£750k pilot project shines light on screen production sector

A pilot project has been launched that aims to provide business support to screen production companies working in Scotland.

The “Focus” programme has been developed to address “current market conditions” in the screen industry in Scotland. It comes in the wake of a recent report which found that most screen production operations are not of the scale where certain business development and support functions can be afforded in-house, impacting their growth potential.

The project is co-funded by Creative Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, and the participating companies themselves, with a potential total budget of £750,000. It is being delivered by Film City Futures in partnership with the Scottish Documentary Institute and it is anticipated that about 20 Scottish screen companies will benefit over a two-year pilot period.

The project is managed by business development manager Rebecca Thompson, who previously created film audience development and crowd- funding consultancy Hot Tap Media, and the film crowdfunding and distribution platform Social Screen.

Tiernan Kelly, director, Film City Glasgow, said: “Focus is a direct and considered response to the needs of indigenous screen production companies. The project will address the issues of scale and access to expertise that many of these companies face.” 0 Business development manager Rebecca Thompson