Collaboration needed to navigate South East's film skills shortage

The UK film industry is sailing slowly towards an iceberg and unless a new course is steered it is headed for delays in productions, rising costs or a loss of confidence in the sector.

A skills shortage of titanic proportions is heading towards the UK with film and high-end television production in the UK expected to be worth £7.66bn a year by 2025 according to research by ScreenSkills.

The British Film Institute (BFI) supported study found that this growth will require the UK to find up to 20,770 additional full-time crew.

What, then, is being done to address this impending skills crisis?

The University of Reading and its Cine Valley development, with Shinfield Studios Limited as the main tenant, is investing in its own facilities and, like its peers, is refocusing courses towards in-demand skills.

The University of Surrey has also invested £2 million in its own custom-built studio to expand its recording studios for music and media students which will open before the end of the year.

The British Film Commission is investing £100,000 in targeted training courses designed to increase access to skilled crew.

Amazon has committed to creating 1,000 apprenticeships across the UK while Netflix operates a range of training schemes including the £1.5 million Grow Creative UK which will support 1,000 apprentices.

Edd Pickering, Head of Commercial & Development at the University of Reading, said: “If we want to make Cine Valley a success and if we are all going to benefit from its growth then we need to address the skills shortage.

“We hope that 16 and 17 year-olds will come to Reading because we have Cine Valley and as the school grows then the film industry will grow too.

“We very much hope that with Cine Valley and Shinfield Studios Limited, our students will go into high skilled and high paying jobs, stay in the local area and develop the local economy.”

Susan Pratt, Programme Leader for Film Production and Broadcast Engineering at the University of Surrey, called for greater collaboration between the film industry and academic sector to keep the talent pipeline running.

The former BBC News Director said: “We have great connectivity with the broadcast industry as they know our students have strong technical skills and we have students at Disney, Sky, BT Sports and NEP.

“What I don't have yet is perfect connectivity into the film industry. The industry has a shortage and needs to reach out to the courses people with young graduates with training in drama production. 

“Studios need to find a way to relate more to universities and take advantage of the excellent students that we are producing.”

The South East however is not coming from a standing start when it comes to film skills having benefited from the BBC in London being a centre of excellence for training.

Susan said: “There are a lot of people in the South East who were trained at the BBC’s centre of excellence.

“A lot of people who did work for the BBC did live in the South East and would commute into Shepperd’s Bush.

“There are a great number of people in the area with a lot of expertise.”

The University of Surrey’s new studio complex will have facilities geared towards the university’s creative music technology and film production and broadcast engineering students.

It will feature a sound stage with acoustic walls and ceilings, lighting rig, TV gallery and sound mixing desk.

Susan said: “Our new studio complex is incredibly exciting and it has progressed very quickly.

“The flexibility of the space is going to be brilliant for students and for external productions.

“The sound stage will be able to teach all of the skills within that area and get students accustomed to what they can expect within the real world.

“It will also work as a TV studio and connected to it we have a TV gallery with professional vision mixer, set ups for graphics and vision engineering control and a sound mixing desk.

“The facility will mean we can stream our broadcast as a live production.”

Susan says that many in the industry have been warning of the looming skills shortages for years and urged film studios to set up established and equitable routes for students to gain experience.

She said: “People in production companies want people to come and work for free, however you don't get a wide range of people that are able to come and work for free.

“It needs to be opened out to a wider and diverse group of people and they need to pay for them to be there.”

Crucial to easing the skills crunch and creating a sustainable film industry is increasing the number of people with tangible technical skills.

However soft skills, according to Susan, that allow people to thrive in a film studio environment are also vital.

She said: “Young people see people on the TV and say they want to do this, however they don’t realise there are a wealth of jobs that are behind the scenes that can give them a great future and exciting career.

“We teach them technical skills which gives them the ability to problem solve and use their initiative.

“They need to know how to make things work and how to fix something on location.

“We also give our students the chance to put their skills into practise in a final year project so that they know the intensity of what is required on a film set and how to behave.”

Susan points to an agreement struck between the University of Surrey and Black Hanger Studios as a model of how the industry could work with academic institutions in the future.

She said: “When they do their next in-house production our students will be given the opportunity to be runners on it in a paid capacity.

“If we could have more opportunities like that then it could help provide more youngsters into the industry.”

Edd echoed Susan’s belief in collaboration and said that as a collective, the region could achieve its full potential.

He said: “I can see that broad collaboration between universities and studios being mutually advantageous. If the sector is to grow to its full potential, then doubling up of effort is not the way to do that. It will be done through increased specialisation.”