The Government has announced £380 million for the creative industries, prompting one independent film to audition for the funding before anyone has found the camera. Its working title is Regional Growth: The Reckoning, although the producer insists the spreadsheet will be played by a real actor.
The Creative Industries Sector Plan is intended to support innovation, finance, research and development, skills and regional growth. It also aims to raise annual business investment from £17 billion to £31 billion by 2035, which is an ambitious target for a sector whose invoices are still being described as “pending” by people who commissioned the work.
The plan includes a £150 million Creative Places Growth Fund for six regions outside London, alongside support for creative clusters, research laboratories and a Creative Content Exchange. Local creative businesses may soon have access to finance, mentoring and a trusted marketplace where their work can be bought, licensed or stared at by a panel until the enthusiasm leaves the room.
At the Office of Dramatic Invoices, development executive Poppy ThirdDraft welcomed the announcement. “Investment helps ideas become work,” she said. “We have therefore cast the budget as a conflicted protagonist who discovers that regional growth was inside it all along.”
The package also includes a £75 million Screen Growth Package, up to £30 million for music and £30 million for video games. There are plans for 2,000 new film and television trainees and apprentices over the next decade, supported by investment in the National Film and Television School.
That is a genuine route into a skilled industry, although a director has already asked whether “apprentice” can be filmed in golden hour while carrying a clapboard through an economically vibrant field. The trainee has requested a contract, a wage and permission to leave the mood board before it becomes their entire career.
Chief Creative Accountant Lionel TakeTwo said the plan showed that the sector was finally being treated as an economic force rather than a collection of people who own black polo necks. “We are moving from waiting for magic to funding the people who make it,” he said. “Naturally, each person must first explain how their violinist is scalable.”
The Government’s language is suitably enormous. Creativity is a growth engine, a global superpower and an ecosystem, sometimes within the same paragraph. The people making the films, music, games and performances remain considerably less abstract. They need stable finance, useful training and somewhere to work, not another request to describe their livelihood as a platform with export potential.
By the end of the first planning meeting, the funding montage had acquired a title card reading “Based on a true budget”. Then the budget applied for development money to turn its own application form into a feature film, and was immediately shortlisted for best original paperwork.
Real story: Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
