News / Film and TV

Film and TV bring ?17m to Bristol last year

By Bristol24/7  Thursday May 21, 2015

Some of the year’s biggest BBC dramas including Poldark, Wolf Hall, The Casual Vacancy and Sherlock have helped contribute more than £17.5m towards Bristol’s economy.

They are just some of the film and television productions to film in the city in the last financial year.

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BBC Two drama Wolf Hall filming at Bristol Cathedral – Image courtesy of Company

Smaller, home-grown productions also made their home in Bristol including BAFTA-winning ITV drama The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies, upcoming comedy heist movie Golden Years and Channel 4 comedy The Mimic.

Bernard Hill in Golden Years – image courtesy of MoliFilms Entertainment

But inward investment to the city from productions working in Bristol was more than £2m less than the 2013-14 figure of £19.6m.

A rise in bookings at the city’s production hub, The Bottle Yard Studios in Hengrove, helped contribute to the last year’s figures.

The latest production to start filming at The Bottle Yard is the new series of popular CBeebies show Andy’s Prehistoric Adventures, produced by the BBC’s Natural History Unit. Filming begins this week for 16 weeks, combining digital CGI and green-screen technology.

Andy’s Dinosaur Adventures

Bristol Film Office’s Natalie Moore said: “£17.5m is an outstanding contribution to our local economy, and proof of why it makes sense to support film and TV production in Bristol.

“The figure is fractionally lower than the 2013-14 figure of £19.6 million, but this degree of fluctuation from year to year is normal given that certain productions are required, due to their storylines, to film more days on location outside the city than others.

“Overall the figures point to a consistently strong and reliable level of production in the city, which is great news, and the calibre of productions we attract to Bristol has certainly been rising in the last 12 months.”

Read more about when Sherlock filmed in Bristol in January.

The next Sector Spotlight in our Business pages will be film and television. Want to see your company featured? Email [email protected]

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