Outstanding Film, Television and Digital Media in the South West

Published in Oct 2004 by South West Screen

A few key facts

There are more creatives employed in the South West than in any other region outside London.

The Creative Industries are worth £1billion to the South West.

The audio-visual industries across the south west support nearly 30,000 jobs.

There are 1,825 Digital Media companies creating 3,236 jobs generating £282m revenue & GVA of £151m in 2001.

There are 500 Television companies creating 2,033 jobs.

The South West has a national and international reputation for excellence and innovation in the film, television and video industries, including recognition as a world leader in film animation and natural history production.
Bristol companies are responsible for 25% of all natural history programming in the world.

The recent establishment of a new studio complex for Big Brother producers Endemol UK in Bristol will ensure significant further inward investment into the region.

Ofcom is putting media literacy at the heart of education to produce an informed, intelligent and engaged public.  In today’s world where technological competence is a necessity, media literacy is as important as the ‘3 R’s’.

There are 67.3m visits to the cinema in this country every year.

Current cinema provision in the South West comprises 265 screens in 80 cinemas - mainly based in urban centres - and 36 film societies. Per head of population this equates to 5.4 screens for every 100,000.
 
Access to film in rural areas is being provided by schemes such as Dorset Film Touring’s Moviola but there needs to be much wider provision to these remote areas.
 
There were 138 film and television productions filmed in the South West in 2003, bringing £23,627m direct spend into the region.  These include international feature films such as Vanity Fair, filmed in Bath, British films such as Johnny English and major television series such as Teachers.  £12m alone was generated from BBC’s Casualty, filmed entirely in Bristol and the surrounding area.

South West Screen manages public investment in skills of approximately £60,000 RIFE funds per year, with £300,000 secured from other sources like the South West Regional Development Agency and Learning and Skills Councils, and £40,000 from Skillset, Sector Skills Council for the Audio-Visual industries.
 
Several internationally renowned film festivals take place in the region including Wildscreen, the world’s number o­ne natural history festival, and the Brief Encounters short film festival.

Brief Encounters International Short Film Festival 2003 attracted 4643 audience members in 2003 and provided 30 screenings featuring 180 films from over 20 countries.

Animated Encounters 2003 featured 87 films from 15 countries.

Wildscreen’s Panda Awards are the wildlife and environmental equivalent of the OSCARS® and in 2002 nearly 400 films competed for these prestigious awards.
  
£225,689 worth of Lottery funding has gone into 32 First Light projects in the South West, involving 606 young people who have produced 53 films
 
Watershed, the region’s beacon media centre in Bristol, had 23 million requests to its website in 2003, serving 650 gigabytes to 214,961 distinct hosts located in 80 countries.
 
Over the past 2 years, Creative Partnerships in the South West have invested £520,000 in digital media and moving image to take forward significant strands of joined up educational work within schools, as well as exploring new ways of linking the region’s vibrant media sector with children and young people
 
‘The children increased their standard by 4 years during this o­ne school year’.  Annabel Davis, Year 5 teacher, Fair Furlong School, talking about the Wrong Flowers film project.
 
HP Labs in Bristol commissioned award winning design and animation house 422 South to produce a short animated film to demonstrate the power of their research and development work in utility computing.  The resulting film, The Painter, took a fraction of the time that would have been needed using conventional methods and has met with universal acclaim.
 
The broadbandshow was the first UK project to create a Broadband Content Commissioning Fund.  The £1.5million project created by Bric Ltd in Bristol and funded by the DTI Broadband Fund via the South West RDA, is an example of the south west leading the way in digital and interactive content.
 
Node was chosen as the o­ne content production company nationally to present at the DTI Innovation event in London before an audience of 300 people. 

Outstanding production companies including:

Aardman Animations – nominated for 7 OSCARS®, winners of 3; debut feature film Chicken Run, grossed $200m worldwide

Twofour Productions – award winning broadcast producer employs over 100 production and technical staff at its studios in Plymouth

BDH – BAFTA winning creative design agency, winner of 12 Royal Television Society awards

Films at 59 – Televisual’s No. 1 UK regional post-production house

E3Media – No. 3 in Design Week’s league table of digital media companies

Emmy winners Green Umbrella, along with Icon Films and Scorer Associates all ‘Green Oscar’ winners at Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival 

Outstanding Higher Education reputation:-

The Media School at Bournemouth University – CGI

Bournemouth Arts Institute – Graphics

Falmouth College of Arts – Broadcast Journalism

University of West of England – Animation

Exeter and Bath Spa – Creative Writing

Published in Oct 2004 by South West Screen
All details correct at time of going to press. We apologise for any inadvertent errors or omissions