Screen Yorkshire: More than third of international visitors cite film and TV as primary reason for visiting the region
More than a third of visitors to Yorkshire from around the world have attributed film and TV as the primary reason for visiting, a film company claims.
For more than 20 years, Screen Yorkshire has invested in a variety of film and TV projects in the region.
Over this time it has built itself a reputation for being a ‘one-stop-shop’ for anyone who wants to film in Yorkshire.
The projects selected can vary from major productions to smaller independent films or TV shows but the impacts are similar.
Caroline Cooper Charles, CEO of Screen Yorkshire, describes the role of the company as an ‘engine that powers the screen’.
“We like to think of ourselves as the engine of the car,” she said.
“We do that in three main ways; we have the Yorkshire Film Office, which supports any production that is coming to film in Yorkshire whether that’s major Marvel Universe films or small independent films.
“The role of the film office is to support people with locations, studios, filming permits and permissions and really importantly, connecting our local freelance community.
“We create employment opportunities for people; we have around 1,500 freelancers registered on a daily, regular basis to secure their work.
“As we have that function to supply crew to productions, we do a lot of skills of workforce development; we have training schemes that we run across Yorkshire to help new entrants from diverse backgrounds into the industry and also help people take the next steps in their careers.
“We act as a kind of one-stop-shop for anyone who wants to film in the region, so they know they can come to Yorkshire and be in safe hands in terms of knowing that they are coming to a film-friendly environment.”
Around 35-36 per cent of international visitors have said that TV and film production is their primary reason for visiting a place, Ms Cooper Charles said.
“[This] is amazing,” she added.
“Another example is Castle Howard, which was the home for some of the Bridgerton filming.
“Castle Howard is not somewhere that you necessarily think of as being a prime destination for young people to visit, but when Bridgerton came out, the number of website visitors of the 18-24 year old age group increased by 3,400 per cent.
“We have invested in [shows] like All Creatures Great and Small which does present that very warm, cosy, lovely bucolic image of period Yorkshire and also very contemporary stories in Bradford which reflect the multicultural nature of that community.
“The screen tourism benefit is absolutely huge in terms of people making decisions about where they want to go on holiday, where they want to spend their money, places that they want to visit.
“If you use Gentleman Jack as an example, which was filmed at Shibden Hall, the visitor numbers absolutely skyrocketed after it was aired on our screens.
“Happy Valley has had a similar effect in terms of people being drawn to visit Calderdale, All Creatures Great and Small is a brilliant example of people going to Grassington.
“As well as the direct spend and the direct benefit of the local crews and the local communities, the economic value, there’s all of those spill-over effects that are very much more long term.”
Screen Yorkshire set up the Yorkshire Content Fund in 2012 and is now considered the longest running regional production fund in the UK.
It has overseen successful projects such as the first season of Peaky Blinders and All Creatures Great and Small.
“My role as chief executive and running that production fund is working with our investment committee to make decisions about the projects that we want to support financially,” Ms Cooper Charles said.
“The way that this works is we invest in those projects and then - hopefully, there’s no guarantees with film and TV - we make money back on those projects and can reinvest it back into productions that are filming in Yorkshire.
“Our first investment was in the first ever season of Peaky Blinders back in 2012, so obviously that went on to be a very successful returning series.
“We’ve got other more recent examples of equally successful projects which have come back to Yorkshire again and again like All Creatures Great and Small which we also invested in the early days.
“We are looking for projects that obviously have creative and cultural value but also have a commercial place in the market so that we can recoup our investment, make sure that the fund is ongoing and we can continue to invest in projects for the future.”
Ms Cooper Charles explained the main aspects they look for in each project.
“We look into the quality of the project; is it a fantastic script, does it feel original, how is it representing Yorkshire, not necessarily a postcard view of Yorkshire, but in its rich diversity,” she said.
“We assess on [these] main areas; whether we think the project has strong commercial prospects, we look at the regionality of the project, how many local cast and artists they might be employing, how much money they are going to spend locally, what percentage of the production is going to be filmed in Yorkshire.
“We can pretty much do everything in Yorkshire because we have such rich and diverse landscapes.”