£50m strategy to support film talent begins delivery

Skillset and the UK Film Council have announced the first of their priorities for A Bigger Future, the UK Film Skills Strategy.
The five-year plan to help stabilise the industry in the face of increasing global competition begins implementation in April.
Stewart Till, Chairman & CEO of United International Pictures, is leading the Film Skills Strategy Committee overseeing the strategy’s implementation delivered by Skillset’s dedicated film team.
Key priorities of the strategy include:

Skillset Guiding Lights: 50 big name industry professionals will mentor 30 writers; directors; producers; and actors; and 20 agents; distributors; sales agents; exhibitors; and business affairs new entrants each year. Recruitment of mentors is underway with the scheme launching in the summer.

£1m New Entrants Schemes in year one: Applications for a raft of new structured entry schemes in junior construction, technical, production and production accounting grades open from April 19 2004.

Skillset Film Skills Trainee Network: 10 runner level and 15 trainee level new entrants will be talent spotted to benefit from support, advice, workshops, introductions to contacts and work experience placements. Runner membership will last 6 months and trainee membership 12 months.

Skillset Screen Academies: A network of centres of excellence in film in further education (FE) and higher education (HE) will be established by September 2005. The grant application process opens in September 2004 and closes in December. Announcements of successful bids will follow in April 2005.

Accreditation of individual courses: a pilot in HE screenwriting courses begins at the end of the year. Guidelines, including information on bursaries for individuals attending courses, are published in May.

£700K for short courses in year one: To aid the continual professional development of the existing workforce, short courses in priority areas will be discounted – applications will open from 19 April – and a bursary scheme will shortly be available for up to 500 individual practitioners.

Skillset Film Business Academy: focusing on management and business skills in distribution, exhibition and facilities, the Academy will be established by early 2005. Details of the grant applications process will be announced shortly.

Skillset Training Consultants: Advisors will be available to small film businesses to help them organise in house skills development. Recruitment of consultants begins in May 2004.

Skillset Training Management Grants: A select number of grants to employ in house training managers will be available for larger companies in facilities, post production, distribution and exhibition. Applications open in May 2004.

Careers Information and Guidance: Five film practitioners will be recruited and trained as careers advisors to offer face to face advice and guidance sessions and will be in post by June 2004.

Stewart Till, Chairman & CEO of United International Pictures, and Deputy Chair of Skillset and UK Film Council, explained: “The UK film industry is simply only as good as the people in it. A Bigger Future is a strategy to attract the brightest and the best and then to train and educate them throughout their film career. If we are successful then our film industry will become dramatically even more competitive and successful.”
Funding to support all the schemes identified in A Bigger Future comes from the Skillset Film Skills Fund, a collective fund made up of lottery money delegated via UK Film Council and investment from Skillset, the Skills Investment Fund (SIF), industry and public agencies.
(GB)