Extra £1m funding announced for creative industries
West of England games developers, those working in film and T and the arts are set to benefit from an extra £1m in funding.
The West of England Creative Growth Programme, which provides support and investment to local creative industries, said the investment will support businesses through a six month support programme with grants, mentoring, workshops and expert one-to-one support.
Speaking at the launch taking place at Bristol’s Emmy Award-winning and BAFTA-nominated visual effects studio, Moonraker, Metro Mayor Dan Norris said: “Moonraker shows this programme works. They benefited from the original scheme. They’ve created visual effects and CGI content for the BBC, Sky and Netflix. They’re a success story. With this additional investment I hope we are writing the next chapter of many more local success stories for the future too.
“This £1.2m programme of support – fully funded by my West of England mayoral region – will support the many, many brilliant creative companies we have in the West face the future with growing confidence. Our region has always been a region of innovation and imagination. Only recently, Disney+ have checked in to the new state-of-the-art and West of England Authority-funded Bottle Yard Studios – that’s a massive vote of confidence in our world-leading creative industries, and our region. I’m truly proud to back our fantastic creative talent here in the West of England.”
Moonraker’s head of production, Alex Briggs, added: “The Creative Growth Programme was transformative for us. The funding enabled us to put a mentor in place that in turn helped us to branch out into new technologies and to create original content for the Fulldome marketplace, just launching our first original film, Moonbase: The Next Step. Alongside our ongoing visual effects work on projects for Netflix, Disney+ and the BBC we are developing additional original content and plan to launch our second Fulldome film later this year.”
With more than 6,000 creative businesses, contributing more than £2bn to the region’s economy, the West boasts one of the country’s leading creative clusters outside of London.
