Shaping screen talent: Conceptualising and developing the film and TV workforce in Scotland

Abstract

Abstract:Together with 'creativity', the concept of 'talent' has emerged within UK and global policy discussions as being central to unlocking economic success within the creative industries. At a crucial time of political and technological change, Scotland finds itself competing within a highly competitive global market to identify, attract and retain creative talent and strengthen its skills base. As such, developing 'talent' is a key aspect of the Scottish Government's Strategy for the Creative Industries (2011). However, while creativity has been interrogated across academic disciplines in recent years (Schlesinger 2009;, Bilton 2010, talent remains under-theorised within the academy and lacks a clear definition across policy and industry. Taking the screen industries as its focus, this paper draws on empirical data derived from a series of knowledge exchange workshops funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh designed to initiate dialogue between academics, policymakers and stakeholders within Scotland and beyond. In doing so, it examines the various ways in which screen 'talent' is conceptualised by these groups and raises questions regarding how particular understandings may impact on policies designed to identify, attract and retain a diversity of skilled screen industries workers both onscreen and behind the scenes. We argue that there should be greater precision regarding the discourse used in policy to emphasize the importance of the development of particular and discrete craft skills rather than a stress on flexibility and mobility. We suggest that policymakers and educators must acknowledge and encourage transparency regarding the precariousness of building a career within the screen industries.

Building soft skills in the creative economy: Creative intermediaries, business support and the ‘soft skills gap”

“…Banks and Hesmondhalgh, (2009) have written that despite the reality of the conditions of creative work recent UK creativeeconomic policy propagates the view that with enough drive and determination, anyone can succeed within the creative industries. For Banks and Hesmondhalgh, (2009) and others (Kelly and Champion 2015;Oakley 2014;Schlesinger et al, 2015a), framing the creative industries as a sector where the only prerequisite for success is 'hard work' ensures that creative workers take responsibility for developing the skills required by the market, such that they form a reserve pool of exceptionally highly-skilled and flexible labour. For Banks and Hesmondhalgh (2009: 422) this reserve pool matters in terms of national competitiveness more generally.…”

Does automatic funding suck? The cost and value of automatic funding in small nation screen industries in Northern Europe

“…As discussed by other scholars focusing on small nation film and television production (e.g. Kelly and Champion 2015, Hjort 2005, McElroy, Nielsen, and Noonan 2018, McElroy and Noonan 2016, these changes pose particular challenges to the screen industries in smaller nations with distinct cinematic and broadcasting cultures, languages and well-established public screen funding organisations and systems. Some of these challenges are currently being explored in other research projects focusing on the film and TV industries within small nations, such as the Small Nations Screen collaboration between Cardiff University, University of South Wales and the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations (https://smallnationsscreen.org/), the research network Television from Small Nations (https://smallnationsscreen.org/project/television-from-small-nationsnetwork/) and -with particular emphasis on screen agencies -the AHRC funded project 'Screen Agencies as Cultural Intermediaries', headed by Dr Caitriona Noonan (https://smallnationsscreen.org/project/television-from-small-nations-network/).…”

“…The Scottish government credits the Production Growth Fund with giving Scotland a competitive edge in relation to Wales and Northern Ireland, nations that also benefit from UK-wide tax incentives. The Production Growth Fund and inward investment incentives are seen to help attracting international titles to Scotland, recently David Mackenzie's Outlaw King (2018), and establishing the Outlander (2014-) production base in the country (Kelly and Champion 2015). These productions create great headlines and raise the image of a place as culturally and creatively industrious.…”

Challenges of cultural industry knowledge exchange in live performance audience research

“…Knowledge exchange has been examined in depth in a range of papers both within the pages of this journal (Kelly et al, 2015;Stainforth et al, 2015;Moreton, 2018) and beyond (Williamson et al, 2011;Schlesinger, 2013;Hauge et al, 2018). KE is part of the 'triple helix' of university-industry-government relations (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000), in which alongside traditional functions of teaching and research universities are now expected to fulfil a new 'third mission': to strengthen dialogue with stakeholders outside academia and thereby 'fulfil their obligation towards being a socially accountable institution' (Jongbloed et al, 2008).…”