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MAJOR DRIVE UNDERWAY TO BOOST UK FILM SKILLS
London, 24 February 2003

Stewart Till, Deputy Chairman of both the UK Film Council and Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for the Audio Visual Industries, launched on 24 February a major push to ensure that the UK Film Industry has the skills needed to produce the cutting edge features of the future.

The most in-depth study of film skills ever produced, the Developing UK Film Talent report, commissioned by Skillset and the Film Council, was published on 24 February 2003. This mapping exercise and the resultant report is part of a two stage strategy to build a sustainable UK film industry based on the highest level of skills. The second stage is the establishment of a Film Skills Action Group whose membership was also announced. Made up of high level representatives from across the industry, the Group is to prepare a wide-ranging and comprehensive training strategy as part of the drive to make the UK's film workforce world leaders in their fields. Using the enormous wealth of industry information and detail generated by the research report, the Action Group has been charged with identifying ways of addressing the following key themes:

• Communicating and informing - the need to ensure that both would-be and existing workers in the film industry are able to find out about the opportunities available to them to gain or develop specialist film skills
• Collecting and analysing information - the establishment of a system to provide accurate and up to date intelligence on the film industry's workforce to help plan future skills, talent and company development support
• Careers advice and guidance at all levels - the need to provide film-specific careers advice, both for new entrants to the industry and those already working within it
• Pre-entry to the film industry - the need to resolve any mismatch between industry skills needs and education provision in further and higher education, including postgraduate film schools, to achieve the best balance between the commercial, creative, and technical content in film courses
• Post entry to the film industry - the need to ensure that both new entrants training and continued professional development meets the needs of the industry
• Business skills - the need to ensure that those just starting out or already working in the industry, often in 'micro-businesses' or self-employed, have the necessary business and management skills to make the most of their creative and technical expertise
• Improving diversity in the workforce - the need to ensure that all sections of the population have equal access to becoming involved in the film industry, making the most of potential talents available
• Digital and new technologies - the need to keep pace with new technologies is a major retraining issue affecting all sectors of the film industry
• Nations and regions - the need to retain and sustain creative and technical talent at a regional and national (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) level once it has been trained and developed, to build indigenous production and areas' reputations as prime locations for filming
• Investment - the need to improve the film industry's understanding of the government's training agenda, what it is prepared to invest in and why.

Announcing the new drive for skills, Action Group Chair Stewart Till said: "We are an industry whose primary asset is its people. Not only must we attract the brightest and the best of the new generation, but we must hold on to them. And the only long term way to do that and maintain our competitive edge is to develop the very highest level creative and technical skills which will allow individuals, and the UK film industry as a whole, to prosper and grow."

The Film Skills Action Group includes representatives from Paramount Pictures, Working Title Films Ltd, Applecross Productions, Odeon, the Cine Guilds of Great Britain, the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT) and Cinesite, alongside staff from the Film Council and Skillset. The Action Group will make its report in late summer 2003.

The Developing UK Film Talent report is the most comprehensive survey of skills and training of the UK's film industry ever undertaken. The research was conducted between May and December 2002 using over 330 face to face and telephone interviews, group discussions, and e-mail consultation with the industry and education and training providers. Current and emerging skills gaps and shortages were identified and the effectiveness of training and vocational education currently available to people new to or already working
in the industry assessed.

The full report is available on the Skillset website, or email them at film@skillset.org

Published on www.britfilms.com

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