In 2020 our creative agency, Eight, supported two trainees through the Creative Workforce for the Future scheme (CWFTF). The scheme is designed to enable talented young people to gain the experience to sustain a creative career in sectors such as film, broadcast, digital production, animation and post-production, and support creative companies to make their workplaces and working practices more inclusive.
Participants in the scheme undertook a 48 week paid placement at a creative hub in Bristol: Spike Island, Rife Magazine, Bristol City Council’s Bristol Museums, Creative Youth Network or KWMC. During their placement they received support to develop their experience, C.V., portfolio and industry contacts, access to a Talent Network of peers and the support of a dedicated mentor.
Our placement at Eight focused on film production and was specifically for young women, as women are consistently under-represented in roles behind the camera: in a review of feature films produced up to 2017, the BFI found that fewer than 1% of films have crews that are more than 50% female.
Two trainees, Dee and Mevis, joined the Eight production team in January 2020 and began a practical programme to develop their filmmaking skills. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown and the temporary closure of the KWMC building, we had to revise many of the activities planned for their placement and explore how training, learning and filmmaking can happen at home! This began with a filmmaking challenge: to plan, shoot and edit a two-minute film inside their homes on the theme of ‘isolation’.
Just a few months later, they had each researched, planned, filmed and edited a short documentary for a community initiative in Bristol. As 2020 drew to a close, they were undertaking placements with Aardman Animations, A Productions and Encounters Film Festival.
Creative Workforce for the Future was a positive action scheme, where the cultural hubs invited applications from groups not currently widely represented within the creative industries in the region: creatives of BAME (Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic) origin and / or those who identify as having a disadvantaged socio-economic background.
Creative Workforce for the Future is funded by the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) and the European Social Fund (ESF) and is being delivered as part of the B+B Creative R+D programme.
[1] https://filmography.bfi.org.uk/credits
[2] https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/infographic-women-uk-film-1911-2017
