Abstract
This chapter explores the growth and characteristics of Bristol’s screen industries, which consist principally of television production companies and a much smaller group engaged in feature film production. In contrast to what one could call ‘engineered’ screen production centres such as Cardiff or Greater Manchester (MediaCityUK in Salford), Bristol’s screen industries—notably the BBC’s Natural History Unit and Aardman Animations—have grown incrementally through the entrepreneurial energies of local creative personnel, rather than from major capital investment, either from the national government or regional agencies. The nature of this evolution has enabled Bristol’s 189 independent production companies—which co-operate as well as compete—to be highly adaptable, responding to local conditions, technological change and shifts in international markets. They also reflect the city’s long anti-authoritarian history, a place where ‘alternative’ ideas are encouraged and supported. Situated within an overarching discussion of the conceptual shift from ‘creative clusters’ to ‘creative ecosystems’ and the importance of understanding a range of causal factors rather than simply economic drivers, the chapter’s detailed exploration of Bristol’s screen industries is based on more than 80 interviews with company CEOs, BBC and Channel 4 executives and with cultural intermediaries as well as local authority figures and creatives alongside extensive data gathering and on-the-ground empirical research that informed two co-authored reports: Go West! Bristol’s Film and Television Industries (2017) and Go West! 2 (2022). It emphasises the importance of how the city’s screen ecosystems are curated and managed and the significance of its successful bids to become a UNESCO City of Film in 2017 and to host one of Channel 4’s Creative Hubs in 2019. The account concludes by positioning Bristol’s screen ecosystem within broader spatial, social and political contexts and reflects on its sustainability within an increasing volatile and competitive global media marketplace.
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Notes
- 1.
In addition to Bristol, these are Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow—capitals of the ‘small nations’: Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, respectively—Manchester in North West England and Leeds in the North East.
- 2.
Bristol’s regional ITV company was HTV, see Go West 2!, 23–24.
- 3.
Invent the Future of Channel 4 in Bristol, unpublished document in author’s possession; npn, my emphasis.
- 4.
On the 5 January 2023 the Culture Secretary, Michelle Donelan, announced that plans to privatise Channel 4 have been dropped. The number of its regionally based staff will double by 2025 (from 300 to 600) and the broadcaster will be able to produce its programmes as well as commission them. Both these developments will have implications for Bristol’s screen ecology.
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Spicer, A. (2023). Bristol’s Film and Television Industries: An Incremental Ecosystem. In: Virani, T.E. (eds) Global Creative Ecosystems. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33961-5_7
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