Green Bay open studios and announce film development fund

As Wales’s First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, made the first digital edit at the opening of Green Bay’s Talbot Studios in Cardiff yesterday, the company announced the launch of a new feature film development fund.
Under the scheme, Green Bay seeks to join with other production companies in Wales to create a ‘slate’ of film scripts which could prove attractive to film financiers, distributors and investors. Green Bay already has two cinema films in development with support of lottery funding through Sgrîn Cymru Wales and the Arts Council of Wales.
Green Bay’s founders and creative directors Phil George and John Geraint share a wealth of experience in bringing prestigious international projects to the screen. They will be joined on the editorial board of the new fund by Richard Staniforth, an experienced film producer who is a former chair of BAFTA Cymru and member of the Government’s British Film Industry Working Party.
Green Bay’s initiative has already won the backing of Wales’ biggest production facilities group, Barcud Derwen, who are co-funding the fund’s start-up phase, and of Sgrîn, the Media Agency for Wales.
Sgrîn’s Chief Executive Berwyn Rowlands said: “Green Bay’s thinking is entirely in line with Sgrîn’s strategy for film development. It’s vitally important that producers in Wales develop projects relevant to the international market. An exciting scheme like this, which begins with seeking to attract private investment before coming to public bodies for the substantial matching funds which are available, is bound to be on the right track.”
Opening Green Bay’s Talbot Studios - which houses digital editing facilities, production offices and ‘incubation space’ for new entrants to the film and television industries - Rhodri Morgan said: “The creative industries are playing an increasingly important role in the Welsh economy, so it is pleasing to see a company investing for the future. The Assembly Investment Grant has proved to be an important way of helping ambitious companies make the leap they need to grow.”
Green Bay has already established itself as a leading television production company, with a large slate of commissions for series and one-off specials from major UK broadcasters. Green Bay’s hits in the past year include 'The Story of Welsh with Huw Edwards', and the first TV biography of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams. The company’s very first programme, 'Do Not Go Gentle' – a celebration of Dylan Thomas’s great poem – reached the finals of the ‘Olympics of Television’, the 2002 Banff Rockie Awards, one of the world’s foremost media prizes.
Green Bay Media, www.green-bay.tv
(SP)