Creative England newsletters

Here are the latest Creative England newsletters for my followers to peruse:

Creative England February 2019 Programme Launch We launched a new Creative Enterprise programme in partnership with the BFI this month: Evolve. Evolve is a unique 6-month programme for Screen Businesses, which offers up to 5 tailored 1-to-1 sessions with advisors, as well as access to pitching sessions and group combined workshops. Head on over to our webpage to apply. The DCMS announced that Grimsby, Thames Estuary, Plymouth, Wakefield and Worcester will receive a share of £20 million to invest in heritage, culture and creativity, to help drive economic growth. This funding is expected to benefit approximately 2000 people, create over 1,300 new jobs and support more than 700 businesses. Read the full press release here. Tech & Digital One of our 2018 CE50 companies, Interactive Imagination, featured in AV Magazine for their incredibly moving holographic screen, depicting the experience of holocaust survivors. This clever technology has been attracting attention at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in the US, due to its interactive features, resulting in an immersive experience for museum visitors. Have a read of the AV magazine article here to learn more about this augmented reality experience. Northcoders, a coding company we supported through our iAMDigital programme, have launched a coding bootcamp in Leeds City Centre. Northcoders run bootcamps for budding software developers, having helped nearly 300 people in their journey to establishing a career in tech. Click here to read the full article about their new coding bootcamp. Creative England supported company, Landmrk, partnered up with Google at the end of last year to unveil Ariana Grande’s new YouTube Original docu-series: ‘Dangerous Women Diaries’. A feature involved in this progressive series, is that fans will have to travel to OOH billboard locations in order to unlock digital content. Seth Jackson, CEO of Landmrk also commented on the progression of OOH in a recent ExchangeWire article, in which he commented that “the channel’s ability to connect with other emerging technologies gives it a new lease of life”.   Games One of our GamesLab Leeds supported companies, Ocean Spark won the Pitch Development Award at the UK Games Fund Awards in Dundee at the end of last year! Ocean Spark are currently developing Tetra, Elemental Awakening, a fantasy RPG game with a scientific twist. The aim of this company is to increase the number of women in the games industry - they run free to attend workshops and studio sessions to try and encourage more girls to look to the games industry as a career. Film & TV Apostasy has received multiple London Critics Circle Awards Nominations, and a BAFTA nomination! Daniel Kokotajlo, the creator of this moving tale about a young girl questioning her faith, has been nominated for Breakthrough British/Irish Filmmaker at the London Critics Circle Awards nominations, as well as a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. The talented star of the film, Molly Wright, has been nominated for best young British/Irish performer at the London Critics Circle Awards. Two Creative England supported films are premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this year. The Last Tree, a coming of age story about a young Nigerian Boy, is directed and screen-written by Shola Amoo. We supported the development of this production through our iFeatures 3 programme and Emerging Talent fund. Animals, directed by Sophie Hyde, supported through our Emerging Talent Fund, is a story of friendship, love and a what is it to be a modern woman. Old Boys, which we co-financed through our Lottery Production Fund, won the Jury Prize at Univerciné British Film Festival in Nantes! This wonderful comedy directed by Toby Macdonald, starring Alex Lawther, is about a young boy falling in love with his French teacher’s daughter. Both Toby and supporting actor Jonah Hauer-King were featured as ‘more to watch’ in the Film and TV sections of the Observer Rising Stars 2019, making this a film worth watching in 2019. FreelanceDiary We understand how reliant the film and TV industries are on their networks and contact lists for booking freelancers or securing regular work. Helping them harness the full potential of their contacts is FreelanceDiary, one of our CE50 in 2018. They have just released a free website and app that enables companies to view all their freelancers’ real-time availability, group invite and effectively book their best talent. This app also supports freelancers by automatically promoting them to clients who are hiring. FreelanceDiary offers complete booking management, streamlining negotiations, confirmations and all ongoing engagement. Discover how you can make freelance work with FreelanceDiary.com or visit their funding page to get involved Episode 6 of our iFeatures podcast is now available! “The Producers Lab” equips our iFeatures producers with crucial skills, including how to pitch to market, crew for production and get your budget-film funded. Our filmmakers packed in a lot of activity in their latest lab, including picking the brains of industry experts from the BFI, London Film Festival and Curzon Artificial Eye about route to market strategies. Have a listen to find out more. Events and Workshops Want to keep on top of your social media in 2019? Then our Social media & Podcasting event in Birmingham this February could help you! We know how important it is to have a strong digital presence, with digital marketing becoming more and more popular amongst developing businesses. Speakers for this event include Amrit Sidhu - an award-winning Creative Director, Artist & Content Creator, and Clare Freeman, an award-winning radio journalist and podcast producer! Our speakers will provide insightful tips and tricks on how the world of social media and podcasting could help your business flourish. Click here to sign up.  Hertfordshire ProConnect Our Hertfordshire ProConnect event at 6pm on 31st January, fully funded by the ERDF is centred around helping you develop your film from script to screen with key industry experts. The day will provide you with useful industry knowledge on character creation, script development and film production followed by an opportunity to network. If this sounds like your kind of evening, then have a look at our event page. Looking to build your digital audience? Our free to attend Hertfordshire ProConnect event, fully funded by the ERDF on 7th February will provide you with a deeper insight into how to build audiences across social media platforms, as well as opportunities for marketing and monetising your content. For more information about this free event, head on over to our event page. ScreenSkills have released an employer survey for UK Screen Industries. This Survey will only take you 10-15 minutes and is a crucial way to understand the state of the sector and ascertain where certain skills need developing. This useful survey will support growth within the industry, through aiding employers in their planning and helping to target investment where it is most needed. To take part in this survey, click here.   Follow on Twitter   Friend on Facebook   Forward to Friend  Copyright © 2019 Creative England.co.uk, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Creative England.co.uk 1st Floor College House 32-36 College Green Bristol, Bristol BS1 5SP United Kingdom

A look back at 2018 It's been an eventful year at Creative England! We have compiled the year's highlights from across the company for our final newsletter of the year to share with our Creative England community. Here's to a merry Christmas and more successes in 2019! Female Success Anna Griffin - Simon Relph Bursary We were incredibly happy to announce that Anna Griffin was selected to be given the Simon Relph Memorial Bursary, in memory of the distinguished producer. Anna is an independent producer working in both fiction and documentary. She received a £20K bursary stemming from Simon Relph’s contribution to the film industry and the development of new talent. Anna was selected by a panel of industry leaders, including renowned producer and director, Stephen Woolley. Great job Anna!   Bec Evans - Top Female Founder of Tech Bec Evans, Co-Founder of one of our 2017 CE50 Companies Prolifiko, was voted top Female Founder of Tech by Business Cloud this year. Prolifiko is a digital productivity coach which helps writers kickstart and continue their projects. We are extremely pleased to hear of Bec’s success and hope to hear of more Female entrepreneurial successes in 2019. Film and TV - BAFTA success The 2018 BAFTAs were a huge success, with Lady Macbeth and God’s Own Country both being nominated for Outstanding British Film of the year and Jawbone and Kingdom of Us both being nominated for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. Take a look at the full list of BAFTA winners and nominees here. We are incredibly happy to hear of all these successes and hope they continue in 2019. BIFA success It was a successful year at the 2018 BIFAs, with The Big Day winning the Best British Short award! We were also overjoyed to see the multitude of nominations received, including Apostasy which was nominated for 6 awards, including Most Promising Newcomer and Breakthrough Producer. Calibre, an intriguing tale involving two life-long friends and an unexpected weekend also received multiple BIFA nominations, including Breakthrough Producer and Debut Screenwriter. We were just as excited to see that Irene’s Ghost was nominated for The Discovery Award, a huge success for Director/Writer Iain Cunningham and the rest of the team. Great work everyone! Long may it continue into the New Year.   Scottish BAFTA success Calibre, produced by Anna Griffin, had huge success at the 2018 Scottish BAFTAs, winning Best Film Actor amongst it’s phenomenal 5 other nominations! This exciting thriller about two life-long friends and their weekend in Scotland is available to watch on Netflix - why not give it a watch over the Christmas break? ShortFlix We were excited to see that our Shortflix finalists' films were screened on Sky TV this year. Our 2017 Shortflix programme for aspiring filmmakers aged 18-25 who are not currently in full-time education, produced superb industry-level short films. This included Abena Taylor-Smith’s Lady’s Day, which achieved a huge level of attention on the short film festival circuit, screening at Raindance, London, Encounters and Leeds Film Festivals! Games Shu, by Coatsink One of our 2017 CE50 companies, Coatsink, released their new platform game Shu, an exciting game surrounding the character Shu and his journey escaping a terrible storm. This adventure-fuelled game, involving a series of discoverable secrets and collectibles, became available on Nintendo Switch this year, a huge success for Coatsink. Q.U.B.E 2 by Toxic Games One of our more recent CE50 Companies, Toxic Games, released the second iteration of their hugely popular game Q.U.B.E. We were thrilled to see the release of Q.U.B.E 2 on steam in March. It has received a plethora of positive reviews, most of which describe the company’s success at pulling off a sequel game which can be an extremely difficult thing to achieve. Good job guys!   Be More Creative We continued our Be More Creative events this year. In February, we celebrated all things creative in Be More Manchester, exploring the theme: “the future of storytelling”. The day featured a phenomenal spoken word performance by Lemn Sissay, as well as an insightful panel discussion with experts across Film, TV, Games and Tech. We also hosted Be More Stoke in March, a celebration of regional creativity and an exploration into the future of the UK moving image sector. The day involved expert speakers from Film, TV, Games and Immersive Tech, including the CEO of Spearhead Interactive, Dan Riley. In October 2018, we held our Be More Creative event in the form of Be More Bristol at the Arnolfini, with the theme of “Fiercely Independent”. The event was a fabulous celebration of the city’s fiercely independent spirit and world-class creativity. The day involved high profile thought, leadership keynotes, showcases & insightful panel discussions, with an impactful creative opening from Miles Chambers. ProConnect It’s the end of an era for our Manchester ProConnect programme at Creative England! The programme has had a successful 3-year run, unlocking opportunities for an expanse of talent within the Film and TV industry, from experienced crew members to complete novices. Take a look at our final Manchester Pro-Connect blog here. We are, however, pleased to confirm that our Hertfordshire ProConnect programme will continue into next year, so it’s not all goodbyes! If you’re an SME or sole trader in the Film and TV industry in the Hertfordshire area, why not take a look at how our programme could help you? Creative Enterprise Launch 2018 saw the launch of our new programme, Creative Enterprise, an exciting way to connect with industry-leaders and gain exclusive access to various training and networking opportunities. We held several workshops over the year as well as a brunch to discuss engagement of female leaders in the programme. Take a look at how you could benefit from their Mentoring and Consultancy programme here. iFeatures relaunch We re-launched our iFeatures programme this year - 12 projects were selected, all of which have been benefitting from the latest series of development Labs, in addition to receiving dedicated support for their route to market. We also created an iFeatures podcast this year, in order to provide the public with an insight into the filmmakers’ progress. Presented by the wonderful Andy Johnson, this podcast provides interesting and insightful interviews with the filmmakers and industry professionals so that the listener can endeavour on an exciting journey with the iFeatures teams.  Creative England Live We had our 2018 Creative England Live event. The day involved talks from industry leaders across games, film and technology, who explored and discussed how convergence across the different sectors is driving a Creative Revolution and shaping our future. We also announced our top 50 creative companies/individuals. Read on to learn more! CE50 List We announced our annual CE50 list – a rundown of the top creative companies within Film and TV, Games and Technology. This years list involved Rachel Shenton, who wrote and starred in The Silent Child; Gelato Visual Effects, a Manchester-based Digital Tech agency, dedicated to creating and selling visual effects; and Toxic Games, a popular gaming company responsible for the creation of the Q.U.B.E series. Take a look at the full report to see more of our CE50.  Follow on Twitter   Friend on Facebook   Forward to Friend  Copyright © 2018 Creative England.co.uk, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Creative England.co.uk 1st Floor College House 32-36 College Green Bristol, Bristol BS1 5SP United Kingdom