STREAMING service Amazon Prime has signed a multi-million-pound deal with film and TV giant Pinewood’s Shepperton Studios.
It is home to British-made hit movies including Oliver, Alien and Mary Poppins Returns, and the deal includes nine sound stages, workshops and 450,000 sq ft of space – making the Surrey hub the second-biggest film studio in the world.
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The deal comes after a record-breaking year for UK film and TV production, with £6BILLION pouring into the industry and Chancellor Rishi Sunak stating it will “drive growth and create jobs with thousands of opportunities”.
Here, Daisy Goodwin, founder of Silver River Productions and writer of ITV hit Victoria, explains why Britain is fast becoming the new Hollywood.
‘THE British TV industry is booming like never before.
Despite the difficulties of making television in a Covid world there is a huge appetite for drama and Britain is the place to get it made.
Spending in the industry is now almost twice what it was before the pandemic.
According to the British Film Institute, the business now employs more people than the steel and coal industries combined.
We all watch more TV than ever — it dominates our small talk and even defines our dating profiles: Are you a Breaking Bad or Downton fan?
But how often do we celebrate it as one of our great economic success stories?
In 2013, spending on high-end British TV drama was around £400million. Now it is worth around £4billion.
This explosion in production has created, according to the BFI, 200,000 new jobs.
And the multi-million-pound deal with Shepperton Studios means the job opportunities will keep on coming.
Skills shortage
These jobs are not just for actors, directors or writers like me.
A television crew needs electricians, carpenters, drivers, caterers, accountants, make-up artists — even honey-wagon operatives (filmspeak for mobile toilets).
A TV set is like an army — it has to be completely self-sufficient and it has to be able to set up camp anywhere.
The industry is one of the great forces for “levelling up” in this country.
Most filming is done outside super-expensive London — we filmed the ITV series Victoria in an aircraft hangar in East Yorkshire.
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Game Of Thrones was largely filmed in Northern Ireland. Poldark was set in Cornwall and the South West. Bridgerton — Netflix’s most successful drama — was filmed in Bath.
Not only do these productions bring money and job opportunities to the areas where they film, they also bring tourism as fans visit the locations used in their favourite shows.
Companies such as Bad Wolf, which produced His Dark Materials, have built studios in Cardiff, which is now one of Britain’s leading TV production hubs.
Young people should seriously consider careers in television. Unlike many other industries, the TV trade is not going to be replaced by robots any time soon.
The London Screen Academy, set up by Working Title and the producers of the James Bond and Harry Potter movies, gives teenagers a grounding in the skills they need to get into the industry, with a real emphasis on making it more diverse.
We need academies like this all around the country.
Let’s face it, today’s smartphone generation already have some of the talents needed to make it in the business — whether it’s make-up skills learnt from YouTube, or filming and editing clips used for TikTok uploads.
Forget national service – it would be much better to conscript all 18-year-olds to spend a year working in film and TV.
It’s true that jobs in the industry are mostly freelance, but right now there is such a skills shortage that productions are fighting over the best people.
And there is a lot more job satisfaction in driving James Nesbitt to a filming location than there is delivering a take-away for Deliveroo.
Our film and TV crews are some of the best in the world, which is one of the reasons streaming giants such as Amazon are flocking to our shores.
Amazon Prime has now switched filming of Lord Of The Rings from New Zealand to Britain.
This country has great scenery, an English-speaking population and a really high standard in everything from costumes to special effects.
And while wages in the business are high, they are not the stupid levels you see in Hollywood. Plus, we have some of the world’s best creative talent.
We make jokes about luvvies, but the likes of actress Emma Thompson and director Sam Mendes generate huge amounts of money for this country.
We may struggle to sell our lamb to Europe, but everybody wants our telly.
Shows including Downton Abbey, Poldark, All Creatures Great And Small, and Poirot are shown all over the world.
Victoria, the series I created for ITV, has been sold to 146 countries.
Jobs and soft power
Usually, it’s the shows that portray Britain as a country where ladies in white dresses are served crumpets under a cedar tree by liveried butlers that sell internationally.
Obviously, that is not the Britain we live in — but maybe it’s a better image than that of the top-down systemic corruption seen in Line Of Duty.
We can revel in our own dirty laundry, but the world wants crustless cucumber sandwiches and floppy fringes — and royals.
It’s time that this country, and particularly this Government, started taking TV seriously.
Instead of moaning about the Britishness of TV shows, we should be celebrating an industry that gives us jobs, oodles of soft power and something great to watch on a Sunday night.’
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