Lights, camera, Bristol?

In June, comedian, actor and proud Bristolian Jayde Adams brought the city to the small screen when her six-part series Ruby Speaking premiered on ITVx.

The programme is based on Adams’ experience of working in a Stokes Croft call centre. Jayde recruited Wetherspoons chef Dan Hiscox, who plays Craig, and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School graduate Kiera Lester, who plays Melons, for the series.

When Adams was promoting Ruby Speaking, she told Bristol24/7 the show “won’t have one single bit of Clifton in it”, “no Suspension Bridge, no Clifton colourful houses, it’s all south Bristol”.

While the series was a proud moment for Bristol voices – especially for those south of the river – and was celebrated by the council-run Bristol Film Office, most of it was actually shot in Watford, just to the north west of London.

So why, when Bristol’s film and TV industry is supposedly booming, with an award-winning production studio just a stone’s throw away from where the series was supposed to be set, is a well-known Bristol director and actor shooting within the M25?

In October this year, annual figures released by Bristol Film Office revealed that the city’s film and TV production was worth an estimated £20.1m to Bristol’s economy, a figure that has held strong since the previous year. This number referred to productions shot with assistance from Bristol Film Office or made at the Bottle Yard Studios in Hengrove, so the actual figure could be more.

The Bottle Yard has played a major role in the growth of film and TV production in Bristol since it opened in 2010. The collection of former warehouses is the South West’s largest film and TV studio, with eight stages across two sites.

The Bottle Yard Studios in Whitchurch has been hailed as Bristol’s very own solar-powered mini-Hollywood, with dozens of production companies from London shifting crews down to the south to film there – photo: Bottle Yard Studios

The studio’s second site half a mile down the road, TBY2, opened last year, with three more stages, a fully soundproofed space, more than 35,000sq ft of furnished production offices, and 5,000sq ft of green screen. It’s estimated that Bristol’s very own solar-powered Hollywood will deliver 1000 new jobs by 2032.

It’s been taken up with gusto by London production companies looking to shoot somewhere on a tight budget and with easy access to the city through Bristol Film Office. Recent productions at the studio include Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary special, The Outlaws, Rivals, Sex Education, Rain Dogs and The Undertaker.

In 2022, a total of 709 licences were issued to production companies, permitting filming to take place on council-owned streets, properties and green spaces. This is a huge boost for Bristol, transforming it from a collection of nature documentary production houses to a flourishing ‘mini-Hollywood’ in the space of a couple of years.

Stephen Merchant’s ‘The Outlaws’ fostered pride and anger in equal measure from Bristol locals. Some residents resented the portrayal of their tower block as crime-ridden, and others felt ‘bittersweet’ when their abandoned community centre was spruced up for filming before being abandoned once more – photo: BBC

However, as more external production companies ferry bigger crews to shoot in Bristol, it’s important to ask where this investment into the city’s economy is actually going, and to question whether Bristol’s directors, producers, writers, and actors are getting a slice of the pie.

While there has been an increase in homegrown talent in the last couple of years (helped by the opening of broadcaster Channel 4’s regional creative hub in Bristol in 2019) including Stephen Merchant’s Outlaws and Wildseed Productions’ The Last Bus on Netflix, which was shot at Bottle Yard, there is still a long way to go.

“The mayor and the film office are celebrating Bottle Yard and all these successes, but on-screen and production talent from Bristol is still quite limited,” says documentary maker and podcast producer, Neil Maggs, who co-directed Normal For Hartcliffe, a new short film aiming to change the representation of the neighbourhood.

The 20-minute film explores pride, class and prejudice in Hartcliffe, and is an empowering call to listen to voices from this often overlooked and misrepresented community. The film is sees our city’s terrain not simply used as a budget backdrop for London or Paris by big-city production companies, but instead celebrated in and of itself.

Neil Maggs’ and Paul Holbrook’s Normal For Hartcliffe empowered those living in the often negatively-represented south Bristol suburb to feel a sense of pride in their community – photo: Normal For Hartcliffe/Neil Maggs

Normal For Hartcliffe also raises important questions about representation in Bristol’s growing film and TV industry, both on and off screen. Whose stories are being told? Who gets to produce these stories and who actually benefits from the film and TV production industry here?

“They know the industry here is a sensitive issue, so they are trying to make it appear as if it’s representing the city more than it is,” says Maggs.

“Bristol talent can’t get that big break despite productions being filmed on our doorstep”
Paul Holbrook, director 

This sentiment is echoed by Paul Holbrook, who has been working to give his community a voice through his production company, Bristol AF and co-directed Normal for Hartcliffe with Maggs.

“The Bottle Yard certainly isn’t benefiting the community that’s closest to it,” Holbrook tells Bristol24/7.

“I don’t know a single person that works at the Bottle Yard from Whitchurch, Hartcliffe, Withywood, Bishopsworth, despite those being the communities right on the Bottle Yard’s doorstep. I don’t think the studio is doing anywhere near enough to bridge that gap.”

South Bristol director Paul Holbrook told Bristol24/7 he doesn’t think Bottle Yard Studios is doing enough to bridge the gap for young people living on the studio’s doorstep – photo: Normal For Hartcliffe/Neil Maggs

The Hartcliffe-based director made local news in 2019 when he chose to exclusively audition children from Hartcliffe for his nationally-funded short film, Shiney. More than 100 youngsters showed up from the local area to audition for the two main roles.

“I still don’t think there is that pipeline of talent and people willing to take that risk,” reflects Maggs. “But the story would be more authentic.”

One of the problems the Bottle Yard faces is a London pipeline. The production studio says it has been working to increase representation in Bristol, but a tight-knit bubble of production talent from the capital has found its way into the film and TV industry here, whether the city likes it or not.

Bristol24/7 contacted the Bristol Film Office to find out if they had a record of how many productions shot in the city this year were by Bristol-based production companies.

A Bristol Film Office spokesperson said: “The majority of the biggest productions (e.g. high-end TV dramas) filming in Bristol are made by production companies based in London, who use regional crew based in and around Bristol that know and understand the region.

“We are starting to see a change in that though, with companies like Sid Gentle (who are headquartered in London) setting up premises in Bristol – Sid Wild at the Bottle Yard – to make productions from here (Rain Dogs).

“We are seeing a rapid growth in scripted companies based here in Bristol. These include Strong Film & TV, Bristol AF, Blak Wave, Happy Hour Films, Indefinite Films, Wildseed Studios, Watford & Essex. And, of course, Plimsoll, one of the biggest production companies in the city, has also recently announced it is moving into scripted production.” (Bristol mayor Marvin Rees is a non-executive director at Plimsoll.)

But some filmmakers in Bristol aren’t convinced. “A lot of these production companies say they are a Bristol production company but just have a Bristol office and are actually based in London,” says Holbrook. “That’s different to an actual born and bred, ‘Bristol-running-through their-veins’ production company.”

A report produced by UWE in April last year examining the changes to Bristol’s TV and film industry found that “feature filmmaking, with the significant exception of Aardman’s animated films, remains significantly under-represented.”

The report says that the Bottle Yard “has been highly successful in attracting high-end television drama productions to Bristol, but so far these have been made by companies based outside the region”.

The report recommended that “policymakers explore ways of supporting more indigenous film and television drama production in the region”, and suggested that the development of a direct financial incentive – akin to the Yorkshire Content Fund or the Liverpool City Region Production Fund, both of which provide up to £500,000 per project – would be a major boost to the region.

“The Bottle Yard Studios should also be supported to encourage more home-grown scripted production,” the report added.

“I want the Bottle Yard to eventually be less profit-driven and more social value-driven”
Laura Aviles, Bottle Yard Studios manager 

Despite these findings – and perhaps because of them – work is being done to give more local talent a platform, both on and off the screen. Laura Aviles manages the Bottle Yard. She was hired three years ago to bring the Bristol Film Office and the studio closer together and boost Bristol’s profile in the film and TV industry nationally.

Bottle Yard Studios manager Laura Aviles and Bristol Film Office manager Adela Straughan want to see more investment in local film talent at the Bottle Yard studios – photo: Mia Vines Booth

Aviles has also sought to connect the Bottle Yard to local creative organisations working to help young people get a foot in the film and TV industry. One of these is Boomsatsuma, a creative training facility with a filmmaking course based in the Bottle Yard.

Graham Brown, who runs Boomsatsuma’s comms and commercial development, told Bristol24/7 their relationship with the Bottle Yard had been invaluable for the students. Ninety-two per cent of last year’s Boomsatsuma graduates have moved into jobs within the film and TV business, demonstrating the benefits hands-on access to the industry can have to young people who wouldn’t usually be able to access it.

The studio also offers tours, masterclasses, and entry-level positions in every department. Aviles said that the studio also reaches out to local schools and offers training pipelines for local people through its outreach coordinator.

“We have to smash this image that the film industry is out of touch,” says Aviles. “I want the Bottle Yard to eventually be less profit driven and more social-value driven. I have a passion for getting underrepresented young people into the film industry. We don’t want to just get them into training, the job is to keep them there.”

But as Holbrook points out, what about the young people who don’t have the chance to even find out if they want to go into the industry? Or what about the directors, producers and writers in Bristol who are stuck here waiting for their big break, still being told to go to London to find work?

“We’ve got loads of talent in Bristol,” Holbrook says. “But I talk to a lot of talent here who have all found themselves in this wasteland where they’ve won lots of awards, and yet, despite productions coming onto our doorstep, they can’t get that big break. There’s no space for them.

“When these big productions are coming to Bristol, the Bottle Yard should be saying: ‘You can bring your ten-part drama to Bristol, but you have to prove that 50 per cent of your crew are going to be employed from Bristol, or at least one of your episodes is going to be directed by a Bristol director or written by a Bristol writer’.”

Other organisations are filling this talent pipeline gap. Watershed has had a huge impact on amplifying local voices in film, holding premieres of local films, panels with directors and actors, and film festivals celebrating the work of Bristol filmmakers.

For Blak Wave Productions, Bristol’s first black-owned production studio opened in 2019 by Michael Jenkins and Mena Fombo, they have been instrumental in supporting regional talent on and off screen through commissions with BBC, Channel 4 and BET/Paramount.

Bristol-grown Blak Wave owners Mena Fombo and Michael Jenkins founded are passionate about amplifying unheard voices and revealing untold stories through inspiring and imaginative character driven content across documentary, factual and drama  – photo: Blak Wave

Blak Wave have also been working with the BFI Network at the Watershed on New Voices, a talent development scheme in its third year of running. The scheme scouts new writers and directors in the city, supporting them to make applications to the BFI in the hopes of winning an award to make a short film.

The shooting of Ruby Speaking in Watford, and the experience of Holbrook and Maggs, suggests Bristol talent, both on and off screen, is still not being prioritised, despite multi-million dollar investment into the city. How do we rectify this imbalance so that the talent already based in Bristol can benefit from facilities like the Bottle Yard?

The recent opening of Box7, a new £1m state-of-the-art film and TV studio space in Brislington could offer a new opportunity to local producers and directors. Funded by Johnny Palmer, founder of creative company PYTCH and facilitated by the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), it is hoped the studio will cater to local film and TV producers.

The opening of film and TV studio Box7 is the latest effort by WECA to support local filmmakers and creatives – photo: WECA

Speaking about the opening, Palmer said: “It has been a big investment for us, but we really believe in the creative scene of Bristol and are honoured to be part of the ongoing development of the UK’s creative scene”.

But more funding is needed to connect local above the line talent with external productions. As the April 2022 report recommended, Aviles is hoping to get funding from WECA next year to launch a fund similar to the Liverpool Production Fund, as well as a cohesive training programme in Bristol, which will give the studio the power to offer external production companies investment in their budgets if they use the pool of local talent in the city.

Aviles is working against a challenging national climate, however, with creative funding cuts, spiralling production costs, swathes of production crew out of work, and an ongoing writers’ strike in the US.

Add this to an industry that still struggles to do away with accusations of elitism, nepotism, classism, and even racism, and it’s clear the current situation in Bristol isn’t going to change overnight.

But the screening of Normal For Hartcliffe at Watershed showed just how important representation is to communities who would usually be shut out of the industry, both on and off-screen. For a short while, on a rainy day in October, Watershed was filled with laughs, tears, inside jokes, and feelings of pride for many in the cinema, as they saw the neighbourhood they grew up in and still call their home reflected back at them in crystal clear 4K.

“If you wait 20 years to do it, so many talented people that are here now and ready to work are just going to fall away or worse,” warned Holbrook, his words a rallying cry to Bristol’s film industry to act now, before it’s too late.

Main photo: ITVx

Read next:

• ‘State of the art’ film and TV studio opens in south Bristol
• Film by Bristol director celebrates Black British tomboys of 1990s
• Documentary explores class, prejudice and pride on south Bristol estate
• Bristol plays starring role in Doctor Who’s The Giggle

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