January Newsletter

Welcome to the Screen Alliance Wales January Newsletter! We all hope you had a great Christmas and a wonderful start to the new year. Last year, saw us reaching a record number of people through our outreach and we hope to continue our work and smash those records this year!

Firstly, if you haven’t done so already, we would like to encourage you to create a profile on our website (here). This is an incredible place to showcase any credits, skills and links to previous work. It also keeps you up to date with all vacancies that we advertise and automatically signs you up to our newsletter. If you already have an account on our directory, do make sure to keep all your details updated with you most up to date information

Vacancies

As always, we would like to start off by highlighting all the opportunities that are currently available over on our vacancies page. This is regularly updated, so make sure to keep checking the page on our website here. Now is such a great time to explore the varied roles that are on offer to join the booming Film and TV industry in Wales.

We have the following exciting opportunities available:

Bad Wolf are currently look for:

- Accounts Trainee (deadline 03/02/23)

- Assistant Script Editor (deadline 02/02/23)

- Office Manager/EA London-based (deadline 06/02/23)

Wales Millennium Centre have a number of vacancies including:

- Casual Commissionaire

- Producer

- Casual Bartender

Gorilla are seeking a Junior Editor/Is-Olygydd

Red Seam require a Production Accountant

Ffilm Cymru are looking for a Sustainability Manager

BBC have a number of apprenticeship opportunities

Facilities by ADF require a Sales Ledger Administrator

Painting Practice are seeking a Compositing Artist

Sponsors and Supporters

The work we carry out is only made possible by the fantastic contributions from our wonderful Sponsors and Supporters. Here’s what they have been up to this month…

Bad Wolf’s very own Jane Tranter has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the University of South Wales. Jane, who co-founded and is the CEO of the Cardiff-based production company Bad Wolf, received the honorary award at a graduation ceremony at the International Convention Centre Wales (ICC Wales) on Wednesday 11 January.

Considered to be one of the industry’s most respected and celebrated television executives and a recipient of the BAFTA Special Award for her contribution to television, Jane previously served as the BBC’s Head of Fiction and was Executive Vice-President for Programming and Production at BBC Worldwide. Congratulations Jane on your well-deserved award. Find out more here.

University of South Wales have been working alongside us once again this month as part of the Screen4Schools Project (see more below). We would also like to take this opportunity to wish our dear friend and colleague Tom Ware from the University a speedy recovery from his illness. 

Facilities by ADF have announced this month that Location One, acquired by ADF in December last year, will be opening a branch at Pioneer Film Studios (Pioneer) in Scotland, the country’s newest and largest film studio. Pioneer Film Studios stands at over 1.2 million square feet, providing studio space, workshop areas, backlot/yards, and training facilities which includes editing suites and production office space. ADF recently opened a new office at Pioneer in response to the growth in the film and HETV market in Scotland and now Location One is joining alongside. Scotland has witnessed extensive studio space expansion and inward investment in recent years as global productions increasingly choose the country’s natural landscape and strong creative sector. We wish you all the best with the new venture ADF!

BECTU have a number of learning activities over the coming weeks and months. Click on the links to find out more about each of these courses. Creative Industries Safety Passport, Mental Health with Film + TV Charity,3 Day Temporary Electrical Systems, First Aid Course (3-Day), Self Coaching 4 Creatives, Mental Health First Aid, Disability Access & Inclusion, Time Management 4 Creatives, and Networking Skills 4 Creatives.

Ysgol Pen-y-Bryn - This term sees the Key Stage 4 learners taking on their own Film Skills project, creating their own film version of the classic film Ghostbusters! The Sixth Form learners are currently hard at work creating props and sets for the project, including making their own version of the iconic Ghostbusters backpacks and guns. Filming for their Key Stage 4 learners take place every Thursday, with Pen-y-Bryn’s new group already creating some exciting and spooky scenes for the project. Their Christmas Doctor Who project was a big success, launching at their local Odeon cinema and going to YouTube later that day. They will be returning to Doctor Who for the anniversary in the Autumn Term, which will be a special adventure featuring Three Doctor's in a special episode entitled 'TimeWarp'. Make sure to keep up with the latest from Pen-y-Bryn films on their YouTube channel here.

BBC Production Unlocked

We headed over to BBC Cymru in Central Square in Cardiff this month to watch some incredible sessions at the ‘Production Unlocked’ event. The event allowed attendees to gain some insightful industry knowledge spanning a variety of departments and productions which were also being broadcasted live online. We were thrilled to have attended the ‘His Dark Materials’ panel with Jane Tranter, Dan McCulloch and Joel Collins discussing the exciting 3rd season of the hit Bad Wolf show. A huge thank you to Jane for mentioning the work we do at SAW as part of the panel! It was great to meet so many people after the session who were passionate about working in film and TV. We also got to see John Fillingham from Anchor Risk Management deliver a health and safety session, sharing his expertise from his career in the field at Bad Wolf as well as other productions. On the second day of the event, the BBC headed over to Bristol to deliver sessions there, whilst ScreenSkills took over at central square. This part of the event saw more insightful industry sessions take place including the ‘Art of Networking’ led by Sue Jeffries of Sgil Cymru, followed by a networking meet and greet. It was a fantastic couple of days and we loved being a part of it!

Zina Scriptwriting Masterclass

It was great to have the amazing Zina Wegrzynski back in the Screen Alliance Wales classroom delivering another incredible script masterclass. We welcomed students from the MA Film Screenwriting course at the University of South Wales to our classroom at Wolf Studios Wales for the 3-day sessions. Zina covered many aspects of the scripting process, with the attendees having the opportunity to develop their own ideas, as well as insightful information on working in the industry. It is always an absolute pleasure working with Zina and we hope the students took away some useful advice to help them with their future careers.

Screen4Schools returns!

We are so excited to have launched our latest ‘Screen4Schools’ series alongside the University of South Wales! The online event saw nearly 900 students from schools all over Cardiff, and beyond, including Brynnau Primary, Glan yr Afon Primary school, Trelai Primary and Severn Primary partaking in an industry make-up session, allowing them to create their own life-like wounds. They got the chance to use the same materials as the top make up departments on film and TV productions, giving them a taste of what this area of the industry entails. The creativity from the pupils was incredible and we can’t wait to see their final films!

Cardiff Life Awards Finalist

We are excited to announce that this month we became a finalist of the Cardiff Life Awards’ ‘People Services Award’! We are so grateful that our work has been recognised by such a prestigious organisation and we are honoured to have been shortlisted alongside some incredible companies in Wales. We can’t wait for the awards ceremony next month!

Aria Studios Grand Opening

A key element of the work we do at Screen Alliance Wales is bridging the gap between the TV and Film industry and its future workforce.  One of the ways we have been able to facilitate this, has been our close working relationship with the studios in Wales.  We have been lucky enough to deliver tours at Wolf Studios Wales, Great Point Seren and Dragon over the years, to provide those aspiring to work in the industry a tangible idea of what to expect.

One thing about all those places, is that they are all situated in the South of Wales, which is what makes the opening of Aria Studios on Anglesey such an exciting prospect for us at SAW.  When working with students along the A55 corridor in the future, we will not have to direct them to necessarily come South to Cardiff or East to Manchester, but they can stay in the area.The new studios will accommodate the S4C teen drama ‘Rownd a Rownd’, as well as provide additional space for larger productions to use, potentially alongside the incredible locations the Eryri Mountains and North Wales coast can provide.

We were pleased to be able to attend the official launch of the studios on the 26th January.  It was an exciting evening, which included notable guests such actor and director Celyn Jones (rasied down the road in Holyhead) and Owain Arthur, whose acting career started on ‘Rownd a Rownd’ but who is currently playing the role of Prince Durin in ‘The Rings of Power’.  We look forward to working with the studio in the future, to provide the next generation of stars to follow in Celyn and Owain’s footsteps.

Don’t forget to follow us on our social media channels to keep up to date on all the latest news and vacancies. 

Twitter: @ScreenAllianceW /@SAWeducation

Instagram & Facebook: @ScreenAllianceWales