Brexit to have a '˜damaging impact' on the film industry

Cluster: The hit film, The Kings Speech, was filmed around Yorkshire with the county viewed as a production cluster for both film and television.

Iain Smith OBE, chairman of the national agency responsible for bringing productions to the UK, said that inward investment won’t be affected as much by the decision to leave the European Union.

However, British film industry will feel the affects of Brexit due to its close links to the continent.

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, Mr Smith said: “It won’t have such a big impact on inward investment, which is mainly coming from America.

“But it’s likely to have quite a damaging impact on the indigenous industry, which has much more connections with European support and of course European talent.

“We’re very aware of that and we’re watching it as we go forward. We’re advising Government accordingly.”

Mr Smith was taking part in a panel discussion looking at how the North is presented in TV and film as part of Creative England’s inaugural Be More Creative event in Leeds.

Caroline Norbury, CEO of Creative England, told The Yorkshire Post that creative companies needed to consider adopting a more diffused approach to their operations in order to ensure all the regions benefitted economically.

She said: “It’s undoubtedly true that talent follows money and opportunity. If you want to rebalance stuff you need to not necessarily spread it more thinly but be strategic about where you spend money and how you spend it.”

Ms Norbury said the BBC’s relocation to Salford had a “big impact” in generating more opportunities in the sector for the North.

It has also made a difference within the BBC internally in how it engages with the public and industry partners, she added.

The creative industries has a role to play in ensuring a fairer distribution of opportunities across the country.

Especially in the digital age companies must not view London as the only place to carry out its operations.

“The generation coming up is not going to be as prosperous as the one before it,” Ms Norbury said. “There’s a real waste then. A real waste of potential and talent.”

She pointed to a recent report by the Social Mobility Commission which found that in general inequality within the country is getting wider.

Ms Norbury added: “That’s why I think it’s so important to invest in creativity and to invest in the creative industries because in the digital age you don’t have to necessarily be in one place.”

Creative England chose to launch its Be More Creative initiative in Leeds due to the city’s vibrant cluster. The initiative will look to unlock the country’s creative potential.

“The general principle is that you need to empower people and that means you can’t all just be concentrated in one little corner,” Ms Norbury said.

Yorkshire is a production cluster for film and television, Mr Smith said, thanks to the region’s available crew and facilities.

“It’s already established as a safe place to be [for film and TV productions],” the chairman of the BFC said.

He added: “The issue for Yorkshire as with other regions is to continue the process of growth, to look across the spectrum at not just physical buildings, which for shootings are very important, but also the technical infrastructure that supports that.”

Yorkshire needs to ensure that it has the right skills to offer to enable it to attract productions, says Mr Smith.

TV productions are increasingly opting to film in the region’s ahead of London due to the lower cost base. It’s a market which the region can take advantage of.

“Yorkshire has to move forward, as it is already doing, in order to capture that share of the market,” Mr Smith said.

Statistics published earlier this year by Screen Yorkshire showed that between 2009-2015, the region’s film and TV industries generated an annual turnover of £424m across 590 creative businesses.

‘Don’t overlook creative subjects’

Educational institutions have an important part to play in the success of Yorkshire’s creative cluster.

Caroline Norbury said it was important not to ignore creative subjects while striving to boost STEM disciplines.

She said: “The way that universities are funded, you’ve seen this huge move to STEM, which I absolutely applaud, but there’s no point having the pipes if you haven’t got the poetry. There’s no point in having all that technology if there’s actually no content.”

Universities need to work with the creative industries to ensure skilled talent is released into the world of work, says Iain Smith. The BFC chairman said that this was beginning to happen.