollars for live performances.
Anybody who wants to make television has a tremendous problem because it's a financially restrictive media in this day and age.
If you're going to be in a series and it has commercial breaks... People say, "Oh, there's a difference between cable and network," and my response to that is, "No, there's a difference between sponsored and not sponsored." That's the thing.
I wanted to make Jerusalem as feature film. But we couldn't finance it only through theatrical release, we couldn't get all the money we needed. We had to get some money from television. So we said, ok, let's do it both ways. So we did it in four parts.
