Uncategorized

National restrictions begin in England from 5th November. Find out about the new restrictions and what you can and cannot do.

 The following guidance is provided from UK Government and provides confirmation that COVID-secure film and TV production, in studios and on location, can continue in England under the new regulations. This is detailed below:

Travel and logistics in England:

• If you live in England, you cannot travel overseas or within the UK, unless for work, education or other legally permitted reasons, and you should look to reduce the number of journeys you make.
• However, you can and should still travel for a number of reasons, including travelling to work where this cannot be done from home.
• This exemption covers all aspects of the production process, including scouting and recces. It includes travelling for work purposes within England and internationally. Staying in a hotel for work purposes is permitted.

Production activity in England:

• Filming can continue to take place in the premises of businesses that are closed to the general public due to the new Health Protection Regulations. This includes work on films and television programmes.
• Productions should always consider whether there are local restrictions in place where they are filming.

Production and travel in the UK Nations and Regions (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales)

• Film and television production is also permitted under current restrictions in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For travel in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, you should refer to regulations and guidance from relevant devolved authorities.

The British Film Commission Working Safely During COVID-19 in Film and High-end TV Drama Production guidance to reflect these amendments. The update Guidance is available to view and download here

Organised by BAFTA

Online, Free

Thu, 12 Nov 2020, 13:30 – 14:30

Storytelling is at the heart of what we do and runs across all crafts and mediums. Hear from the Guru Live panel as they discuss their creative approaches, how they generate ideas, shape narratives and engage audiences.

Speakers include:

Jack Attridge, creative director and co-founder of Flavourworks
Nainita Desai, composer, For Sama, Telling Lies
Lydia Rynne, writer Theatre/Film/TV (Hear Me Howl)
Sophie Reynolds, Producer and Founder of SONA films

Hosted by: Anna Bogutskaya

More speakers to be announced.

Click ‘Register’ to gain access to the Zoom webinar where this Q&A will be held. For further information on how to register, click here.

A magical lantern show will be illuminated in Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter to mark the release of the brand-new animated film. Netflix’s Over the Moon will be celebrated in Birmingham from this Friday until November 15.

The show consists of over fifty giant lanterns across the two locations, all handcrafted by the Liverpool-based team who created lanterns for the Lumiere Festival.

It will be brought to life with a thrilling animated illumination of over 12,000 LED lights and will tell the story of Fei Fei and her trusty partner Bungee the Rabbit travelling to the Moon to find  Chang’e, the Moon Goddess whose legendary tale gave birth to the Mid-Autumn festival. Characters portrayed in the Installation include the mythical Jade Rabbit, Lunarian guardians Foo Dogs, luminescent Moon Frogs, and a rocket ship inspired by that built by the film’s lead character Fei Fei, along with her trusted companion Bungee. They culminate in a giant moon sphere bearing the images of Chang’e, Fei Fei and Bungee, along with a travelling rocket bike that can be viewed at ground level.

All lanterns were expertly made by Liverpool’s Lantern Company, with over 30 people in 5 locations working on each of them in a safe socially distanced manner. The immersive light walkway has been created in a way to be enjoyed outdoors in a socially distanced manner and in accordance with current Governmental guidelines.

Chu Ting Tang, Chairman of the London Chinatown Chinese Association (LCCA), said: “We’re delighted to be working with Netflix to shine light on the Mid-Autumn festival, an important part of Chinese culture. It’s great that a new film, co-produced by Chinese production company Pearl Studios, is celebrating the folklore of the Moon Goddess and we’re honoured to host the lanterns”.

Karen Baines, Head of Group Marketing and Communications at Shaftesbury, commented:  “ Over The Moon is a wonderful tale highlighting the value of determination and passion, qualities that Chinatown London’s tenants have shown in abundance over the last few months.

“This collaboration with Netflix showcases the destination’s appreciation of Chinese tradition and folklore. We are always looking for new and relevant ways to engage with Chinatown London visitors and create a mix of modernism and tradition which embodies East Asian culture, creating a home away from home. It is fantastic that this can be enjoyed both outside, and socially distanced, to ensure it is safe for all visitors”.

Source: www.birminghammail.co.uk

For more industry information, visit our news page. Or add us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Over the next 12 months, BBC Two and the BBC Nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales) will commission four major new series that reflect the lives of people across the UK.

With a commitment to co-commission at least one eight-part series from each of the Nations, the initiative seeks ideas of scale with the potential to become returning series from suppliers based in their respective areas, telling stories about lives and experiences from those locations.

Patrick Holland, Controller BBC Two, says: “BBC Two already has great success working with Indies across the UK for series like This Farming Life, Cornwall; This Fishing Life and Saving Lives at Sea and we want more shows that celebrate the lives of everyday heroes with people firmly based in particular communities whose jobs or activities make them a vital part of their communities and environment. We are looking to build on this tone and storytelling to find major new brands that explore the lives of other types of work and activities that are based in different parts of the UK.”

Ken MacQuarrie, Director, Nations, says: “Exciting collaborations like this mean we can produce even more programming that reflects the lives of people across the UK and gives new opportunities to the production community in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.”

BBC Two has a rich heritage that showcases and celebrates local communities and is interested in bringing more local stories with national appeal to the schedule. The ambition is to find major new brands that are accessible and engaging, which explore the lives of other types of work and activities that are based in different parts of the UK. The series will be co-commissioned by BBC network commissioners from Factual, alongside a commissioner from the respective Nations commissioning team. The programmes will premiere in their respective nation before having a network launch on BBC Two.

Each Nation will set up an individual timetable for commissioning rounds, and will drive the specific editorial focus together with their respective Network commissioner. The commissioning briefs for each Nation, with full details of the process and timetable for that area, will be published on the BBC Commissioning site in due course. The opportunities will be communicated to producers in each Nation by email as they arise.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

For more industry information, visit our news page. Or add us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Man Like Mobeen has won Best Comedy Programme at the Broadcast Digital Awards 2020. Run by television trade magazine Broadcast, the awards focus on content from channels not considered ‘terrestrial’, and aim to “celebrate leading digital content from across the UK”.

The third series of Man Like Mobeen was already a special one, with the production team welcoming eight working-class trainees from Birmingham onto the set. Fresh blood has appeared to boost the comedy to the next level, with Guz Khan’s show drawing higher viewing figures and more iPlayer requests, and the series peaking at 600,000 viewers. The show has had particular success in attracting a new younger audience to BBC Three, rating above the average for under-35s on the digital channel.

Both on and off screen, the show champions original and diverse voices from the UK and offers a rare insight into working-class life as an ethnic minority. Set in Small Heath, Birmingham, Man Like Mobeen addresses issues such as food banks, religion and crime while also “delivering on humour”, according to one Broadcast judge.

There was no shortage of praise for Khan, who stars as lead man Mobeen, with one judge describing him “a total star” and another “a stellar talent”. Add into the mix that he helped convince the BBC, Endemol Shine and Film Birmingham to fund the training scheme, and this becomes a special series that embraces diversity in all forms.

Injecting new talent into the production has certainly done Man Like Mobeen no harm and perhaps this award will encourage similar schemes in the future.

Source: www.comedy.co.uk and www.broadcastnow.co.uk

For more industry information, visit our news page. Or add us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Red, White And Blue of Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ series looks at the Metropolitan Police in the early 1980s. The episode, which forms part of his Small Axe anthology, was filmed in Wolverhampton. Here’s a NYFF review:

There are few people in the UK who would look back at the early 1980s with great fondness. Just a glance at the wallpaper and carpets smothering the council estate flats in Steve McQueen’s Red, White And Blue is to remember how insular life was at that time. London’s West Indian community went even further into retreat from a Metropolitan Police force later declared to be “institutionally racist”, yet Leroy Logan (John Boyega, excellent), a clever research scientist with a bright future, decided to join up as a beat bobby, becoming, literally, a poster boy for an inclusion that never existed.

Logan went on to spend three decades in uniform, and says the Met is still institutionally racist today. But McQueen and co-writer Courttia Newland’s script focuses on the beginning of his journey, showing how Logan’s decision to join up brought him into direct conflict with his Jamaican father (Steve Toussaint), himself a victim of police brutality. It’s a moving tale, but with much more to it than the almost archetypal structure suggests. It’s becoming increasingly evident, as McQueen’s Small Axe anthology of five films premieres at festivals in advance of BBC One transmission, that the writer/director isn’t just attempting to chronicle black British history, but view it as a part of the United Kingdom’s recent past which runs through its present DNA.

Red, White And Blue will air in the US through Amazon, and Boyega’s sturdy, coiled performance will attract interest globally. Although the estates of Hornsey and Hackney are close enough to home for the Peckham-born actor, they’re a galaxy far, far away from his main fan base. There’s no mention of it here, but Logan’s story plays out around the time of the 1981 Brixton riots, making his career choice even more stark, brave, foolhardy, doomed, or noble – we’re invited to see it in all possible lights. Yet there’s a underlying humour to this story of one man’s attempt to fight the power, and a sharp attention to detail, tone and music, which will see it connect. Those sludge-coloured carpets – shot on 35mm by series DoP Shabier Kirchner – are contrasted with the vivid hues of Caribbean clothes and furnishings giving a sense of two worlds colliding. The film’s soundtrack is delicious, and the fact that Logan was best friends with soul band Imagination’s lead singer Leee John is a gift that keeps on giving, particularly when it comes to costumes.

As audiences watch this almost familiar story of father-son conflict, surrounded by overt racism and brutish police officers, naturally there will be a sense of structural familiarity – much like Mangrove, the longest of McQueen’s five films, which takes a courtroom battle as its dramatic centrepiece. However, these stories have not been told in the UK, not by black directors, and most certainly not aired on the BBC’s mainstream channel. There’s a sense that the very texture of this film, the authentic eye and the open door into a community for whom keeping separate was a necessity, not a choice, will force some dirty laundry out of a festering basket. (Logan’s on-screen friendship with an Indian policeman brings to mind the persecution of Superintendent Ali Dizaei, a case that would ensnare the officer later on in his career.)

Burning with conviction, Boyega – who is of Nigerian heritage – gives us a Logan who is keen to move away from his father’s belief that the police are bad news. With fire in his belly and a sense of righteousness in his heart, quoting Peel at his interview, he leaves his job as a research scientist to join up. It’s at officer training, in Hendon – the only black skin showing against a sea of white plimsolls and socks and singlets – that he first gets the sense how impossible this task will be. Ugly, unvarnished racism in his first posting reaches all the way up the ranks, while his own people call him a coconut or a Judas (“that’s Constable Judas to you.”) “Someone’s got to be the bridge,” is his mantra, but his colleagues won’t back him up, even when his life is in danger, and his father is hurt and angry about the choices he’s made (“man has PHD!”).

Logan has a warm home life though, a loving family and a supportive wife (Antonia Thomas); Red, White And Blue isn’t a misery memoir. McQueen is aiming for more. With every deft brushstroke, whether that be the stiff macs the constables wear, or ’White Lines’ on the radio, he puts the viewer inside the picture – the film shot in Wolverhampton to find authentic locations, and the effort pays off. If the cartoonishly racist bobbies don’t get a backstory, it’s because they wouldn’t have told it to you as they frisked you. As the series moves on, it’s increasingly clear that McQueen’s tales of black British history can’t be boxed off and filed away on a shelf marked “the past”: after all, not all of this is history (see stop-and-search). The story continues.

Source: www.screendaily.com

For more industry information, visit our news page. Or add us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Sherlock Holmes has been one of the world’s most famous and revered fictional detectives since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first released A Study in Scarlet back in 1887. And since the Sherlock Holmes property passed into the public domain, we’ve seen an almost endless stream of new adaptations featuring the Baker Street sleuth in recent years. Netflix is the latest outlet to bring Sherlock Holmes to our screens but in their 2020 film, Enola Holmes, the focus is actually placed on Sherlock’s sister, the titular Enola. Like many of the Sherlock Holmes tales to come before, Enola Holmes is set in Victorian London but just where was it filmed to create these stunning Victorian locations?

Filming Locations

Filming took place in London and across England’s West Midlands. Locations in Shropshire and the West Midlands feature, including Benthall Hall in Broseley as well as Arley Station on the Severn Valley Heritage Railway. Meanwhile, in London, Greenwich’s Old Royal Naval College, Fournier Street and Chancery Lane in Farringdon Without all played host to Enola Holmes filming crews according to The Cinemaholic.

Watch it on Netflix

Enola Holmes arrived on Netflix on September 23rd, 2020. The two-hour film follows the titular character (Millie Bobby Brown) as she goes in search of her missing mother. Watching over her shoulder are her two older brothers, the famous detective, Sherlock (Henry Cavill), and the mean, moody and magnificent Mycroft (Sam Claflin).

Watch the trailer here.

Enola Holmes, which was filmed in London and the West Midlands, is available to stream now on Netflix after releasing on September 23rd, 2020.

Source: www.hitc.com

For more industry information, visit our news page.

Or add us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.