Dear Sir
I read with considerable interest the leader article on the front page of AMPS Issue 18.
Please know that my BAFTA colleagues and I were as dismayed as anybody regarding some aspects of the televised Craft Awards of 14th April. If you can find space to print this letter in your next issue I will be pleased because it is important that your readers know that the Academy has not just shrugged its shoulders about the matter and intends to do nothing. Our Council, under chairman Eddie Mirzoeff, is addressing the issues, struggling to find a way of delivering more appropriate recognition of the skills of British technicians in future years. Struggling? Certainly, it is not an easy task as the Academy does not produce the show and therefore does not have control of the verbal and visual content. Because of the high cost of mounting an awards event for television we have to rely on the broadcasters - BBC and ITV - to provide the finance; in turn, they make it 'their' show and devise content and a style which (they hope) will attract viewers in large numbers.
I am afraid I have to take issue with your statement - 'There is a TV audience with an interest in film and TV crafts'. Yes, there is indeed an audience with such an interest, but the reality is that it is too small to command the numbers - at prime time or close to it - that will justify the expense of mounting a straightforward ceremony for broadcast television. Hence the 'glitz' element which we all find so irritating.
Having, over the years, played my own small part within Britain's well known technical skills base, and in view of Ms Wax's most crass remark, I take this opportunity of sending all good wishes to fellow Munshkins.
Sir Sydney Samuelson CBE
British Film Commission, London