Welcome to the Screen Alliance Wales November Newsletter! Winter is certainly on its way, with the colder mornings, darker evenings and definite chill in the air. Despite the weather, we have been as busy as ever, with November being one of the most jam packed of the year so far! Here’s everything we’ve been up to this month.

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 and 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.

- Wales Millennium Centre are currently seeking

o Technical Manager

o Stage Technician

o Producer (for Festival of Voice)

- Gorilla are looking for multiple roles for their new Bristol facility

o Post Producer / Bookings co-ordinator.

o Avid Engineer

o Technical Operator / Avid Assistant

o Junior assistant/runner

- Painting Practice are seeking an Assistant to Creative Director

- Ffilm Cymru Wales are looking for a new Head of Skills and Training

- Dupe VFX are advertising for a VFX Coordinator

- Movietech have a role for a Technical Support Trainee

- IJPR have an exciting new opportunity for a Digital & Social Media Trainee through the DWP Kickstart Scheme.

- Ffilm Cymru Wales have four new roles as part of The Foot in the Door Project. These are:

o Project Manager

o Project Administrator

o Project Coordinator

o Community Engagement Coordinator

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 have released their figures for their economic report for this year. “Key findings from the report show that 2,243 full time equivalent roles were created in Wales, £114 million in GVA was generated for the Welsh economy and over £121 million was spent on crew and suppliers in Wales”. An incredible contribution to the Welsh economy and we’re proud to work alongside you.

IJPR have become an official sponsor of Screen Alliance Wales! (see below).

Facilities by ADF have included a brand-new addition to their already impressive fleet of vehicles. The Expandable Make-up vehicle includes a whole host of features and state of the art facilities, specially designed for the needs of make-up departments for all manner of productions. The new Expandable Make-up vehicle can be viewed here.

Careers Wales held a Creative Pathways event at Cardiff City Hall on the 18th of November, which we got the opportunity to attend. Roughly 700 pupils attended the event, and it was amazing to get the chance to chat with young people about careers in the creative sector.

Gorilla TV, Wales largest post-production facility, is opening a new, boutique facility in Bristol’s Finzels Reach early next year. As well as offline suites, colour grading, online and Audio finishing, there will also be remote Avid’s and a link to our 24/7 Cardiff HQ. We wish Gorilla all the best with their new venture.

Cardiff Council – Screen Alliance Wales took part in Cardiff Councils ‘Open Your Eyes Week’ last week and presented with Simon Reed, University of South Wales, the gaming industry to Year 5 and Year 6 primary school pupils.

University of South Wales - BA Game Art lecturer Simon Read joined SAW’s Rhys Beeb for a live-streamed talk on how to create and design video games to over 80 school classes across the Cardiff Capital Region as part of Cardiff Commitment’s Open Your Eyes Week from our new live stream facility in USW Atrium.

BECTU - Sadly, poor mental health has been recognised as a serious problem across the creative industries. Research has identified that poor working practices – long, unsocial hours; a culture of bullying; lack of support in training and progression, lack of training for managers, unfair recruitment practices, insecure work etc. are some of the key problems facing today’s TV and Film sector. CULT Cymru is working in partnership with 6Ft From the Spotlight to pilot an exciting new role of the Well Being Facilitator. The WellBeing Facilitator (WBF) will offer support to crew and cast on a production and information and guidance to production companies and producers. To book your free space on the Awareness Session on the 6th of December, click here.

Bad Wolf joins the Sony family

We are thrilled to announce that Bad Wolf has become a member of the Sony family! The deal also includes the Wolf Studios Wales sound stage facility in Cardiff and Bad Wolf’s 30% stake in Bad Wolf America LLC. On the new deal, Bad Wolf founder Jane Tranter said:

“The last five years since launching Bad Wolf have been a hugely rewarding experience as, with the support of Access Entertainment, Sky, and HBO, we built a production infrastructure and a creative community based out of Wolf Studios Wales that could compete with any TV production in the world. Sony Pictures Television share our vision for the company going forward, and their immediate understanding and belief in the ethos of Bad Wolf make them the perfect partners for our future. With a forward-looking, global corporation like Sony investing in the future of Bad Wolf and Wales it gives us the ability to reach even greater heights in the years to come.”

We are so excited by this new venture and look forward to continuing our work alongside Bad Wolf for many years to come.

Afternoon Tea We are incredibly fortunate here at Screen Alliance Wales to receive help and support from multiple departments at Wolf Studios Wales. To say thank you to all these amazing contributions, we held an afternoon Tea Party complete with hot drinks and a table of cakes and other sweet treats. We welcomed people from Bad Wolf, `His Dark Materials’. `Industry’, 4Wood and Wolf Studios Wales to gather in our classroom. We are so grateful for all the help we receive from everyone from taking on work shadowing placements, mentoring our trainees, to giving us props and materials, nothing goes unnoticed, and we appreciate everything you all do for us. Thank you!

HMW Casting

We are very excited to share the news that a brand-new casting office will be opening in January! HMW Casting will soon be operating in Cardiff, strengthening the ever-growing Film and TV industry in Wales. Their aim, similar to ours, is to showcase the incredible creative talent that is on offer here in Wales, and ensuring the longevity of the Welsh TV industry. We hope to work closely with HMW Casting whenever we have the opportunity, and we wish Hannah and the team the best of luck with the new venture! To find out more about HMW Casting, and if you would like to get in touch, please visit their website here.

Trainee Night

As productions at Wolf Studios Wales are coming to an end, we wanted to put on a special Celebration night for our incredible trainees, some of which will be leaving us at the end of the year. They have worked hard over the past year in a number of departments on the 3rd Season of His Dark Materials and Industry Season 2. It was a lovely evening where we all got the chance to celebrate with some food and drinks. In honour of all their achievements, each trainee also received a Record of Achievement folder containing all the certificates that they received whilst undertaking their traineeship such as First Aid, Fire Marshal Training, Mental Health Resilience Training and an Introduction to the Film and TV Industry. They can use these throughout their professional careers and act as a reminder of all the skills that they have attained with us. We wish them all the best of luck and can’t wait to see their careers going from strength to strength. We hope to see them again on future projects at Bad Wolf, but also working on productions elsewhere. To all the Trainees class of 2021, thank you and good luck!

IJPR becomes a sponsor

We are excited to announce that leading publicity company IJPR Cymru has become the latest organisation to join us as a sponsor! We have worked alongside each other for several years now and are thrilled to be starting the next stage of our journey together. IJPR have been incredibly generous to us in the past, partaking in our virtual Careers cafes and helping us in a multitude of ways in our work. Welcome IJPR Cymru! We also want to wish them the best of luck as they leave their offices in Wolf Studios Wales and move to their new premises at Chapter Arts.

Film and TV Charity Winter Appeal

We’ve all been through a lot in the last 18 months. The pandemic. Social change. Economic challenges. They’ve all combined to make working behind the scenes in the film, TV, and cinema community even tougher than it was before. During all of that, The Film and TV Charity has been there for thousands of people across the industry, and we share their belief that right now there’s a chance to build a happier, healthier film, TV, and cinema community – but they need your support to do so. Ever since the charity was founded back in 1924, its mission to help out behind the scenes has been driven by the generosity of the community it seeks to support and so, this festive season, however much you might be able to donate will help them to have a real impact on people’s lives and careers. Every penny you give directly helps support others in the industry we love. Your donations this winter will allow the charity to deliver a kinder, better industry in 2022 by:

- Keeping services like The Film and TV Support Line running 24/7

- Providing financial help to those in need within the community

- Allowing them to develop and roll out further support for mental health and wellbeing

- Helping them to develop new services available to everyone in the industry. 

- Supporting grassroots activity through their Community Grant

You can donate to this fantastic cause here.

Sponsors Night

Finally, we are blessed at Screen Alliance Wales by being supported by an incredible list of sponsors. Bad Wolf, University of South Wales, Coleg y Cymoedd, Movietech, S4C, Facilities by ADF, IJPR Cymru, HBO, Maddog2020 Casting, 4Wood, Gorilla and Panalux are incredible organisations, and we are so grateful for everything they do for us. As a special thank you, SAW held a Sponsors of Screen Alliance Wales evening at the lavish Park Gate hotel in Cardiff. It gave us the opportunity to have a meal together, give each of our guests a goody bag and show our brand-new sponsors video (view here). We are ever so grateful for our sponsors’ continued support and look forward to working together for many years to come. We have also published an article about the event which you can read here.

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

LinkedIn: @Screen Alliance Wales